hem a scurvy trick
in spite of their caution, for just as they rode down the Hog's Back and
across the ford, Florence Grace Hallman rode away from the White House
and met them fairly at the stable.

Florence Grace smiled a peculiar smile as she went past them. A smile
that promised she would not forget; a smile that told them how sure
she felt of having caught them fairly. With the smile went a chilly,
supercilious bow that was worse than a direct cut, and which the Happy
Family returned doubtfully, not at all sure of the rules governing
warfare with a woman.

CHAPTER 9. THE HAPPY FAMILY BUYS A BUNCH OF CATTLE

With the Kid riding gleefully upon Weary's shoulder they trooped up the
path their own feet had helped wear deep to the bunk-house. They looked
in at the open door and snorted at the cheerlessness of the place.

"Why don't you come back here and stay?" the Kid demanded. "I was going
to sleep down here with you--and now Doctor Dell won't let me. These
hobees are no good. They're damn' bone-head. Daddy Chip says so. I wish
you'd come back, so I can sleep with you. One man's named Ole and he's
got a funny eye that looks at the other one all the time. I wish you'd
come back."

The Happy Family wished the same thing, but they did not say so. Instead
they told the Kid to ask his mother if he couldn't come and visit them
in their new shacks, and promised indulgences that would have shocked
the Little Doctor had she heard them. So they went on to the house,
where the Old Man sat on the porch looking madder than when they had
left him three weeks before.

"Why don't yuh run them nesters outa the country?" he demanded peevishly
when they were close enough for speech. "Here they come and accuse me
to my face of trying to defraud the gov'ment. Doggone you boys, what
you think you're up to, anyway? What's three or four thousand acres when
they're swarming in here like flies to a butcherin'? They can't make a
living--serve 'em right. What you doggone rowdies want now?"

Not a cordial welcome, that--if they went no deeper than his words. But
there was the old twinkle back of the querulousness in the Old Man's
eyes, and the old pucker of the lips behind his grizzled whiskers.
"You've got that doggone Kid broke to foller yuh so we can't keep him
on the ranch no more," he added fretfully. "Tried to run away twice,
on Silver. Chip had to go round him up. Found him last time pretty near
over to Antelope coulee, hittin' t