of the
day "Happy Jack" coiled up his lariat and, lifting his bridle reins,
said, "I must look around this camp a while afore the races. May find
some signs, but I'll see yer both again--adios."

The spurs jingled and his pony loped off toward the valley. Cal looked
at the disappearing cow-puncher and turned to Jack, who said:

"He's as good one as ever straddled a broncho. He sure is a character
and his name is well earned. One of the happiest men I ever met. I'll
tell you about him as we take a smoke and watch the Indians. Down on
Roaring Forks of the Grand River a young fellow from the east by the
name of Eads took up a ranch. He was staked by some rich relative, and
after buying a bunch of steers and some American-bred horses, drove them
over the Tennessee pass to the Bar E ranch, five miles above the big Hot
Springs[A] where the Forks empties into the Grand. He hired 'Happy Jack'
as boss of the outfit, and with two or three other cow-punchers he
started in and built a log house, and when I was there seemed to be
doing well. I was on a hunting trip from Middle Park and heard about the
Bar E ranch and the Springs, so our party made the place our camping
ground for a week. The grass was fine and all the stock rolling fat. His
horses were in two bands--one 'used' on one side of the Forks and the
other band grazed on the opposite side. They rounded up the horses once
a week at least, and the range riders never let the stock get away very
far.

"One evening just after grub one of the boys came down to the cabin from
the corral and said, 'Old Martha has pulled her picket pin and
vamoosed.' 'Martha' was stake mare. Jack said, 'I guess not,' and bolted
up the bank to the open bench which run for half a mile back to the
cedars and pinons, where the branding pens and corrals were. He walked
out to where he had picketed the mare and pulled up the pin with about
ten feet of rope left where it had been cut. It was just before sundown,
and a bunch of horses which had been run into the corral when the stake
horse was changed had not gotten far away. Jack yelled 'Thief!' and for
the boys to hustle and see if some of the bunch could be gotten back
into the corral--a feat, you know, next to impossible when no one is
mounted. As luck would have it, four went in when the rest broke, but we
managed to get the bars up before they turned. It was but a few seconds'
work to rope a 'saddle-wise' one and cinch him up. Jack had taken off
h