As the foreman appeared, the cowboys dropped their fun, and, mounting, took the coils of their own rawhide ropes in hand.
"Which one will you have first, Phil ?" asked Curly, as he moved toward the gate between the big corral and the smaller enclosure that held the band of horses.
"That black one with the white star will do," directed Phil quietly.
Then to Little Billy: "You'd better get back there out of the way, pardner.

That black is liable to jump clear over you and Sheep." "You better get outside, son," amended the Dean, who had come out to watch the beginning of the work.
"No, no--please, Uncle Will," begged the lad.

"They can't get me as long as I'm on Sheep." Phil and the Dean laughed.
"I'll look out for him," said the young man.

"Only," he added to the boy, "you must keep out of the way." "And see that you stick to Sheep, if you expect him to take care of you," finished the Dean, relenting.
Meanwhile the gate between the corrals had been thrown open, and with Bob to guard the opening Curly rode in among the unbroken horses to cut out the animal indicated by Phil, and from within that circular enclosure, where the earth had been ground to fine powder by hundreds of thousands of frightened feet, came the rolling thunder of quick-beating hoofs as in a swirling cloud of yellow dust the horses rushed and leaped and whirled.

Again and again the frightened animals threw themselves against the barrier that hemmed them in; but that fence, built of cedar posts set close in stockade fashion and laced on the outside with wire, was made to withstand the maddened rush of the heaviest steers.