--tryin' to
outride Overland Red. Don't you remember?"

"Collie, you're a regular hypocrite."

"Yes, ma'am."

"And you look--frightful."

"Yes, ma'am."

"You're not a bit ashamed."

"Yes, ma'am, I am."

"Don't say 'Yes, ma'am' all the time. You don't seem to be ashamed. Why
should you be, though. Because you were fighting?"

"No, Miss Louise. Because I got licked."

Louise mounted Sarko and rode beside Collie silently. Presently she
touched his arm. "But did you?" she asked, her eyes grave and her tone
conveying a subtle question above the mere letter.

"No! By thunder!" he exclaimed. "Not in a hundred years!"

"Well, get some raw meat from the cook. I'll give your explanation to
Dr. and Mrs. Marshall, for you will have to be ready for the trip
to-morrow. You will have to think of a better explanation for the boys."

While riding homeward, Louise dropped her glove. Collie was afoot
instantly and picked it up. "Can I keep it?" he said.

The girl looked curiously at him for a moment. "No, I think not,
Collie," she said gently.

Collie rode up to the corrals that afternoon whistling as blithely as he
could considering his injuries. He continued to whistle as he unsaddled
Apache.

At the bunk-house Brand Williams looked at him once, and bent double
with silent laughter. The boys badgered him unmercifully. "Fell off a
hoss!--Go tell that to the chink!--Who stepped on your face, kid?--Been
ridin' on your map, eh?--Where _was_ the wreck?--Who sewed up your
eye?"

"S-s-h-h, fellas," said Miguel, grinning. "If you make all that noise,
how you going to hear the tune he is whistling, hey?"

Collie glanced at Saunders, who had said nothing. "Got anything to offer
on the subject, Silent?" he asked.

"Nope. I take mine out in thinkin'."

"You're going to have a chance to do a whole lot more of it before
long," said Collie; and he said it with a suggestiveness that did not
escape the taciturn foreman, Brand Williams.

CHAPTER XXI

BORROWED PLUMES

"He speaks of a pretty round sum," said Walter Stone, returning the
letter that Collie had asked him to read. "I don't know but that the
land you speak of is a good investment. You were thinking of raising
stock--horses?"

"Yes, sir. The Oro people are making good at it. The land north of you
is good grazing-land and good water. Of course, I got to wait for a
while. Red says in the letter that my share of the claim so far is five
thousand. That wouldn