“Them’s the Old Man’s pies,” declared Jimmie, leaning over the window-sill and shaking an indignant fist at the Kid.  “You bring ’em back, you hear?”

“They ain’t, and I won’t, and I do,” was the brisk answer.  “Yo’re making a big mistake, Jimmie boy, if you think they’re his pies.  Don’t you s’pose I know he’s gone to Piegan City, and he won’t be back for a coupla weeks?  And don’t you s’pose I know them pies would be too stale for him to eat by the time he got back?  You must take me for a fool, Jimmie.  And you lied to me, Jimmie, you lied.  Just for that I’ll keep these pies, I’ll keep ’em and eat ’em no matter how big a pain I get, and let this be a lesson to you.  Hey, Racey, Jimmie gimme a coupla pies!  C’mon out and we’ll eat ’em where Jimmie can watch us.”

“If I catch you—­” began the angry Jimmie.

“But you ain’t gonna catch me,” tantalized the Kid.  “C’mon, Racey, hurry up.”

Racey came slowly and with dignity.

The Kid stared.  “Well, I bedam!  Where are you goin’?”

“Ride, just a li’l ride,” was the vague reply.

“Is that all?  I thought it was a funeral or a wedding or something, an’ I was wonderin’.  Just a li’l ride, huh?  And where might you be a-going to ride to, if I may make so bold as to ask?”

“You can ask, of course,” replied Racey, shrugging his wide shoulders and spreading his hands after the fashion of Telescope Laguerre.

“But that ain’t sayin’ he’ll tell you,” put in Jimmie.  “Bet you he’s gonna go see that new hasher of Bill Lainey’s.”

“No,” denied the Kid, judicially, “not that lady.  Even Racey’s arms ain’t long enough to reach round her.  I—­Say, one of these pies is a raisin pie!”

“You can gimme that one,” suggested Racey Dawson, glad of an opportunity to change the subject.

The Kid, his teeth sunk in the raisin pie, shook a decisive head and mumbled unintelligibly.  He thrust the other pie toward his friend.

Racey Dawson rode away westward munching pie.  And it was a very good pie, and would have brought credit to any cook.  He regretfully ate the last crumb, and rolled a cigarette.  He felt fairly full and at utter peace with the world.  Why not?  Wasn’t it a good old world, and a mighty friendly world despite the Harpes and Tweezys and Joneses that infested it?  I should say so.

Racey Dawson inhaled luxuriously, pushed back his wide hat, and let the breeze ruffle his brown hair.  He rubbed the back of one hand across his straight eyebrows, and stared across the range toward the distant hills that marked his goal.  Which goal was the old C Y ranch-house at Moccasin Spring on Soogan Creek, where lived the Dales and their daughter Molly.