ant, GRANT!
She'll think you're ready to murder everybody on the ranch--and you can
be such a nice boy when you want to be! I did hope--"

"I don't want to be nice," Grant objected, drawing a match along a
fairly smooth rock.

"Well, I wanted you to appear at your best; and, instead of that, here
you come, squabbling with old Hagar like--"

"Yes--sure. But who is the timid lady?"

"Timid! You nearly killed the poor girl, besides scaring her half to
death, and then you call her timid. I know she thought there was going
to be a real Indian massacre, right here, and she'd be scalped--"

Wally Hart came back, laughing to himself.

"Say, you've sure cooked your goose with old Hagar, Grant! She's right
on the warpath, and then some. She'd like to burn yuh alive--she said
so. She's headed for camp, and all the rest of the bunch at her heels.
She won't come here any more till you're kicked off the ranch, as near
as I could make out her jabbering. And she won't do your washing any
more, mum--she said so. You're kay bueno yourself, because you take Good
Indian's part. We're all kay bueno--all but me. She wanted me to quit
the bunch and go live in her wikiup. I'm the only decent one in the
outfit." He gave his mother an affectionate little hug as he went past,
and began an investigative tour of the stone jars on the cool rock floor
within. "What was it all about, Grant? What did yuh do to her, anyway?"

"Oh, it wasn't anything. Hand me up a cup of that buttermilk, will you?
They've got a dog up there in camp that I'm going to kill some of these
days--if they don't beat me to it. He was up at the store, and when I
went out to get my horse, he tried to take a leg off me. I kicked him
in the nose and he came at me again, so when I mounted I just dropped
my loop over Mr. Dog. Sleeping Turtle was there, and he said the dog
belonged to Viney, So I just led him gently to camp."

He grinned a little at the memory of his gentleness. "I told Viney I
thought he'd make a fine stew, and, they'd better use him up right away
before he spoiled. That's all there was to it. Well, Keno did sink his
head and pitch around camp a little, but not to amount to anything. He
just stuck his nose into old Hagar's wikiup--and one sniff seemed to be
about all he wanted. He didn't hurt anything."

He took a meditative bite of cake, finished the buttermilk in three
rapturous swallows, and bethought him of the feminine mystery.

"If you please, Mother