lone."

I don't, to this day, know why I did it, but I quit hugging old King, and
the other two fell back and gave me a clear path to the door. "King was
blackguarding dad, and I couldn't stand for it," I explained to Perry
Potter as I went by. "If you're not going, I won't."

"I've got a letter to mail," he said, calm as if he were in his own
corral. "You went off before I got a chance to give it to yuh. I'll be out
in a minute."

He went and slipped the letter into the mail-box, turned his back on the
three, and walked out as if nothing had happened; perhaps he knew that I
was watching them, in a mood to do things if they offered to touch him.
But they didn't, and we mounted our horses and rode away, and Perry Potter
never mentioned the affair to me, then or after. I don't think we spoke on
the way to the ranch; I was busy wishing I'd been around in that part of
the world thirty years before, and thinking what a lot of fun I had
missed by not being as old as dad. A quarrel thirty years old is either
mighty stale and unprofitable, or else, like wine, it improves with age.
I meant to ride over to King's Highway some day, and see how he would
have welcomed dad thirty years before.

CHAPTER IV.

Through King's Highway.

It was a long time before I was in a position to gratify my curiosity,
though; between the son and heir, with nothing to do but amuse himself,
and a cowboy working for his daily wage, there is a great gulf fixed.
After being put on the pay-roll, I couldn't do just as my fancy prompted.
I had to get up at an ungodly hour, and eat breakfast in about two
minutes, and saddle a horse and "ride circle" with the rest of them--which
same is exceeding wearisome to man and beast. For the first time since I
left school, I was under orders; and the foreman certainly tried to obey
dad's mandate and treat me just as he would have treated any other
stranger. I could give it up, of course--but I hope never to see the day
when I can be justly called a quitter.

First, we were rounding up horses--saddlers that were to be ridden in the
round-up proper. We were not more than two or three weeks at that, though
we covered a good deal of country. Before it was over I knew a lot more
than when we started out, and had got hard as nails; riding on round-up
beats a gym for putting wire muscles under a man's skin, in my opinion.
We worked all around White Divide--which was turning a pale, dainty green
except where the