were. I reached for the field glasses and took a
squint at them. There was no harm in that, for they were
well-behaved young folks. One look at their faces was enough.
There were three of us in the bull-pen--Bob, and Wind-River Smith,
and myself. We'd brought up a herd of calves from Nanley's ranch,
and we were taking it easy. 'Boys,' says I, under my breath,
'they've made the riffle.'

"'No!' says they, and then everybody had to take a pull at the
glasses.

"'Well, I'm glad,' says Smithy. And darn my buttons if that old
hardshell's voice didn't shake. 'They're two of as nice kids as
you'd find in many a weary day,' says he. 'And I wish 'em all the
luck in the world.'

"'So do I,' says I, 'and I really think the best we could do for
'em would be to shoot Jones.'

"'Man! Won't he sizz!' says Bob. And you can't blame us old
codgers if we had a laugh at that, although it was such a powerful
serious matter to the youngsters.

"'Let's go out and meet 'em,' says I. And away we went. They
weren't a particle surprised. I suppose they thought the whole
universe had stopped to look on. We pump-handled away and laughed,
and Loys she laughed kind of teary, and Kyle he looked red in the
face and proud and happy and ashamed of himself, and we all felt
loosened up considerable, but I told him on the quiet, 'Take that
fool grin off your face, unless you want Uncle Jones to drop the
moment he sees you.'

"Now they only had three days left to get an action on them, as
that was the time set for Loys to go back to college.

"Next day they held a council behind the big barn, and they called
in Uncle Red--otherwise known as Big Red Saunders, or Chanta
Seechee Red, which means 'Bad-heart Red' in Sioux language, and
doesn't explain me by a durn sight--to get the benefit of his
valuable advice.

"'Skip,' says I. 'Fly for town and get married, and come back and
tell Jonesy about it. It's a pesky sight stronger argument to tell
him what you have done than what you're going to do.'

"They couldn't quite agree with that. They thought it was sneaky.

"'So it is,' says I. 'The first art of war is understanding how to
make a grand sneak. If you don't want to take my advice you can
wait.' That didn't hit 'em just right either.

"'What will we wait for?' says Kyle.

"'Exercise--and the kind you won't take when you get as old and as
sensible as me. You're taking long chances, both of you; but it's
just like playing