For the next two weeks on the Star C, that was more true than ever. Scratch came over to join in the roundup. He and Bo had worked plenty of similar gathers during their years of drifting. Whether it was Texas, Montana, or anywhere in between, the work of pushing the cattle out of the brush, driving them to a central location, branding the ones that needed branding, and keeping them from scattering again was pretty much the same. Long hours in the saddle fighting dust and tedium. A man couldn’t afford to get bored, because that might cause him to let his guard down, and then some proddy old bull would be just waiting to stick a horn in him or knock his horse down and bust his leg. One thing that worried Bo was the possibility that Ned Fontaine might get wind of what was going on. If John Creel was right about Fontaine having something to do with Gilbert Ambrose threatening to call in the note, then Fontaine had a vested interest in keeping the Creels from paying it off. Bo didn’t know how far Fontaine would go to stop the drive from being successful, but given the probability that he was behind the rustling, it seemed likely he wouldn’t worry too much about staying on the right side of the law.
