It was only one of a number of corrals similarly crowded with
beasts, that were, for various reasons, herded in shelter at night.
These were a few, a very few of the vast numbers which bore the familiar
"O----" brand. There were the outlying stations which harbored their
hundreds. There were the pastures with their complement of breeding
cows. Then there were the herds of two- and three-year-olds roaming the
plains at their will, fattening for the buyers who came at intervals.
Thoughts of these things compelled Jeff now. And he saw what Nan had
saved him from. Wreck had been threatening in the course he had marked
out for himself at first. How could prosperity have maintained under the
conditions he would have imposed? Even now, under the modification which
Nan had appealed for, he failed to see the continuation of that success
he had striven so hard for. The incentive was no longer in him, he told
himself. Where lay the use, the purpose in it all? The future? That
dream future which had come to him could never mature now.
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