Rod Cameron was feeling pretty pleased with himself. In two short hours, instead of the normal week he had expected it would take&mdash;and which anticipation he had passed on to his friends&mdash;he had completed one of the biggest cattle deals in some time. Five thousand head to be sold for the Little Pinnacle Trading Company, for which he was the representative. That would bring a grin of satisfaction to Bill Hawkins, his boss&mdash;and, come to think of it, the girlfriend would be pretty proud of him too.<br />&lsquo;Yeah&mdash;nice going,&rsquo; he complimented himself, as he jogged his horse along the trail in the evening sunlight. &lsquo;When Bill Hawkins engaged you, feller, he did himself a good turn, and you set yourself in line for sizeable commissions, too . . .&rsquo;<br />Out of sheer good spirits he started singing, his heavy and rather unmusical baritone losing itself on the desert wastes. Here, on the fifty-mile trail between Little Pinnacle and the city of Bartonville, where he had just completed his business, he was alone. But it was an aloneness which he appreciated. A sense of loneliness was never with him when he had the mesa, the distant mountains, the smell of the fresh, warm wind, and his faithful sorrel for company.