HOW LIN McLEAN WENT EAST
In the old days, the happy days, when Wyoming was a Territory with a
future instead of a State with a past, and the unfenced cattle grazed upon
her ranges by prosperous thousands, young Lin McLean awaked early one
morning in cow camp, and lay staring out of his blankets upon the world.
He would be twenty-two this week. He was the youngest cow-puncher in
camp. But because he could break wild horses, he was earning more
dollars a month than any man there, except one. The cook was a more
indispensable person. None save the cook was up, so far, this morning.
Lin\'s brother punchers slept about him on the ground, some motionless,
some shifting their prone heads to burrow deeper from the increasing day.
The busy work of spring was over, that of the fall, or beef round-up, not
yet come. It was mid-July, a lull for these hard-riding bachelors of the
saddle, and many unspent dollars stood to Mr. McLean\'s credit on the
ranch books.
"What\'s the matter with some variety?" muttered the boy in his
blankets.