ush again, or perhaps
lost for days in that rough country.

When the first violence of their rage had like the storm settled to a
cold steadiness of animosity, the two remounted painfully and turned
back upon each other.

Big Medicine and Pink drew close together as against a common foe, and
Irish cursed them both and rode away--whither he did not know nor care.

CHAPTER 15. THE KID HAS IDEAS OF HIS OWN

The Old Man sat out in his big chair on the porch, smoking and staring
dully at the trail which led up the bluff by way of the Hog's Back to
the benchland beyond. Facing him in an old, cane rocking chair, the
Honorable Blake smoked with that air of leisurely enjoyment which
belongs to the man who knows and can afford to burn good tobacco and who
has the sense to, burn it consciously, realizing in every whiff its rich
fragrance. The Honorable Blake flicked a generous half-inch of ash from
his cigar upon a porch support and glanced shrewdly at the Old Man's
abstracted face.

"No, it wouldn't do," he observed with the accent of a second
consideration of a subject that coincides exactly with the first. "It
wouldn't do at all. You could save the boys time, I've no doubt--time
and trouble so far as getting the cattle back where they belong
is concerned. I can see how they must be hampered for lack of
saddle-horses, for instance. But--it wouldn't do, Whitmore. If they
come to you and ask for horses don't let them have them. They'll manage
somehow--trust them for that. They'll manage--" "But doggone it, Blake,
it's for--"

"Sh-sh--" Blake held up a warning hand. "None of that, my dear Whitmore!
These young fellows have taken claims in--er--good faith." His bright
blue eyes sparkled with a sudden feeling. "In the best of good faith, if
you ask me. I--admire them intensely for what they have started out to
do. But--they have certain things which they must do, and do alone. If
you would not thwart them in accomplishing what they have set out to do,
you must go carefully; which means that you must not run to their aid
with your camp-wagons and your saddle-horses, so they can gather the
cattle again and drive them back where they belong. You would not be
helping them. They would get the cattle a little easier and a little
quicker--and lose their claims."

"But doggone it, Blake, them boys have lived right here at the Flying
U--why, this has been their home, yuh might say. They ain't like the
general run of punchers that