CHAPTER SEVENIt was midsummer.
The camp of Chisum’s foothill riders stood in the edge of the pine belt and looked out and down over a hundred miles of silver and green New Mexico range.
Wade thought it the wildest and loveliest spot in the world. The pines were scattered as if they had been planted to adorn a park and the cool wind at that high altitude moaned or made music incessantly. Brown mats of pine needles, tufts of nodding grama grass, purple asters and golden daisies carpeted the ground. From back on the slope a stream tumbled with white cascade here and green pool there, to brawl right through the camp site.
A belt of luxuriant grass sloped for a few miles down to the bleached range of sage and yucca; and this belt held ten thousand head of steers, cows, yearlings, calves, all
