Calves and yearlings were making the dust fly along the mountain slope; wild old steers were crashing in the sage, holding level, unwilling to be driven down; cows were running and lowing for their lost ones.

Melodious and clear rose the clarion calls of the cowboys.

The cattle knew those calls and only the wild steers kept up-grade.
Columbine also knew each call and to which cowboy it belonged.

They sang and yelled and swore, but it was all music to her.

Here and there along the slope, where the aspen groves clustered, a horse would flash across an open space; the dust would fly, and a cowboy would peal out a lusty yell that rang along the slope and echoed under the bluff and lingered long after the daring rider had vanished in the steep thickets.
"I wonder which is Wils," murmured Columbine, as she watched and listened, vaguely conscious of a little difference, a strange check in her remembrance of this particular cowboy.