n the floor in the middle of the room lay Smithy Caldwell, white and
contorted, while Mike Stelton was just rising from his prostrate body,
making sounds in his throat like a wild animal. Smithy was dead.

"How'd it happen, boys?" asked Bissell.

"This here Caldwell come out an' 'lowed as how he wasn't goin' to swing
like the rest of us, an' he began packin' up his truck. Stelton asked him
about it, an' when Smithy repeated what he said before and got plumb cocky
about it, Mike there smeared him plenty. Then he broke his neck. Smithy
betrayed Stelton, yuh know."

There is not much more to tell, except that, three days later, the
rustlers paid the penalty of their lawless daring. It was the biggest
"hangin' bee" Wyoming had ever seen, and was largely attended by men of
all sections who stood for right and justice, if not law and order.

Bud and Julie brought pride and sunlight to a slowly recuperating Jimmie
Welsh on their way north, and from him and Billy Speaker heard again the
details of the great fight. Now, if you go to Welsh's Butte, you will see
a tall white shaft rising amid the tumbling of the wretched hogbacks. On
one side are the names of the sheepmen who fell (including Jimmie, who is
still alive), and on the other those of the cowmen. It is the humble
offering of Bud and Julie Larkin.

Time has proven that Bud's prophecy in regard to sheep was right. Wyoming
has far more sheep than cattle now, and one of the biggest of the ranches
is the former Bar T, run under the Larkin name, in connection with the
home ranch in Montana.

I hope it will not be a shock to some readers to know that the first Bud
and Julie have another Bud and Julie, who are over twenty years of age,
quite old enough to have romances of their own.

All their lives they have heard the story of the adventures that brought
their parents together, but all four rather sadly admit that the Free
Range, which Bud fought for so hard, is now almost a thing of the past,
that the great drives have passed never to return, and that the cowboy
himself is a dim figure against the prairie sunset.

THE END

* * * * *

JOHN FOX, JR'S. STORIES OF THE KENTUCKY MOUNTAINS

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.

[Illustration]

THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE.

Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.

The "lonesome pine" from which the story takes its name was a tall tree
that stood in solitary spl