val any further. They
confiscated the rifles, and they told the fellows why they did so.
They very kindly pulled a tarpaulin over the three to protect them in a
measure from the chill night that was close upon them, and they wished
them good night and pleasant dreams, and rode away home.

On the way they met Weary and Happy Jack, galloping anxiously to the
battle scene. Slim, it appeared from Weary's rapid explanation, had
arrived at the ranch with his horse in a lather and with a four-inch
furrow in the fleshiest part of his leg, where a bullet had flicked him
in passing. The tale he told had led Weary to believe that Slim was the
sole survivor of that reckless company.

"Mamma! I'm so glad to see you boys able to fork your horses and swear
natural, that I don't believe I can speak my little piece about staying
on your own side the fence and letting trouble do some of the hunting,"
he exclaimed thankfully. "I wish you'd stayed at home and left these
blamed Dots alone. But, seeing yuh didn't, I'm tickled to death to hear
you didn't kill anybody off. I don't want the folks to come home and
find the whole bunch in the pen. It might look as if--"

"You don't want the folks to come home and find the whole ranch sheeped
off, either, and the herders camping up in the white house, do yuh?"
Pink inquired pointedly. "I kinda think," he added dryly, "those same
herders will feel like going away around Flying U fences with their
sheep. I don't believe they'll do any cutting across."

"I betche old Dunk'll make it interestin' fer this outfit, just the
same," Happy Jack predicted. "Tyin' up three men uh hisn, like that, and
ropin' their tent and draggin' it off, ain't things he'll pass up. He'll
have a possy out here--you see if he don't!"

"In that case, I'll be sorry for you, Happy," purred Miguel close beside
him. "You're the only one in the outfit that looks capable of such a
vile deed."

"Oh, Dunk won't do anything," Weary said cheerfully. "You'll have to
take those guns back, though. They might take a notion to call that
stealing!"

"You forget," the Native Son reminded calmly, "that we left them three
good ropes in exchange."

Whereupon the Happy Family laughed and went to offer their unsought
sympathy to Slim.

CHAPTER X. The Happy Family Herd Sheep

The boys of the Flying U had many faults in common, aside from certain
individual frailties; one of their chief weaknesses was over-confidence
in their own abil