sty and I had a celebration, that night; an Osage, Montana,
celebration, with all the fixings. Know the brand--because if you don't,
I'd hang before I'd tell just how many shots we put through ceilings,
or how we rent the atmosphere outside. You see, I was glad to get back,
and Frosty was glad to have me back; and since neither of us are
the fall-on-your-neck-and-put-a-ring-on-your-finger kind, we had
to exuberate some other way; and, as Frosty, would put it, "We sure did."

I can't say we felt quite so exuberant next morning, but we were willing
to take our medicine, and started for the ranch all serene. I won't say a
word about mauves and faint ambers and umbras, but I do want to give that
country a good word, as it looked that morning to me. It was great.

There are plenty of places can put it all over that Osage country for
straight scenery, but I never saw such a contented-looking place as that
big prairie-land was that morning. I've seen it with the tears running
down its face, and pretty well draggled and seedy; but when we started out
with the sun shining against our cheeks and the hills looking so warm and
lazy and the hollows kind of smiling to themselves over something, and the
prairie-dogs gossiping worse than a ladies' self-culture meeting, I tell
you, it all looked good to me, and I told Frosty so.

"I'd rather be a forty-dollar puncher in this man's land," I enthused,
"than a lily-of-the-field somewhere in civilization."

"In other words," Frosty retorted sarcastically, "you _think_ you prefer
the canned vegetables and contentment, as the Bible says, to corn-fed
beefsteak and homesickness thereby. But you wait till yuh get to the ranch
and old Perry Potter puts yuh through your paces. You'll thank the Lord
every Sundown that yuh _ain't_ a forty-dollar man that has got to drill
right along or get fired; you'll pat yourself on the back more than once
that you've got a cinch on your job and can lay off whenever yuh feel like
it. From all the signs and tokens, us Ragged H punchers'll be wise to
trade our beds off for lanterns to ride by. Your dad's bought a lot more
cattle, and they've drifted like hell; we've got to cover mighty near the
whole State uh Montana and part uh South Africa to gather them in."

"You're a blamed pessimist," I told him, "and you can't give me cold feet
that easy. If you knew how I ache to get a good horse under me--"

"Thought they had horses out your way," Frosty cut in.

"A r