and I tell yuh why. She's got a little tin god that she says prayers to
regular."

"That's Harry. And wouldn't he be the fine brother-in-law? He could
borrow all your wages off'n yuh, and when yuh went t' make a pretty
ride, he'd up and cut your latigo, and give yuh a fall. And he could
work stolen horses off onto yuh--and yuh wouldn't give a damn, 'cause
Jessie wears a number two shoe--"

"You must have done some rimrock riding after her yourself!" jeered
Rowdy.

"And has got shiny brown eyes, just like Harry's--"

"They're not!" laughed Rowdy, half-angrily. "If you say that again,
Pink, I'll stick your head in a snow-bank. Her eyes are all right. They
sure look good to me."

"You've sure got 'em," mourned Pink. "Yuh need t' be close-herded by
your friends, and that's no dream. You wait till toward evening before
yuh take that horse back. I'm going along t' chappyrone yuh, Rowdy. Yuh
ain't safe running loose any more."

Rowdy cursed him companionably and told him to go along, if he wanted
to, and to look out he didn't throw up his own hands; and Pink grumbled
and swore and did go along. But when they got there, Miss Conroy greeted
him like a very good friend; which sent Rowdy sulky, and kept him so all
the evening. It seemed to him that Pink was playing a double game, and
when they started home he told him so.

But Pink turned in his saddle and smiled so that his dimples showed
plainly in the moonlight. "Chappyrones that set in a corner and look
wise are the rankest kind uh fakes," he explained. "When she was talking
to me, she was letting you alone--see?"

Rowdy accepted the explanation silently, and stored it away in his
memory. After that, by riding craftily, and by threats, and by much
vituperation, he managed to reach Rodway's unchapperoned at least three
times out of five--which was doing remarkably well, when one considers
Pink.

CHAPTER 5. At Home at Cross L.

In two days Rowdy was quite at home with the Cross L. In a month he
found himself transplanted from the smoke-laden air of the bunk-house,
and set off from the world in a line camp, with nothing to do but patrol
the boggy banks of Milk River, where it was still unfenced and unclaimed
by small farmers. The only mitigation of his exile, so far as he could
see, lay in the fact that he had Pink and the Silent One for companions.

It developed that when he would speak to the Silent One, he must say
Jim, or wait long for a reply. Also, the S