At this they laughed together.  But as Phil was leaving the house Mrs. Baldwin stopped him at the door to say earnestly, “You will be careful to-day, won’t you, son?  You know my other Phil—­” She stopped and turned away.

The young man knew that story—­a story common to that land where the lives of men are not infrequently offered a sacrifice to the untamed strength of the life that in many forms they are daily called upon to meet and master.

“Never mind, mother,” he said gently.  “I’ll be all right.”  Then more lightly he added, with his sunny smile, “If that big bay starts anything with me, I’ll climb the corral fence pronto.”

Quietly, as one who faces a hard day’s work, Phil went to the saddle shed where he buckled on chaps and spurs.  Then, after looking carefully to stirrup leathers, cinch and latigos, he went on to the corrals, the heavy saddle under his arm.

Curly and Bob, their horses saddled and ready, were making animated targets of themselves for Little Billy, who, mounted on Sheep, a gentle old cow-horse, was whirling a miniature riata.  As the foreman appeared, the cowboys dropped their fun, and, mounting, took the coils of their own rawhide ropes in hand.

“Which one will you have first, Phil?” asked Curly, as he moved toward the gate between the big corral and the smaller enclosure that held the band of horses.

“That black one with the white star will do,” directed Phil quietly.  Then to Little Billy:  “You’d better get back there out of the way, pardner.  That black is liable to jump clear over you and Sheep.”

“You better get outside, son,” amended the Dean, who had come out to watch the beginning of the work.

“No, no—­please, Uncle Will,” begged the lad.  “They can’t get me as long as I’m on Sheep.”

Phil and the Dean laughed.

“I’ll look out for him,” said the young man.  “Only,” he added to the boy, “you must keep out of the way.”

“And see that you stick to Sheep, if you expect him to take care of you,” finished the Dean, relenting.

Meanwhile the gate between the corrals had been thrown open, and with Bob to guard the opening Curly rode in among the unbroken horses to cut out the animal indicated by Phil, and from within that circular enclosure, where the earth had been ground to fine powder by hundreds of thousands of frightened feet, came the rolling thunder of quick-beating hoofs as in a swirling cloud of yellow dust the horses rushed and leaped and whirled.  Again and again the frightened animals threw themselves against the barrier that hemmed them in; but that fence, built of cedar posts set close in stockade fashion and laced on the outside with wire, was made to withstand the maddened rush of the heaviest steers.  And always, amid the confusion of the frenzied animals, the figure of the mounted man in their midst could be seen calmly directing their wildest movements, and soon, out from the crowding, jostling, whirling mass of flying feet and tossing manes and tails, the black with the white star shot toward the gate.  Bob’s horse leaped aside from the way.  Curly’s horse was between the black and his mates, and before the animal could gather his confused senses he was in the larger corral.  The day’s work had begun.