ueak of
brakes in front of Diamond X ranch house. From the car leaped three
boys, one of them carrying a small leather pouch.

"Here's the mail!" yelled this lad--Bud Merkel by name, and his
cousins, Nort and Dick Shannon, added the duet of their voices to his
as they cried:

"Mail's in! Lots of letters!"

"Any for me?" asked Nell, reaching out her hand toward Bud. "Don't
tell me there isn't!" she pleaded.

"Well, I'm sorry, Sis," began Bud, teasingly, "there was one for you,
but driving in we ran over a rattler and----"

"Don't you believe him, Nell!" consoled Nort, who didn't altogether
agree with Bud's teasing of his sister. "Your letters are safe in the
pouch."

"Oh, there are _letters_, then, are there--not just _one_?" cried Nell
with shining eyes. "Thanks a whole lot."

"Don't thank me--thank the postmaster--or whoever wrote you the
letters!" laughed Nort.

Bud had sat down on a bench outside the ranch house and was opening the
mail pouch. His mother came to the door of the kitchen, wiping flour
from her hands, for though Mrs. Merkel kept a "hired girl," and though
Nell assisted, yet the mother of Bud insisted on doing much of the work
herself, and very able she was, too.

"Any letters for your father?" she asked.

"Two or three," answered Bud, as he looked over the envelopes. "And
one for you, Mother."

"Well, take your father's mail to him when you've finished sorting,"
suggested Mrs. Merkel. "He said he was expecting something of
importance. You'll find him over in the bunk house looking after Mr.
Watson."

"Mr. _Watson_!" shouted Bud with a laugh. "Do you mean Yellin' Kid?"

"Oh, I guess that's what you call him," assented Mrs. Merkel as she
opened her letter. "But his name's Watson."

"Guess you're the only one who remembers that, Ma," chuckled Dick
Shannon, for though Mrs. Merkel was only his aunt, she was almost
universally called "Ma" on the ranch of Diamond X.

"Yellin' Kid isn't any worse, is he?" asked Bud.

"Oh, no, but your father wanted to change the bandages and it takes
some time. You'll find him pretty nearly finished, I guess, though
you'd better take his mail to him there."

There had been a slight accident the week before, in which the horse of
Yellin' Kid had crowded him against a post in a corral fence, badly
bruising and cutting the leg of the cowboy. A doctor had been called,
and after the first dressing of the wound had said Mr. Merkel or some
of the m