for miles at night to guide wanderers.

This had been suggested by his experience the first night they had spent
at the house.

Those of the boys who were not riding line were stopping at the house,
and they were all in the big living room awaiting the coming of Ted and
Stella.

When Stella was late in arriving at the house, Mrs. Graham began to grow
anxious and worried, and this was communicated to the others.

But when they heard Ted's ringing yell outside, as he and Stella
galloped up, there were shouts of gladness inside, and the big door was
thrown open, allowing a broad path of light to fall across the prairie,
as two cow-punchers came bounding down the steps to take the ponies to
the corral.

After supper Ted told of the maiming of the cattle and the death of Sol
Flatbush.

It was part of the life at the ranch that bad news of any sort was never
told at the table during meals, and if any of the fellows had a
grievance or was in trouble he tried to keep that fact out of his face
and look as merry as he could while the others were eating. If he wanted
to tell his troubles later, and any one was willing to listen, all right
and good, but mealtime was glad time where the broncho boys and their
friends sat down together.

While they were sitting before the great fireplace after supper, Clay
Whipple was looking into the flames with a preoccupied air.

He had been silent all evening, an unusual thing for him, for usually he
injected humorously dry comments into general conversations.

"What's the trouble, Clay?" asked Stella, who was always the first to
notice when one of the boys was not his usual self.

"Oh, I don't know," said Clay uneasily.

"Reckon he's worryin' some on account o' this yere mountain bandit bein'
ther same name as him," laughed a cow-puncher named "Pike" Bander.

"I reckon you're only joshin', Pike," said Clay quietly, but growing a
shade paler.

"Why, shore, Clay. Yer didn't think I wuz in earnest?" Pike hastened to
say.

Clay's Kentucky blood would not permit him to receive without resentment
any reflections against the South or the people of his family, while he
could stand any amount of personal joshing without growing in the least
touchy or angry.

"Then what's the matter?" asked Ted, as Clay returned to his gloomy
contemplation of the fire.

"I'm worried some, that's all," was the reply.

"Tell your troubles to the policeman, that's us."

"Well, I might as well out wi