Original (English)

CHAPTER I Four cowboys inclined their bodies over the barbed-wire fence which marked the dividing-line between the Centipede Ranch and their own, staring mournfully into a summer night such as only the far southwestern country knows. Big yellow stars hung thick and low—so low that it seemed they might almost be plucked by an upstretched hand—and a silent air blew across thousands of open miles of land lying crisp and fragrant under the velvet dark. And as the four inclined their bodi