that rough-riding contest; yuh couldn't prove it on
him. But this--why, man, it's a cinch!"

"I haven't lost Harry Conroy, so I ain't looking for him just now,"
growled Rowdy. "So long as he keeps out uh reach, I won't ask no more of
him. And, Pink, I wish you'd keep this quiet--about him having Chub. I
told Rodway I couldn't put him next to the fellow that brought that
bunch across the line. I told him the fellow went north and got killed.
He did go north--fifty miles or so; and he'd ought to been killed, if he
wasn't. Let it go that way, Pink."

Pink looked like a cherub-faced child when he has been told there's
no Santa Claus. "Sure, if yuh say so," he stammered dubiously. He eyed
Rowdy reproachfully, and then looked away to the horizon. He kicked
the rock out of place, and then poked it painstakingly back with his
toe--and from the look of him, he did not know there was a rock there at
all.

"How'd yuh happen to run across Rodway?" he asked guilelessly.

"I stopped there last night. I got to milling around in that storm, and
ran across the schoolma'am that boards at Rodway's, She was plumb lost,
too, so we dubbed around together for a while, and finally got inside
Rodway's field. Then Chub come alive and piloted us to the house. This
morning Rodway claimed him--says the brand has been worked from a Roman
four. Oh, it's all straight goods," he added hastily. "Old Eagle Creek
here knew him, too."

But Pink was not thinking of Chub. He hunched his chap-belt higher
and spat viciously into the snow. "I knowed it," he declared, with
melancholy triumph. "It's school-ma'amitis that's gave yuh softening uh
the vitals, and not no Christian charity play. How comes it you're took
that way, all unbeknown t' your friends? Yuh never used t' bother about
no female girls. It's a cinch you're wise that she's Harry's sister; and
I admit she's a swell looker. But so's he; and I should think, Rowdy,
you'd had about enough uh that brand uh snake."

"There's nothing so snaky about her that I could see," defended Rowdy.
He did not particularly relish having his own mental argument against
Miss Conroy thrown back at him from another. "She seemed to be all
right; and if you'd seen how plucky she was in that blizzard--"

"Well, I never heard anybody stand up and call Harry white-livered, when
yuh come t' that," Pink cut in tartly. "Anyway, you're a blame fool. If
she was a little white-winged angel, yuh wouldn't stand no kind uh show;