ep deal comes up, he's
got about as many idees, by cripes, as that there line-back calf over
there. Honest to grandma, Andy makes me feel kinda faint. Only time he
did have a chanc't, he let them--" It occurred to Big Medicine at that
point that perhaps his remarks might be construed by the object of
them as being offensively personal. He turned his head and grinned
good-naturedly in Andy's direction, and refrained from finishing what he
was going to say. "I sure do like them wind-flowers scattered all
over the ground," he observed with such deliberate and ostentatious
irrelevance that the Happy Family laughed, even to Andy Green, who had
at first been inclined toward anger.

"Everything," declared Andy in the tone of a paid instructor, "has its
proper time and place, boys; I've told you that before. For instance, I
wouldn't try to kill a skunk by talking it to death; and I wouldn't
be hopeful of putting the run on this Dunk person by telling him ghost
stories. As to ideas--I'm plumb full of them. But they're all about
grub, just right at present."

That started Slim and Happy Jack to complaining because no one had had
sense enough to go back after some lunch before taking that long trail
south; the longer because it was a slow one, with sheep to set the pace.
And by the time they had presented their arguments against the Happy
Family's having enough brains to last them overnight, and the Happy
Family had indignantly pointed out just where the mental deficiency was
most noticeable, they were upon that last, broad stretch of "bench" land
beyond which lay Flying U coulee and Patsy and dinner; a belated dinner,
to be sure, but for that the more welcome.

And when they reached the point where they could look away to the
very rim of the coulee, they saw sheep--sheep to the skyline, feeding
scattered and at ease, making the prairie look, in the distance, as
if it were covered with a thin growth of gray sage-brush. Four herders
moved slowly upon the outskirts, and the dogs were little, scurrying,
black dots which stopped occasionally to wait thankfully until the
master-minds again urged them to endeavor.

The Happy Family drew up and stared in silence.

"Do I see sheep?" Pink inquired plaintively at last. "Tell me,
somebody."

"It's that bunch you fellows tackled last night," said Weary miserably.
"I ought to have had sense enough to leave somebody on the ranch to look
out for this."

"They've got their nerve," stated