the straight
mouth conveyed an expression almost of grimness. The boy wore a battered
felt hat, a fawn mackinaw coat, pants thrust into high socks and a pair
of moosehide moccasins. In his right hand he carried a rifle, in his
left a small cotton bag. The wooden handle of a knife stuck from a
jam-sheath in his belt.

For a moment he stood sniffling the morning air like a dog, and then
with a light swiftness which gave the lie to his apparent ungainliness,
made for the stables. In a few moments he led out a brown pony. He tied
the cotton bag to the cantle, thrust the rifle into a saddle holster and
swung up.

As he did so there was the sound of running feet, and a girl sped toward
him from the house.

"Angus! Wait a minute!" she cried. She was apparently a couple of years
younger than the boy, slim, brown of hair, eye, and face, delicate of
feature. She held out a paper-wrapped parcel. "Here's some doughnuts for
your lunch," she said.

But the boy frowned down at her. "I've got my lunch," he said tapping
the cotton bag. In it there was bread and cold meat, which he esteemed
manly fare.

"But you like doughnuts," said the girl, "and I thought--I thought--"

Her eyes filled with moisture which was not that of the mists, and the
boy either because of that or affected by the silent argument of the
doughnuts, relented.

"Oh, well, give 'em here," he said, and dismounting untied the bag,
thrust in the doughnuts, made all fast again and remounted. "Tell father
I'll be back in time to feed the stock to-night."

"Yes, Angus. I hope you'll get a deer."

"Sure, I'll get one," the boy replied confidently. A thought seemed to
strike him. "Oh, thanks for the doughnuts."

The girl beamed at this belated recognition. She felt fully repaid for
both the cooking and the early rising. For when a brother is going
hunting naturally his thoughts are far above such things as doughnuts
and younger sisters. Recognizing the propriety of this she turned back
to the house.

The boy rode fast. He passed the boundaries of the ranch, followed a
road for a mile and then, turning into a beaten cattle trail, headed
eastward toward the flanks of a mountain range showing beneath the
skirts of the rising mist.

The trail wound sinuously, rising from benchland to benchland, but the
boy stuck to it, for he knew that cattle invariably choose the easiest
way. Also he knew the country so near home like a book, or rather better
than he knew any w