fference. Yuh mind the queer look in his eyes? And he acts queer.
So help me Josephine! I'd sure like to get next to the man that traded
horses with him."

The Happy Family breathed deeply; they were all, apparently, thinking
the same thing.

"By golly, that's what," spoke Slim, with decision. "He does act like
a man that had been doped."

"Whisky straight wouldn't make that much difference in a man," averred
Jack Bates. "Yuh can't _get_ Weary on the fight, hardly, when he's
sober; and look at the way he was in town--hot to slaughter that
Chinaman that wasn't doing a thing to him, and saying how he hated
Chinks. Weary don't; he always says, when Patsy don't make enough pie
to go round, that if he was running the outfit he'd have a Chink to
cook."

"Aw, look at the way he acted t' Rusty--and he thinks a lot uh Rusty,
too," put in Happy Jack, who felt the importance of discovery and was
in an unusually complacent mood. "And he was going t' hang Pink up by
the heels and--"

Pink turned round and looked at him fixedly, and Happy Jack became
suddenly interested in his cigarette.

"Say, he'll sure be sore when he comes to himself, though," observed
Cal. "I don't know how he's going to square himself with his
school-ma'am. Joe Meeker was into Rusty's place while the big setting
comes off; I would uh given him a gentle hint about keeping his face
closed, only Weary wouldn't let me off my horse. Joe'll sure give a
high-colored picture uh the performance."

"Well, if he does, he'll regret it a lot," prophesied Pink. "And
anyway, something sure got wrong with Weary; do yuh suppose he'd give
up Glory deliberately? Not on your life! Glory comes next to the
Schoolma'am in his affections."

"Wonder where he got that dirt-colored cayuse, anyhow," mused Cal.

"I was studying out the brand, a while ago," Pink answered. "It's
blotched pretty bad, but I made it out. It's the Rocking R--they range
down along Milk River, next to the reservation. I've never had
anything to do with the outfit, but I'd gamble on the brand, all right."

"Well, how the deuce would he come by a Rocking R horse? He never got
it around here, anywheres. He must uh got it up on the Marias."

"Then that must be a good long jag he's had--which I don't believe,"
interjected Cal.

"Somebody," said Pink meaningly, "ought to have gone along with him;
this thing wouldn't uh happened, then."

"Ye-e-s?" Chip felt that the remark applied to h