he
branding-iron, queerly shaped and white-hot.

The bellow of the outraged white cow, as the iron was applied, should
have stirred the slumbering auricular nerves and consciences of the
near-by subjects of the Nopalito, but it did not. And it was amid the
deepest nocturnal silence that Santa ran like a lapwing back to the
ranch-house and there fell upon a cot and sobbed--sobbed as though
queens had hearts as simple ranchmen's wives have, and as though she
would gladly make kings of prince-consorts, should they ride back
again from over the hills and far away.

In the morning the capable, revolvered youth and his /vaqueros/ set
forth, driving the bunch of Sussex cattle across the prairies to the
Rancho Seco. Ninety miles it was; a six days' journey, grazing and
watering the animals on the way.

The beasts arrived at Rancho Seco one evening at dusk; and were
received and counted by the foreman of the ranch.

The next morning at eight o'clock a horseman loped out of the brush to
the Nopalito ranch-house. He dismounted stiffly, and strode, with
whizzing spurs, to the house. His horse gave a great sigh and swayed
foam-streaked, with down-drooping head and closed eyes.

But waste not your pity upon Belshazzar, the flea-bitten sorrel.
To-day, in Nopalito horse-pasture he survives, pampered, beloved,
unridden, cherished record-holder of long-distance rides.

The horseman stumbled into the house. Two arms fell around his neck,
and someone cried out in the voice of woman and queen alike: "Webb--
oh, Webb!"

"I was a skunk," said Webb Yeager.

"Hush," said Santa, "did you see it?"

"I saw it," said Webb.

What they meant God knows; and you shall know, if you rightly read the
primer of events.

"Be the cattle-queen," said Webb; "and overlook it if you can. I was a
mangy, sheep-stealing coyote."

"Hush!" said Santa again, laying her fingers upon his mouth. "There's
no queen here. Do you know who I am? I am Santa Yeager, First Lady of
the Bedchamber. Come here."

She dragged him from the gallery into the room to the right. There
stood a cradle with an infant in it--a red, ribald, unintelligible,
babbling, beautiful infant, sputtering at life in an unseemly manner.

"There's no queen on this ranch," said Santa again. "Look at the king.
He's got your eyes, Webb. Down on your knees and look at his
Highness."

But jingling rowels sounded on the gallery, and Bud Turner stumbled
there again with the same query that he