ken two years before.

His father came slowly up to him, straight-backed and with the gait of
the man who has ridden astride a horse more than he has walked on his
own feet. He put up his hand, gloved for riding, and Bud changed the
lead-ropes from his right hand to his left, and shook hands rather
formally.

"Ye've good weather for travelling," said Bob Birnie tentatively. "I
have not said it before, lad, but when ye own yourself a fool to take
this way of making your fortune, ten thousand dollars will still be
ready to start ye right. I've no wish to shirk a duty to my family."

Bud pressed his lips together while he listened. "If you keep your ten
thousand till it's called for, you'll be drawing interest a long time on
it," He said. "It's going to be hot to-day. I'll be getting along."

He lifted the reins, glanced back to see that the two horses were
showing the proper disposition to follow, and rode off down the
deep-rutted road that followed up the creek to the pass where he had
watched the Utes dancing the war dance one night that he remembered
well. If he winced a little at the familiar landmarks he passed,
he still held fast to the determination to go, and to find fortune
somewhere along the trail of his own making; and to ask help from no
man, least of all his father who had told him to go.

CHAPTER SEVEN: BUD FLIPS A COIN WITH FATE

"I don't think it matters so much where we light, it's what we do when
we get there," said Bud to Smoky, his horse, one day as they stopped
where two roads forked at the base of a great, outstanding peak that was
but the point of a mountain range. "This trail straddles the butte and
takes on up two different valleys. It's all cow-country--so what do yuh
say, Smoke? Which trail looks the best to you?"

Smoky flopped one ear forward and the other one back, and switched at a
pestering fly. Behind him Sunfish and Stopper waited with the patience
they had learned in three weeks of continuous travel over country that
was rough in spots, barren in places, with wind and sun and occasional,
sudden thunderstorms to punctuate the daily grind of travel.

Bud drew a half dollar from his pocket and regarded it meditatively.
"They're going fast--we'll just naturally have to stop pretty soon, or
we don't eat," He observed. "Smoke, you're a quitter. What you want to
do is go back--but you won't get the chance. Heads, we take the right
hand trail. I like it better, anyway--it angles mor