or run off, or something, and
hide where the man could not find him, and then go home to his Doctor
Dell and Daddy Chip, and tell them how mean this pilgrim had been to
him. And he would tell the bunch The bunch would fix him all right! The
thought cheered the Kid so that he smiled and made the man think he was
listening to his darned old bear story that was just a big lie. Think he
would listen to any story that pilgrim could tell? Huh!

The gulches wore growing dusky now The Kid was tired, and he was hungry
and could hardly keep from crying, he was so miserable. But he was the
son of his father--he was Chip's kid; it would take a great deal more
misery and unkindness to make him cry before this pilgrim who had been
so mean to him. He rode along without saying a word. H. J. Owens did not
say anything, either. He kept scanning each jagged peak and each gloomy
canyon as they passed, and he seemed uneasy about something. The Kid
knew what it was, all right; H. J. Owens was lost.

They came to a wide, flat-bottomed coulee with high ragged bluffs
shutting it in upon every side. The Kid dimly remembered that coulee,
because that was where Andy got down to tighten the cinch on Miss
Allen's horse, and looked up at her the way Daddy Chip looked at Doctor
Dell sometimes, and made a kiss with his lips--and got called down for
it, too. The Kid remembered.

He looked at the man, shut his mouth tight and wheeled Silver suddenly
to the left. He leaned forward as he had always seen the Happy Family do
when they started a race, and struck Silver smartly down the rump with
the braided romal on his bridle-reins. H. J. Owens was taken off his
guard and did nothing but stare open-mouthed until the Kid was well
under way; then he shouted and galloped after him, up the little flat.

He might as well have saved his horse's wind and his own energy. He was
no match for little Buck Bennett, who had the whole Flying U outfit to
teach him how to ride, and the spirit of his Daddy Chip and the little
Doctor combined to give him grit and initiative. H. J. Owens pounded
along to the head of the coulee, where he had seen the Kid galloping
dimly in the dusk. He turned up into the canyon that sloped invitingly
up from the level, and went on at the top speed of his horse--which was
not fast enough to boast about.

When he had left the coulee well behind him, the Kid rode out from
behind a clump of bushes that was a mere black shadow against the coulee