“Oh,” laughed Bronson, “call it chicken.  He’ll eat just as heartily.”

“The ranger is up,” said Dorothy.  “I can hear him whistling.”

“Then let’s have breakfast and get this big fellow ready to roast.  It will take some time.”

An hour later, Lorry, fresh-faced and smiling, knocked on the lintel of their open doorway.

Bronson, in his shirt-sleeves and wearing a diminutive apron to which clung a fluff of turkey feathers, came from the kitchen.

“Good-morning.  You’ll excuse my daughter.  She is busy.”

“I just came over to ask how she was.”

“Thank you.  She is much better.  We want you to have dinner with us.”

“Thanks.  But I got some beans going—­”

“But this is chicken, man!  And it is Sunday.”

Lorry’s gray eyes twinkled.  “Chickens are right scarce up here.  And chicken sure tastes better on Sunday.  Was you goin’ to turn your stock out with mine?”

“That’s so!”

They turned Bronson’s horses out, and watched them charge down the mesa toward the three animals grazing lazily in the morning sunshine.

“Your horses will stick with mine,” said Lorry.  “They won’t stray now.”

“Did I hear a piano this morning, or did I dream that I heard some one playing?”

“Oh, it was me, foolin’ with Bud’s piano in there.  Bud’s got an amazin’ music-box.  Ever see it?”

“No.  I haven’t been in your cabin.”

“Well, come right along over.  This was Bud’s camp when he was homesteadin’.  Ever see a piano like that?”

Bronson gazed at the carved and battered piano, stepping close to it to inspect the various brands.  “It is rather amazing.  I didn’t know Mr. Shoop was fond of music.”

“Well, he can’t play reg’lar.  But he sure likes to try.  You ought to hear him and Bondsman workin’ out that ‘Annie Laurie’ duet.  First off, you feel like laughin’.  But Bud gets so darned serious you kind of forget he ain’t a professional.  ‘Annie Laurie’ ain’t no dance tune—­and when Bud and the dog get at it, it is right mournful.”

“I have seen a few queer things,”—­and Bronson laughed,—­“but this beats them all.”

“You’d be steppin’ square on Bud’s soul if you was to josh him about that piano,” said Lorry.

“I wouldn’t.  But thank you just the same.  You have a neat place here, Adams.”

“When you say ‘neat’ you say it all.”

“I detest a fussy camp.  One gets enough of that sort of thing in town.  Is that a Gallup saddle or a Frazier?”

“Frazier.”

“I used a Heiser when I was in Mexico.  They’re all good.”

“That’s what I say.  But there’s a hundred cranks to every make of saddle and every rig.  You said you were in Mexico?”

“Before I was married.  As a young man I worked for some of the mines.  I went there from college.”

“I reckon you’ve rambled some.”  And a new interest lightened Lorry’s eyes.  Perhaps this man wasn’t a “plumb tenderfoot,” after all.