h-haired flanks distended with the young
year's generous bounty. In the barnyards was a scurrying of yellow balls
of down as the clucking hens told of some juicy tidbit wriggling for
their delectation. Everywhere was new young life, and all things were
fat with promise.

Scoured by the strenuous hand of winter, the ranch premises were
delightfully clean and sweet; the fences and corrals, repaired and
new-built, looked trim, strong and capable; the ditches were running
bank-full in readiness for duty in the arid days to come. Everything
betokened thrift and good management, and Douglass, looking at it with
critical approvement, knew that so far he had made good.

"She nevah looked bettah," was McVey's satisfied comment as he sat on
his horse on the crest of the little divide overlooking the ranch. "Yuh
suah hev got thu layout well in hand. We'll hev hay to buhn this fall."

"There was too much burned last year," said Douglass grimly; "we'll try
to put it to better use this time. I wonder what's become of him." It
was the first reference he had made to Matlock for many weeks. Red spat
indifferently.

"Pulled hes freight fer good, I reckon. Mont Butler told me he saw him
in Laramie two weeks afteh yuh broke jail." Both men chuckled
reminiscently. "He were full o' talk, as usual, but I reckon thet hes
blowin' won't cause no cyclones in these yeah pahts. I feel real bad to
think thet he didn't stop long enough to say goo'by to me thet night."

As they rode slowly in to lunch, warned by the blowing of a horn in the
hands of the impatient Abbie, Douglass was unusually taciturn. As they
unbridled their horses in the barn he said suddenly:

"Red, I'm going to take my vacation to-morrow; will be gone for a month.
Day after to-morrow Mr. and Miss Carter will be at Tin Cup--got a
letter from him last week. I want you to go and meet them. Better take
the extra wagon for their luggage, as well as the buckboard and Miss
Carter's roan; she wants to ride in. The buckboard is for Carter and a
woman friend they are bringing with them. Of course you will be in
charge while I'm gone. I'm going prospecting and I'll stake you in if I
find a gold mine." He said it as a matter of course; these two had
become inseparable in most things.

Red grunted suspiciously; he was evidently not so well pleased with
prospective riches as he logically should have been.

"Yuh are shore yuh ain't goin' to try an' develop a lead mine in
somebody's haid