hat told how well
they knew that their master was present.

That master quietly took stock of his men while they ate their supper
and loafed and smoked and talked. Cheyenne had unobtrusively retired
to the bed tent. With his thumbs pushed down inside his belt Tom
strolled past and slanted a glance inside. Cheyenne was squatted on
his heels shaving with cold lather and a cracked looking-glass propped
against a roll of bedding, and a razor which needed honing. In turning
his head to look at Tom he nicked his chin and while he stopped the
bleeding with a bit of old newspaper the size of a small finger-nail
he congratulated himself in the mistaken belief that Tom had not seen
him at all.

Cheyenne did not know Tom very well, else he would have taken it for
granted that Tom not only had seen him, but had also made a guess at
his reason for shaving in the middle of the week.

Tom walked on, making a mental tally of the girls within riding
distance from camp. Jennie Miller was reported engaged to an AJ man,
and besides, she lived too far away and was not pretty enough to be
worth the effort of a twenty-five mile ride just to hear her play
hymns distressingly on an organ with a chronic squeak in one pedal.
There was Alice Boyle at the AJ, and there was Mary Hope Douglas, who
was growing to be quite a young lady,--pretty good-looking, too, if
she wouldn't peel her hair back so straight and tight. Mary Hope
Douglas, Tom decided, was probably the girl. It struck Tom as
significant that she should be the daughter of the man who mourned the
loss of the yearling. He had not reached the rear of the tent before
he decided that he himself would do a little riding that night. He
caught and saddled Coaley, his own pet saddle horse that had never
carried any man save Tom--never would, so long as Tom had anything to
say about it--and set off toward the Devil's Tooth ranch. Cheyenne
ducked his head under the tent flap when he heard the sound of hoof
beats passing close, saw that it was his boss, noted the direction he
was taking, and heaved a sigh of relief. While he labored with the
knot in his handkerchief which must be tied exactly right before he
would leave the tent, Cheyenne had been composing a reason for leaving
camp. Now he would not need a reason, and he grinned while he
plastered his hair down in a sleek, artistically perfect scallop over
his right eyebrow. Tom was going to the home ranch,--to round up Al,
very likely. He woul