father unnecessarily, "to furnish a man a horse
to ride and one to pack his bed, when he's fired."

"Ye've horses of yer own," Bob Birnie retorted, "and you've no need to
borrow."

Bud stood looking down at his father, plainly undecided. "I don't know
whether they're mine or not," he said after a minute. "I don't know what
it cost you to raise me. Figure it up, if you haven't already, and count
the time I've worked for you. Since you've put me on a business basis,
like raising a calf to shipping age, let's be businesslike about it. You
are good at figuring your profits--I'll leave it to you. And if you find
I've anything coming to me besides my riding outfit and the clothes I've
got, all right; I'll take horses for the balance."

He walked off with the swing to his shoulders that had always betrayed
him when he was angry, and Bob Birnie gathered his beard into a handful
and held it while he stared after him. It had been no part of his plan
to set his son adrift on the range without a dollar, but since Bud's
temper was up, it might be a good thing to let him go.

So Bob Birnie went away to confer with his wife, and Bud was left alone
to nurse his hurt while he packed his few belongings. It did hurt him to
be told in that calm, cold-blooded manner that, now he was of legal age,
he would not be expected to stay on at the Tomahawk. Until his father
had spoken to him about it, Bud had not thought much about what he would
do when his school days were over. He had taken life as it was presented
to him week by week, month by month. He had fulfilled his mother's hopes
and had learned to make music. He had lived up to his father's unspoken
standards of a cowman. He had made a "Hand" ever since his legs were
long enough to reach the stirrups of a saddle. There was not a better
rider, not a better roper on the range than Bud Birnie. Morally he
was cleaner than most young fellows of his age. He hated trickery, he
reverenced all good women; the bad ones he pitied because he believed
that they sorrowed secretly because they were not good, because they
had missed somehow their real purpose in life, which was to be wife and
mother. He had, in fact grown up clean and true to type. He was Buddy,
grown to be Bud.

And Buddy, now that he was a man, had been told that he was not expected
to stay at home and help his father, and be a comfort to his mother. He
was like a young eagle which, having grown wing-feathers that will bear
the st