amp."

Ranse looked again at the clear-faced, bronzed, smiling cowpuncher who
stood at Collins's side. Could that be Curly? He held out his hand,
and Curly grasped it with the muscles of a bronco-buster.

"I want you at the ranch," said Ranse.

"All right, sport," said Curly, heartily. "But I want to come back
again. Say, pal, this is a dandy farm. And I don't want any better fun
than hustlin' cows with this bunch of guys. They're all to the
merry-merry."

At the Cibolo ranch-house they dismounted. Ranse bade Curly wait at
the door of the living room. He walked inside. Old "Kiowa" Truesdell
was reading at a table.

"Good-morning, Mr. Truesdell," said Ranse.

The old man turned his white head quickly.

"How is this?" he began. "Why do you call me 'Mr.--'?"

When he looked at Ranse's face he stopped, and the hand that held his
newspaper shook slightly.

"Boy," he said slowly, "how did you find it out?"

"It's all right," said Ranse, with a smile. "I made Tia Juana tell me.
It was kind of by accident, but it's all right."

"You've been like a son to me," said old "Kiowa," trembling.

"Tia Juana told me all about it," said Ranse. "She told me how you
adopted me when I was knee-high to a puddle duck out of a wagon train
of prospectors that was bound West. And she told me how the kid--your
own kid, you know--got lost or was run away with. And she said it was
the same day that the sheep-shearers got on a bender and left the
ranch."

"Our boy strayed from the house when he was two years old," said the
old man. "And then along came those emigrant wagons with a youngster
they didn't want; and we took you. I never intended you to know,
Ranse. We never heard of our boy again."

"He's right outside, unless I'm mighty mistaken," said Ranse, opening
the door and beckoning.

Curly walked in.

No one could have doubted. The old man and the young had the same
sweep of hair, the same nose, chin, line of face, and prominent
light-blue eyes.

Old "Kiowa" rose eagerly.

Curly looked about the room curiously. A puzzled expression came over
his face. He pointed to the wall opposite.

"Where's the tick-tock?" he asked, absent-mindedly.

"The clock," cried old "Kiowa" loudly. "The eight-day clock used to
stand there. Why--"

He turned to Ranse, but Ranse was not there.

Already a hundred yards away, Vaminos, the good flea-bitten dun, was
bearing him eastward like a racer through dust and chaparral towards
the Ranch