ly, he framed up a job on the Gordon boys, and railroaded
'em to the pen, just--"

"Oh, that's the gazabo!" Andy's eyes shone with enlightenment. "I've
heard a lot about Dunk, but I didn't know his last name--"

"Say! I'll bet they're the outfit that bought out Denson. That's why old
Denson acted so queer, maybe. Selling to a sheep outfit would make the
old devil feel kinda uneasy, talking to us--" Pink's eyes were big and
purple with excitement. "And that train-load of sheep we saw Sunday,
I'll bet is the same identical outfit."

"Dunk Whittaker'd better not try to monkey with me, by golly!" Slim's
face was lowering. "And he'd better not monkey with the Flying U either.
I'd pump him so full uh holes he'd look like a colander, by golly!"

Weary got up and started to the door, his face suddenly grown careworn.
"Slim, you and Miguel better go and hunt up Andy's horse," he said with
a hint of abstraction in his tone, as though his mind was busy with more
important things. "Maybe Andy'll feel able to help you set those posts,
Bud--and you'd better go along the upper end of the little pasture with
the wire stretchers and tighten her up; the top wire is pretty loose, I
noticed this morning." His fingers fumbled with the door-knob.

"Want me to do anything?" Pink asked quizzically just behind him. "I
thought sure we'd go and remonstrate with then gay--"

Weary interrupted him. "The herders can wait--and, anyway, I've kinda
got an idea Andy wants to hand out his own brand of poison to that
bunch. You and I will take a ride over to Denson's and see what's going
on over there. Mamma!" he added fervently, under his breath, "I sure do
wish Chip and the Old Man were here!"

CHAPTER VIII. The Dot Outfit

Before he laid him down to sleep, that night, Weary had repeated to
himself many times and fervently that wish for old J. G. Whitmore and
the stout staff upon which he was beginning more and more to lean, his
brother-in-law, Chip Bennett. As matters stood, Weary could not even
bring himself to let then know anything about his trouble--and that the
thing was beginning to assume the form and shape and general malevolent
attributes of Trouble, Weary was forced to admit to himself.

Just at present an unthinking, unobserving person might pass over
this sheep outfit as a mere unsavory incident; but Weary was neither
unobserving nor unthinking--nor, for the matter of that, were the
rest of the Happy Family. It needed no Happy