ly into the
bed-tent.

"By golly!" spoke up Slim, "it looks good enough to eat."

"Where did yuh pluck that modest flower, Chip?" Jack Bates wanted to
know.

Chip calmly sifted some tobacco in a paper. "I picked it in town," he
told them. "I hired it to punch cows, and its name is--wait a minute."
He put away the tobacco sack, got out his book, and turned the leaves.
"Its name is Percival Cadwallader Perkins."

"Oh, mamma! Percival Cadwolloper--what?" Weary looked utterly at sea.

"Perkins," supplied Chip.

"Percival--Cad-wolloper--Perkins," Weary mused aloud. "Yuh want to
double the guard to-night, Chip; that name'll sure stampede the bunch."

"He's sure a sweet young thing--mamma's precious lamb broke out uh the
home corral!" said Jack Bates. "I'll bet yuh a tall, yellow-haired
mamma with flowing widow's weeds'll be out here hunting him up inside a
week. We got to be gentle with him, and not rub none uh the bloom uh
innocence off his rosy cheek. Mamma had a little lamb, his cheeks were
red and rosy. And everywhere that mamma went--er--everywhere--that
mamma--went----"

"The lamb was sure to mosey," supplied Weary.

"By golly! yuh got that backward," Slim objected. "It ought uh be:
Everywhere the lambie went; his mamma was sure to mosey."

The reappearance of Pink cut short the discussion. Pink as he had
looked before was pretty as a poster. Pink as he reappeared would have
driven a matinee crowd wild with enthusiasm. On the stage he would be
in danger of being Hobsonized; in the Flying U camp the Happy Family
looked at him and drew a long breath. When his back was turned, they
shaded their eyes ostentatiously from the blaze of his splendor.

He still wore his panama, and the dainty pink-and-white striped silk
shirt, the gray trousers, and russet-leather belt with silver buckle.
But around his neck, nestling under his rounded chin, was a gorgeous
rose-pink silk handkerchief, of the hue that he always wore, and that
had given him the nickname of "Pink."

His white hands were hidden in a pair of wonderful silk-embroidered
buckskin gauntlets. His gray trousers were tucked into number four tan
riding-boots, high as to heel--so high that they looked two sizes
smaller--and gorgeous as to silk-stitched tops. A shiny, new pair of
silver-mounted spurs jingled from his heels.

He smiled trustfully at Chip, and leaned, with the studiously graceful
pose of the stage, against a hind wheel of the mess