“So that’s why he went off grinning so wide,” he mused aloud.  “I was sure caught then with my gun at home on the piano.  I might have known better than to look for the real thing here, though you fellows have a few little marks that haven’t worn off yet.”

“Me?  Why, I’m a farmer, and I’m married, and I’m in a deuce of a stew because my spuds is drying up on me and no way to get water on ’em without I carry it to ’em in a jug,” disclaimed Andy Green hastily.  “All I know about punchers I learned from seeing picture shows when I go to town.  Now, Mig, here—­“.

“Oh, don’t go and reveal all of my guilty past,” protested the Native Son.  “Those three days I spent at a wild-west carnival show have about worked outa my system.  I’m still trying to wear out the clothes I won off some of the boys in a crap game,” he explained to Luck apologetically, “but my earmarks won’t outlast the clothes, believe me.”

Luck thoughtfully flicked the ash collar off his cigar.  “It won’t be any use then to go out to the Flying U, I suppose,” he observed tentatively, his eyes keen for their changing expressions.  “I may as well take the next train out, I reckon, and drift on down into Arizona and New Mexico.  I know about where some real punchers range—­but I thought there was no harm in looking up the pedigree of this Flying U outfit.  I’m sure some obliged to you boys for heading me off.”  Back of his eyes there was a laugh, but Andy Green and the Native Son were looking queerly at each other and did not see it there.

“Oh, well, now you’re this close, you wouldn’t be losing anything by going on out to the ranch, anyway,” Andy recanted guardedly.  “Come to think of it, there’s one regular old-time ranger out there.  They call him Slim.  He’s sure a devil on a horse—­Slim is.  I’d forgot about him when I spoke.  He’s a ranger, all right.”

Luck knew very well that Andy Green had used the word “ranger” with the deliberate attempt to appear ignorant of the terminology of the range.  A cow-puncher comes a long way from being a ranger, as every one knows.  A ranger is a man of another profession entirely.

“It used to be a real cattle ranch, they tell me,” added the Native Son artfully.  “We live out near there, and if you wanted to ride out—­”

Luck appeared undecided.  He sucked at his cigar, and he blew out the smoke thoughtfully, and contemplated the toe of one neat, tan shoe.  Just plain acting, it was; just a playing of his part in the little game they had started.  Better than if they had boasted of their range knowledge and their prowess in the saddle did Luck know that the dried little man had told him the truth.  He knew that at the Flying U he would find a remnant of the old order of things.  He would find some real boys, if these two were a fair sample of the bunch.  That they lied to him about themselves and their fellows was but a sign that they accepted him as one of their breed.  He looked them over with gladdened eyes.  He listened to the unconscious tang of the range that was in their talk.  These two farmers?  He could have laughed aloud at the idea.