At the Flying U ranch, in the care of the Old Man, were the mortgages that would make the Happy Family nominal owners of those five hundred cows and their calves.

In the morning Andy would ride back and help bring the herd upon its spring grazing ground, which was the claims; in the meantime he was leisurely obeying an impulse to ride into One Man coulee and spend the night under his own roof.

And, say what you will, there is a satisfaction not to be denied in sleeping sometimes under one's own roof; and it doesn't matter in the least that the roof is made of prairie dirt thrown upon cottonwood poles.

So he sang while he rode, and his voice boomed loud in the coulee and scared long stilled echoes into repeating the song: "We're here because we're here, because we're here, because we're here, "We're here because we're here, because we're here, because we're here--" That, if you please, is a song; there are a lot more verses exactly like this one, which may be sung to the tune of Auld Lang Syne with much effectiveness when one is in a certain mood.

So Andy sang, while his tired horse picked its way circumspectly among the scattered rocks of the trail up the coulee.
"It's time you're here, it's time you're here, It's time that you were here--" mocked an echo not of the hills.
Andy swore in his astonishment and gave his horse a kick as a mild hint for haste.