Tex myself, but I didn't
know it was horses he was after. I thought it was some woman."

"I can't see what _makes_ men so stupid!" Mary V observed pensively. "I
never did like Tex. I don't like his eyes."

"I see," said her dad. "You ought to 've told me before." And he added
disapprovingly, "There's a good deal you ought to 've told your dad. It
would have saved the Rolling R some mighty fine horses, I reckon. I don't
know what your mother's going to say about me letting you go--"

But Mary V had whisked into the house to complete her preparations for
the day's ride. Also to escape whatever her dad would have to say in that
particular tone. She saw him leave the porch and follow Bill to the
corral, whereupon she immediately tried to call Johnny on the telephone.
Failing in that, she proceeded to powder her nose.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

MARY V WILL NOT BE BLUFFED

Old Sudden in the ranch Ford, and Bill and Mary V on horseback, overtook
the jogging cavalcade of riders and loose horses. Sudden looked pained
and full of determination, as he always did when necessity called him
forth upon the range in a lurching mechanical conveyance where once he
had ridden with the best of them. Too many winters had been spent
luxuriously in the towns; a mile or two, at a comfortable trail trot, was
all that Sudden cared to attempt nowadays on horseback. But that did not
lessen his dislike of negotiating sand and rocks and washes and rough
slopes with an automobile. Every mile that he traveled added something
to his condemnation of that young reprobate, Johnny Jewel, who had let
the Rolling R in for all this trouble.

A bend in the trail brought him close to the boys, who had ridden
straight across country. Mary V and Bill had just joined the group, and
Sudden gave a snort when he saw Mary V maneuver Jake so that he sidled in
alongside Tex, who rode a little apart with his hat pulled over his eyes,
evidently in deep thought. Sudden had all the arrogance of a strong man
who has managed his life and his business successfully. He wanted to
attend to Tex himself, without any meddling from Mary V.

He squawked the horn to attract her attention, and caused a wave of
turbulence among the horses that made more than one of his men say
unpleasant things about him. Mary V looked back, and he beckoned with one
sweeping gesture that could scarcely be mistaken. Mary V turned to ride
up to him, advanced a rod or two and abruptly retreated,