"Prairie
fires don't stop that sudden when the grass is like it is now."

The portly housewife paused in her work to cast a look of scorn upon the
speaker, but Grannis rushed into the breach.

"Don't you believe it. There was a fire all right. Somebody stopped it,
or it stopped itself, that's all."

Tilting his chair forward with an effort, Rankin got to his feet, and,
as usual, his action brought the discussion to an end. The woman
returned to her work; the men put on hats and coats preparatory to going
out of doors. Only the proprietor stood passive a moment absently
drawing down his vest over his portly figure.

"Graham," he said at last, "hitch the mustangs to the light wagon."

"All right."

"And, Graham--"

The man addressed paused.

"Throw in a couple of extra blankets."

"All right."

Out of doors the men took up the conversation where they had left off.

"You better begin to hope the old man finds something that's been afire
up there, Grannis," said the joker of the house. "If he don't, you've
cooked your goose proper."

Grannis was a new-comer, and looked his surprise.

"Why so?" he asked.

"You'll find out why," retorted the other. "Fire here's 'most as
uncommon as rain, and the boss don't like them smoky jokes."

"But I saw smoke, I tell you," reiterated Grannis, defensively; "smoke,
dead sure!"

"All right, if you're certain sure."

"Marcom knows what he's talking about, Grannis," said Graham. "He tried
to ginger things up a bit when he was new here, like you are; found a
litter of coyotes one September--thought they were timber wolves, I
guess, and braced up with his story to the old man." The speaker paused
with a reflective grin.

"Well, what happened?" asked Grannis.

"What happened? The boss sent me dusting about forty miles to get some
hounds. Nearly spoiled a good team to get back inside sixteen hours,
and--they found out Bill here in the next thirty minutes, that was all!"
Once more the story ended in a grin.

"What'd Rankin say?" asked Grannis, with interest.

"How about it, Bill?" suggested Graham.

The big cowboy looked a trifle foolish.

"Oh, he didn't say much; 'tain't his way. He just remarked, sort of
off-hand, that as far as I was concerned the next year had only about
four pay-months in it. That was all."

* * * * *

Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing at once. This was the
motto of the master of the Box R Ranch. I