ame time reaching
around and trying to nip Ted's shoulder with his teeth.

"My, but you're feeling gay this morning," said Ted. "Here, hold still,
won't you? How do you suppose I'm ever going to get this saddle on you
if you don't stand still?"

But the cold weather and the bright sunshine had filled Sultan with
ginger, and he was as full of play as a small boy when he wakes up some
early winter morning and sees the ground covered with the first snow,
and remembers the sled that has lain in the woodshed all summer.

But at last the saddle was on, and then Ted had his hands full getting
into it.

"Gee, but you're skittish this morning," said Ted, giving Sultan a
vigorous slap on the haunch. "But just you wait a few minutes until I
get on you. I'll take some of that out of you."

But when he tried to find the stirrup with his toe, Sultan wheeled away
from him with a little kick that was as dainty as that of a professional
dancer.

But at last Ted made a leap and landed safely upon Sultan's back, and
gave him a slap with the loose end of his rein. The little horse gave a
leap like a kangaroo, and dashed through the gateway of the corral and
across the white prairie, running like a quarter horse.

The herd was nowhere in sight, but in the far distance Ted saw a thin
blue stream of smoke rising in the still, frosty air.

He knew it to be the camp fire of McCall, and that breakfast was going
forward at the cow camp in the snow.

Heading Sultan toward it, Ted rushed on through the stimulating air of a
Northern winter, and soon came in sight of the chuck wagon, and several
of the boys standing around a fire.

As he dashed forward he raised the long yell, which was gleefully
answered, and soon he was at the camp.

This was where he and Stella had started from the night before.

Turning his eyes back in the direction he had come, Ted could see the
smoke rising from the chimney of the ranch house, although the house
itself was hidden behind a swell in the surface of the prairie.

Had he only known it, he might have driven the herd right up to the
ranch house during the night. As it was, he saw now that he and Stella,
with the carriage, had ridden for almost two hours in the night,
traveling in a circle, and by the merest chance had stumbled upon the
ranch house.

"Hello, fellows!" he shouted as he rode up. "Where are the dogies?"

"Oh, to blazes and gone!" exclaimed big Ben, who was trying to thaw out
his boots