Irvine had ideas of economy that meant reduced wages, and one was to cut 'Gene's salary from one hundred dollars to seventy-five dollars per month. 'Gene said "nothing doing," so he remained out the . season at the old figure, for Paxton had told Irvine that he had better keep him at that. Knowing that Hall intended to quit at the end of the season, he thought he would give him a job that would break his headiness, and keep him on the range, for he was a good cowman.

Fie gave him three thousand and thirty steers by actual count for delivery at the Rosebud agency. The trip was a trying one, over a dry country, but it was made so carefully that it ended with a full count, and all in good condition. The feat caused considerable favorable comment at the time.

The habit of the steer is to get lonesome, or homesick for the native range, and once in a while after bedding down at night, a single steer will get up and start back along the trail in the darkness. When perhaps a hundred

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

feet away from the herd, he will begin a low moo, or call; and sometimes another, or several others will get up and follow. In the morning, a few out of a herd of thousands are seldom missed.

To avoid this loss, after the cattle were bedded down and the boys had turned in, Hall would go back along the trail three or four hundred yards, and tethering his broncho to his wrist, would crawl into his tarpaulin. The lowing of a straying steer never failed to awaken him, and he would rise and turn it back into the herd. Eight or ten other steers were picked up along the way, and they made up any loss that did occur, for in spite of the best of care, occasionally one will drop by the wayside.