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Then came a time of roundups. Charley was still making efforts to be a ranchman. His help on the range might have been of questionable value, but at least Charley himself was getting moral and physical benefit from the riding.

Upon a morning that Hilda never forgot, the roundup was working a mile or so from the house and within sight of the school playground, a mere hard-trodden spot of plain outside the south window, where small feet had worn off the grass. She had begged to stay home from school and go with the Three Sorrows outfit. Her father would have allowed it, but Uncle Hank put in mildly:

“Best not, Pettie. I’d stay with the lessons while we got a teacher.”

She had teased and even pouted a little, so that Uncle Hank finally allowed that she might ask Miss Belle to be excused at morning recess. This request the teacher denied. They were having special work. In the cattle country, if you begin stopping school for roundups, education will fare ill. So she went out to the south of the house with the released, yelling children who were playing at roundups of their own, depressed and somewhat bitter, refusing to join when they roped at each other. She could see the cloud of dust that rose above the herd; she could just make out the smaller bunch that was “the cut,” held at a distance from the main herd; and riders swaying out to head galloping animals into it, moving swiftly like toy mechanisms. Her heart was hot with resentment. She ought to be there right now. Uncle Hank would let her ride old Paddy and help hold herd. She could be lots of use—Miss Belle didn’t know that.