corate yet, if
they's one; and it'll rain--"

"You're batty," Cal interrupted. "Uh course we'll get through--we've
_got_ to; what d'yuh suppose we've been tearing the bone out for the
last three weeks for?"

Chip, with a foot braced against the calf's shoulder, ran a U on its
ribs with artistic precision. Chip's Flying U's were the pride of
the whole outfit; the Happy Family was willing at any time, to bet
all you dare that Chip's brands never varied a quarter-inch in
height, width or position. The Old Man and Shorty had been content
to use a stamp, as prescribed by law; but Chip Bennett scorned so
mechanical a device and went on imperturbably defying the law with
his running iron--and the Happy Family gloated over his independence
and declared that they would sure deal a bunch of misery to the man
that reported him. His Flying U's were better than a stamp, anyhow,
they said, and it was a treat to watch the way he slid them on, just
where they'd do the most good.

"I'm going home, after supper," he said, giving just the proper width
to the last curve of the two-hundredth U he had made that afternoon.
"I promised Dell I'd try and get home to-night, and drive over to the
picnic early to-morrow. She's head push on the grub-pile, I believe,
and wants to make sure there's enough to go around. There's about
two hundred and fifty calves left. If you can't finish up to-night,
it'll be your funeral."

"Well, I betche it'll rain before we git through--it always does,
when you don't want it to," gloomed Happy, seizing another calf.

"If it does," called Weary, who was branding--with a stamp--not far
away, "if it does, Happy, we'll pack the bossies into the cook-tent
and make Patsy heat the irons in the stove. Don't yuh cry, little
boy--we'll sure manage _somehow_."

"Aw yes--_you_ wouldn't see nothing to worry about, not if yuh was
being paid for it. They's a storm coming--any fool can see that; and
she's sure going to come down in large chunks. We ain't got this
amatoor hell for nothing! Yuh won't want to do no branding in the
cook-tent, nor no place else. I betche--"

"Please," spoke up Pink, coiling afresh the rope thrown off a calf he
had just dragged up to Cal and Happy Jack, "won't somebody lend me a
handkerchief? I want to gag Happy; he's working his hoodoo on us
again."

Happy Jack leered up at him, consciously immune--for there was no
time for strife of a physical nature, and Happy knew it. Everyo