ary," retorted Floyd. "In
fact I rather like it. It is much better than this _trail_, to be
frank."

"Are you sure we have come the right road?"

"As sure as I can be of anything in this doggoned country, where they
haven't enough sign posts. I took the turns they told me to take in
the last town we passed through, and all the land marks have run true
to form so far."

"But we're a good ways from Uncle Henry's ranch yet; aren't we, Floyd?"
and there crept into the voice of Rosemary an anxious note.

"Well, maybe we are, but what do we care for a few hundred miles?"

He laughed merrily, showing a set of white, even teeth, and his jollity
was so catching that his sister had to join in.

"Well, I suppose it really doesn't make much difference," she said.
"We're out for a lark and we've had it, so far. Only I don't seem to
fancy sleeping out in the open again to-night. We were lost yesterday,
you remember, and didn't make the town we expected to."

Floyd seemed to be waiting for something.

"Well?" he suggested. "Why don't you add that it was all my fault."

"I was going to leave that out," Rosemary said.

"But I'll admit it," acknowledged her brother. "I did pull a bloomer,
as an Englishman would say, and I don't intend to do it again to-day.
I admit I shouldn't have tried to do more than a day's trip yesterday.
If I had taken your advice and stayed in the town where there was at
least an apology for a hotel, you'd have had a better night's sleep."

"Well, I didn't mind being out in the open so much, after I got used to
the howling of those wolves," Rosemary remarked.

"Coyotes--coyotes--not wolves, though they're off the same piece of
goods," corrected Floyd.

"Well, never mind the lesson in natural history," laughed Rosemary.
"The point at issue is that I don't like the sort of country we're
getting into. It doesn't look to me as though this could ever lead us
to Uncle Henry's ranch, and I'm anxious to get there. Bud's mother
wrote that he and his cousins, Nort and Dick, had such exciting times,
that I'm anxious to join them."

"So'm I," said Floyd. "And we'll get there."

"Not on this trail!" declared his sister, as her brother was about to
start the car. "You're getting into a worse and wilder country all the
while. I think we should have taken the left turn a ways back."

"The cow puncher we asked told us to take the _right_ turn, and I did,"
retorted Floyd.

"Cow puncher!" exclaimed h