no longer
'_among_' your horses. I _was_, but I am _not_. I came out, so to
speak," and he indicated, by a tumbling motion of his hands, that he
had leaped the fence to get away from the half wild ponies.

"That's all right," spoke Bud, his voice still stern. His cousins were
leaving this matter entirely to him. "That's all right. But you
_were_ among them, and it may be more to our good luck than our good
management that you aren't astride one of them now, and riding off.
What's your name and where are you from?"

These were vital, western questions.

"You are right in your surmise," said the man, limping toward the boys,
and still smiling, which occupation he had not left off since arising
to his feet. "If luck had been with me I would have ridden on one of
your horses. Not off--far be it from me to do that. But I would have
ridden to the nearest ranch, tried to get work and so have paid for the
use of the animal.

"However, fate had other things in store for me. I never saw such wild
animals! They came at me like so many fiends, and after trying in vain
to quiet them, and I may say I have some skill with wild beasts, I
thought discretion the better part of foolhardiness, and--made for the
fence!"

He chuckled at the recollection.

"Then you weren't going to steal a horse?" asked Nort.

"Far from it, kind sir," and the man bowed with just the slightest
suggestion of mockery, at which Bud frowned. "I am a lone traveler,
and I sought help on my way--help for which I would have paid in work."

"Who are you?" snapped out Bud.

"I have told you my name," said the stranger, in gentle contrast to
Bud's harsh tone. "Rolling Stone, at your service," and he bowed
again, this time with no trace of mockery.

"Rolling Stone!" ejaculated Nort.

"That isn't a name," complained Bud, but his voice had lost some of its
stern quality, and his lips trembled on the verge of a smile.

"I realize that it is more a state of being, or a quality," the man
admitted. "But it happens to be a sort of paraphrase of my title. I
am Roland Stone, at your service, but my taste, inclination and the
action of disheartened friends has fastened the other appellation on
me. Rolling Stone I am by name and by nature."

He said it in a way that left little room for doubt, and the boy
ranchers seemed to realize this. They could understand how such a
character could easily change Roland into "Rolling," if such was his
nature. A