rs! Take the quirt! Take the bridle!
Take the hat and gloves with the silk roses on! Anybody that's got nerve
enough to call _me_ a _dude_ can take anything I got. Say, you don't
want to borrow a pair of _pants_, do you?"

Honors were about even when Collie left the bunk-house, his arms laden
with the foreman's finery. He colored to his hair as he saw Louise
coming toward him. He fumbled at the gate, opened it, and stood aside
for her to pass. As she smiled and thanked him, he heard his name
called.

"Hey!" shouted Williams, coming suddenly from the bunk-house. "Hey,
Collie! You went away without them pants! I'll lend 'em to you--"

Collie, his face flaming, strode down the trail, the blood drumming in
his ears.

CHAPTER XXII

THE YUMA COLT

The Oro Rancho sent out word that the fiftieth year of its existence
would be celebrated with an old-fashioned Spanish barbecue. The
invitation was general, including every one within a radius of fifty
miles.

Added to the natural interest in good things to eat and drink was that
of witnessing the pony races. Each rancher would bring, casually, almost
accidentally, as it were, one pony that represented its owner's idea of
speed and quality. No set programme offered, which made the races all
the more interesting in that they were genuine.

The Oro Ranch had long ago established and proudly maintained a
reputation for breeding the best saddle-and work-stock in Southern
California. In fact, the ranch survived the competition of the
automobile chiefly because it was the only important stock-raising ranch
in the southland.

Good feeling went even so far as to include the sheep-ranchers of the
old Spanish Grant, by special invitation.

It was the delight and pride of native Californians to ride their best
saddle-horses on such occasions. True, motor-cars came from the city and
from the farthest homes, but locally saddle-horses of all sizes and
kinds were in evidence. Sleek bays with "Kentucky" written in every
rippling muscle, single-footed in beside heavy mountain ponies, well
boned, broad of knee, strong of flank, and docile; lean mustangs of the
valley, short-coupled buckskins with the endurance of live rawhide;
Mexican pintos, restless and gay in carved leather, and silver
trappings; scrawny stolid cayuses that looked half-starved, but that
could out-eat and out-last many a better-built horse; they all came, and
their riders were immediately made welcome.

Unde