the seventh. My outfit
will barely touch here in passing. We're due to receive cattle in Dodge
on the 5th, and time is precious. Joel can overtake us before night.
Make haste."

CHAPTER XVI

A PROTECTED CREDIT

The trail outfit swept past the ranch, leaving Dell on nettles. The
importance of the message was urgent, and saddling up a horse, he
started up the Beaver in search of Joel and Sargent. They were met
returning, near the dead-line, and after listening to the breathless
report, the trio gave free rein to their horses on the homeward ride.

"I'll use old Rowdy for my seventh horse," said Joel, swinging out of
the saddle at the home corral. "Bring him in and give him a feed of
corn. It may be late when I overtake the outfit. Mr. Quince says that
that old horse has cow-sense to burn; that he can scent a camp at night,
or trail a remuda like a hound."

An hour later Joel cantered up to the tent. "This may be a wild-goose
chase," said he, "but I'm off. If my hopes fall dead, I can make a hand
coming back. Sargent, if I do buy any cattle, your name goes on the
pay-roll from to-day. I'll leave you in charge of the ranch, anyhow.
There isn't much to do except to ride the dead-line twice a day. The
wintered cattle are located; and the cripples below--the water and
their condition will hold them. Keep open house, and amuse yourselves
the best you can. That's about all I can think of just now."

Joel rode away in serious meditation. Although aged beyond his years, he
was only seventeen. That he could ride into Dodge City, the far-famed
trail-town of the West, and without visible resources buy cattle, was a
fit subject for musing. There the drovers from Texas and the ranchmen
from the north and west met and bartered for herds--where the drive of
the year amounted to millions in value. Still the boy carried a pressing
invitation from a leading drover to come, and neither slacking rein nor
looking back, he was soon swallowed up in the heat-waves over the plain.

Sargent and Dell sought the shelter of the awning. "Well," said the
latter, "that trip's a wild-goose chase. How he expects to buy cattle
without money gets me."

"It may be easier than it seems," answered Sargent. "You secured a start
in cattle last summer without money. Suppose you save a thousand head
out of the cripples this year, what have they cost you?"

"That's different," protested Dell. "Dodge City is a market where
buyers and sellers meet."