would be tender for some time and her temper had not improved by the
treatment she had received.

"Perfectly scandalous!" exclaimed Frances, to herself, almost crying
now. "Just to show off before the other boys. Oh! he was mean to you,
Molly dear! A fellow like Ratty M'Gill will stand watching, sure
enough."

Finally, she got the saddle cinched upon the nervous pinto and rode her
out of the corral and away to the ranges for her usual round of the
various camps. She had not been as far as the West Run for several days.

CHAPTER XIII

THE GIRL FROM BOSTON

Cow-ponies are never trained to trot. They walk if they are tired;
sometimes they gallop; but usually they set off on a long, swinging lope
from the word "Go!" and keep it up until the riders pull them down.

The moment Frances of the ranges had swung herself into Molly's saddle,
the badly treated pinto leaped forward and dashed away from the corrals
and bunk-house. Frances let her have her head, for when Molly was a bit
tired she would forget the sting and smart of Ratty M'Gill's spurs and
quirt.

Frances had not seen Silent Sam that morning; but was not surprised to
observe the curling smoke of a fresh fire down by the branding pen. She
knew that a bunch of calves and yearlings had been rounded up a few days
before, and the foreman of the Bar-T would take no chance of having them
escape to the general herds on the ranges, and so have the trouble of
cutting them out again at the grand round-up.

It was impossible, even on such a large ranch as the Bar-T, to keep
cattle of other brands from running with the Bar-T herds. A breach made
in a fence in one night by some active young bull would allow a Bar-T
herd and some of Bill Edwards' cattle, for instance, to become
associated.

To try to separate the cattle every time such a thing happened would
give the punchers more than they could do. The cattle thus associated
were allowed to run together until the round-up. Then the unbranded
calves would always follow their mothers, and the herdsmen could easily
separate the young stock, as well as that already branded, from those
belonging on other ranches.

Although it was a bit out of her direct course, Frances pulled Molly's
head in the direction of the branding fire. Before she came in sight of
the bawling herd and the bunch of excited punchers, a cavalcade of
riders crossed the trail, riding in the same direction.

No cowpunchers these, but a party of