o say. D'ye think
I'm a fool?"

"No, but neither am I. And I might as well tell you first and last that
those sheep are coming north. Now, if you do the fair thing you will tell
your cowboys the fact so they won't make any mistakes. I have given you
fair warning, and if anything happens to those sheep you will be held
responsible."

"Is that all you got to say?" asked Bissell, sarcastically.

"Yes."

"Well, then, I'll do the talkin'. I'd as leave see Indians stampedin' my
cows into the river as have your sheep come over the range. Since you've
given me what you call a fair warning, I'll give you one. Leave your
critters where they are. If you don't do it you'll be a sight wiser and
also a mighty sight poorer before I get through with 'em."

"Just what do you mean by that?" asked Larkin.

"I ain't sayin' nothin' more than that now, because I'm a slow hand at
makin' ornery promises, seein' I always keep 'em. But I'm just tellin'
you, that's all."

"Is that your last word on the subject?" asked Larkin.

"It is, an' I want Stelton here to remember I said it."

"Then we won't say anything more about the matter," replied Bud calmly, as
he rose. "I'll go outside and look to my horse."

"You'll stay the night with us, won't you?" asked Bissell anxiously.

"Yes, thanks. I've heard so much about the Bar T I should like to see a
little more of it."

When Larkin had left the room, Bissell, with a frown on his face, turned
to Stelton.

"Tell all the boys what's happened to-day," he said, "and tell 'em to be
on the watch for this young feller's first herd. He'll plenty soon find
out he can't run riot on my range."

CHAPTER II

A LATE ARRIVAL

After visiting the corral, Larkin paid his respects to the pump and
refreshed himself for supper. Then he strolled around the long, rambling
ranch house. Across the front, which faced southwest, had been built a low
apology for a veranda on which a couple of uninviting chairs stood. He
appropriated one of these and settled back to think.

The late sun, a red-bronze color, hung just above the horizon and softened
the unlovely stretches of prairie into something brooding and beautiful.
Thirty miles away the Rockies had become a mass of gray-blue fleeced
across the top with lines of late snow--for it was early June.

The Bar T ranch house itself stood on a rise of ground back from a cold,
greenish-blue river that made a bend at this point, and that rose and had
its b