o him, Happy."

"Well, I didn't," growled Happy Jack. "And what's more, I betche there
ain't any such person."

"Don't call us liars to our faces, Happy," Weary reproved. "We told
yuh, a dozen times, that we saw him ourselves. Yuh might be polite
enough to take our word for it."

"Aw, gwan!" Happy Jack grunted, still not quite sure of how much--or
how little--they knew. While they discussed further the wild man, he
watched furtively for the surreptitious lowering of lids that would
betray their insincerity. When they appealed to him for an opinion of
some phase of the subject, he answered with caution. He tried to turn
the talk to his experiences on the Shonkin range, and found the wild
man cropping up with disheartening persistency. He shifted often in
the saddle, because of the deep sunburns which smarted continually and
maddeningly. He wondered if the boys had used all of that big box of
carbolic salve which used to be kept in a corner of the mess-box; and
was carbolic salve good for sun-blisters? He told himself gloomily
that if there was any of it left, and if it were good for his ailment,
there wouldn't be half enough of it, anyway. He estimated unhappily
that he would need about two quarts.

When they reached camp, the welcome of Happy Jack was overshadowed and
made insignificant by the strange story of the wild man. Happy Jack,
mentally and physically miserable, was forced to hear it all told over
again, and to listen to the excited comments of the others. He was
sick of the subject. He had heard enough about the wild man, and he
wished fervently that they would shut up about it. He couldn't see
that it was anything to make such a fuss about, anyway. And he wished
he could get his hands on that carbolic salve, without having the
whole bunch rubbering around and asking questions about something that
was none of their business. He even wished, in that first bitter hour
after he had eaten and while they were lying idly in the shady spots,
that he was back on the Shonkin range with an alien crew.

It was perhaps an hour later that Pink, always of an investigative
turn of mind, came slipping quietly up through the rose bushes from
the creek. The Happy Family, lying luxuriously upon the grass, were
still discussing the latest excitement. Pink watched his chance and
when none but Weary observed him jerked his head mysteriously toward
the creek.

Weary got up, yawned ostentatiously, and sauntered away in the wake