your business."

The eyes of the girl rested for a moment on those of the line-rider as
she nodded good-bye. Jack had never before seen Ramona Wadley, nor for
that matter had he seen her brother Rutherford. Since he had been in the
neighborhood, both of them had been a good deal of the time in Tennessee
at school, and Jack did not come to the ranch-house once in three
months. It was hard to believe that this dainty child was the daughter
of such a battered hulk as Clint Wadley. He was what the wind and the
sun and the tough Southwest had made him. And she--she was a daughter of
the morning.

But Wadley did not release Ramona. "Since you're here you might as well
go through with it," he said. "What do you want?"

"What does a woman always want?" she asked sweetly, and then answered
her own question. "Clothes--and money to buy them--lots of it. I'm going
to town to-morrow, you know."

"H'm!" His grunt was half a chuckle, half a growl. "Do you call yoreself
a woman--a little bit of a trick like you? Why, I could break you in
two."

She drew herself up very straight. "I'll be seventeen, coming grass. And
it's much more likely, sir, that I'll break you--as you'll find out when
the bills come in after I've been to town."

With that she swung on her heel and vanished inside the house.

The proud, fond eyes of the cattleman followed her. It was an easy guess
that she was the apple of his eye.

But when he turned to business again his manner was gruffer than usual.
He was a trifle crisper to balance the effect of his new foreman having
discovered that he was as putty in the hands of this slip of a girl.

"Well, you know where you're at, Roberts. Deliver that herd without any
loss for strays, fat, an' in good condition, an' you won't need to go
back to line-ridin'. Fall down on the job, an' you'll never get another
chance to drive A T O cows."

"That's all I ask, Mr. Wadley," the cowboy answered. "An' much obliged
for the chance."

"Don't thank me. Thank York's busted laig," snapped his chief. "We'll
make the gather for the drive to-morrow an' Friday."

CHAPTER III

TEX TAKES AN INTEREST

Jack Roberts was in two minds whether to stop at the Longhorn saloon. He
needed a cook in his trail outfit, and the most likely employment agency
in Texas during that decade was the barroom of a gambling-house. Every
man out of a job naturally drifted to the only place of entertainment.

The wandering eye of the forem