THE CORRAL BRANDING All that night we slept like sticks of wood.

No dreams visited us, but in accordance with the immemorial habit of those who live out--whether in the woods, on the plains, among the mountains, or at sea--once during the night each of us rose on his elbow, looked about him, and dropped back to sleep.

If there had been a fire to replenish, that would have been the moment to do so; if the wind had been changing and the seas rising, that would have been the time to cast an eye aloft for indications, to feel whether the anchor cable was holding; if the pack-horses had straggled from the alpine meadows under the snows, this would have been the occasion for intent listening for the faintly tinkling hell so that next day one would know in which direction to look.

But since there existed for us no responsibility, we each reported dutifully at the roll-call of habit, and dropped back into our blankets with a grateful sigh.
I remember the moon sailing a good gait among apparently stationary cloudlets; I recall a deep, black shadow lying before distant silvery mountains; I glanced over the stark, motionless canvases, each of which concealed a man; the air trembled with the bellowing of cattle in the corrals.
Seemingly but a moment later the cook's howl brought me to consciousness again.

A clear, licking little fire danced in the blackness.