e half the man you
are at your age," he laughed.

"You will be--if you buy the Y Bar outfit. Believe me young man, there's
enough to do around that outfit to keep a man up an' jumpin' if he was a
hundred an' seventy. A man just naturally ain't got time to get old!"

"Win tells me the ranch is sixty miles from here," smiled Alice, "and
that's a pretty good ride for anybody."

"Pretty good ride! Young woman, if that was all the ridin' I done today
I'd b'en here before breakfast. I couldn't get away till afternoon--up
before daylight this mornin', rode two horses plumb off their feet
huntin' the wagons--foreman quit yesterday--best blamed foreman I ever
had, too. Just up an' quit cold because he took a notion. Tried every
which way to get him to stay--might's well talk to a rock. Away he went,
Lord knows where, leavin' me nothin' on my mind except bein' owner,
manager, ranch boss, an' wagon boss, besides tryin' to sell the outfit.
Confounded young whelp! Best doggone cow-hand on the range."

"Why did you have to hunt wagons, and what has a wagon boss got to do
with a cattle ranch?" asked the girl.

"The wagons are the round-up--the rodeo. We're right in the middle of
the calf round-up. The grub wagon an' the bed wagon makes what you
might call the field headquarters for the round-up--move every day till
they cover the whole range."

"How interesting!" exclaimed the girl, "I know I'm going to love it!"

"Sure is interesting," remarked the old man, drily, "with the wagons
twenty or thirty miles out in the foothills, an' workin' over into the
sheep country, an' eighteen or twenty knot-headed cow-hands hatin'
sheep, an' no foreman to hold 'em level, an' hayin' on full tilt at the
home ranch, an' the ranch hands all huntin' the shade! Yes'm,
interestin's one word for it--but there's a shorter one that I'm afraid
the parson, here, wouldn't recommend that describes it a heap better."

"By the way," said Endicott, "Mr. Cameron tells me that the cattle and
sheep situation is a rather delicate one hereabouts. He says that you
hold the respect of both factions--that you seem to have a peculiar
knack in keeping the situation in hand----"

"Peculiar knack!" exclaimed the ranchman, "peculiar knack's got nothin'
to do with it! Common sense, young man! Just plain common sense, an'
maybe the ability to see that other folks has got rights, same as I
have. The Y Bar stands for a square deal all the way around--when its
own calves a