y through the morning sunshine, Williams loafed across
the corral, roped and saddled a white-eyed pinto, and, spurring up a
narrow canon west of the ranch buildings, disappeared round a turn of
the shady trail. As the foreman rode, he alternately talked to the pony
and himself.

"Tramp, eh?" he said, addressing the pony. "What do you say, Sarko?
Nothin', eh? Same as me.... Overland Red's kid pal, eh? Huh! I knowed
Jack Summers, Red Jack Summers, down in Sonora in '83. Mexico was some
open country then. Jack was a white pardner, too. Went to the bad,
account of that Chola girl that he was courtin' goin' wrong.... Funny
how the boss come to pick up that kid. Thinks there's somethin' in him.
O' course they is. But what? Eh, Sarko, what? You say nothin', same as
me.... Here, you! That's a lizard, you fool hoss. Never seen one before,
so you're try in' to catch it by jumpin' through your bridle after it,
eh? Never seen one before, oh, no! Don't like that, eh? Well, you quit,
and I will. Exactly. It's me, and my ole Spanish spurs. I'm
listenin'.... Nothin' to say?... Uhuh! I reckon little Louise had
somethin' to do with gettin' the kid the job. Well, if _she_ likes him,
I got to. Guess I'd love a snake if she said to. Yes, I'm listenin' to
myself ..." And the taciturn foreman's hard, weathered face wrinkled in
a smile. "I'm listenin' ... None of the boys know Red's camped up by the
spring. I do. Red used to be a damn white Injun in the old days. I'll
give the kid a chance to put him wise for old times. And I'll find out
if the kid means business or not ... which is some help to know how to
handle him later."

Williams picketed his pony in the meadow above the third cross-fence.
Loafing down the slope toward the spring, he noticed the faint smoke of
a fire. Farther down the line fence, he could see Collie in the
distance, riding slowly toward the three live-oaks. The foreman found a
convenient seat on a ledge, rolled another of his eternal cigarettes,
and watched the boy approach from below.

Collie had already dismounted three times that morning; twice to mend
fence, and once more involuntarily. He determined, with a mighty vow to
the bow-legged god of all horseflesh, to learn to stay on a broncho or
die learning.

The boy had a native fondness for animals, and he had already thought of
buying a pony with his first few months' wages. But the vision of his
erstwhile companion Overland, perhaps imprisoned and hopeless in th