and don't stand there looking like a couple of damn fools!"

Whereupon Jerry shook his head dissentingly, grinned and gave Eddie so
emphatic an impulse toward his horse that the kid went sprawling.

"Guess We're up against it, all right--but I do wish yo 'd lose that
badge!" Jerry surrendered, and flipped the bridle reins over the neck of
his horse. "Horn toad is right, the way you're scabbling around amongst
them rocks," he called light-heartedly to the kid. "Ever see a purtier
sunrise? I never!"

I don't know what they thought of the sunset. Gorgeous it was, with many
soft colors blended into unnamable tints and translucencies, and the
songs of birds in the thickets as they passed. Smoky, Sunfish and
Stopper walked briskly, ears perked forward, heads up, eyes eager to
catch the familiar landmarks that meant home. Bud's head was up, also,
his eyes went here and there, resting with a careless affection on those
same landmarks which spelled home. He would have let Smoky's reins have
a bit more slack and would have led his little convoy to the corrals
at a gallop, had not hope begun to tremble and shrink from meeting
certainty face to face. Had you asked him then, I think Bud would have
owned himself a coward. Until he had speech with home-folk he would
merely be hoping that Marian was there; but until he had speech with
them he need not hear that they knew nothing of her. Bud--like, however,
he tried to cover his trepidation with a joke.

"We'll sneak up on 'em," he said to Ed and Jerry when the roofs of
house and stables came into view.

"Here's where I grew up, boys. And in a minute or two more you'll see
the greatest little mother on earth--and the finest dad," he added,
swallowing the last of his Scotch stubbornness.

"And Sis, I hope," Eddie said wistfully. "I sure hope she's here."

Neither Jerry nor Bud answered him at all. Smoky threw up his head
suddenly and gave a shrill whinny, and a horse at the corrals answered
sonorously.

"Say! That sounds to me like Boise!" Eddie exclaimed, standing up in his
stirrups to look.

Bud turned pale, then flushed hotly. "Don't holler!" he muttered, and
held Smoky back a little. For just one reason a young man's heart pounds
as Bud's heart pounded then. Jerry looked at him, took a deep breath
and bit his lip thoughtfully. It may be that Jerry's heartbeats were not
quite normal just then, but no one would ever know.

They rode slowly to a point near the corner of the