* * * * *

The Happy Family, together with the aliens who swelled the crew to round-up size, was foregathered at the largest Flying U corral, watching a bunch of newly bought horses circle, with much snorting and kicking up of dust, inside the fence.  It was the interval between beef-and calf-roundups, and the witchery of Indian Summer held the range-land in thrall.

Andy, sizing up the bunch and the brands, lighted upon a rangy blue roan that he knew—­or thought he knew, and the eyes of him brightened with desire.  If he could get that roan in his string, he told himself, he could go to sleep in the saddle on night-guard; for an easier horse to ride he never had straddled.  It was like sitting in grandma’s pet rocking chair when that roan loosened his muscles for a long, tireless gallop over the prairie sod, and as a stayer Andy had never seen his equal.  It was not his turn to choose, however, and he held his breath lest the rope of another should settle over the slatey-black ears ahead of him.

Cal Emmett roped a plump little black and led him out, grinning satisfaction; from the white saddle-marks back of the withers he knew him for a “broke” horse, and he certainly was pretty to look at.  Andy gave him but a fleeting glance.

Happy Jack spread his loop and climbed down from the fence, almost at Andy’s elbow.  It was his turn to choose.  “I betche that there blue roan over there is a good one,” he remarked.  “I’m going to tackle him.”

Andy took his cigarette from between his lips.  “Yuh better hobble your stirrups, then,” he discouraged artfully.  “I know that roan a heap better than you do.”

“Aw, gwan!” Happy, nevertheless, hesitated.  “He’s got a kind eye in his head; yuh can always go by a horse’s eye.”

“Can yuh?” Andy smiled indifferently.  “Go after him, then.  And say, Happy:  if yuh ride that blue roan for five successive minutes, I’ll give yuh fifty dollars.  I knew that hoss down on the Musselshell; he’s got a record that’d reach from here to Dry Lake and back.”  It was a bluff, pure and simple, born of his covetousness, but it had the desired effect—­or nearly so.

Happy fumbled his rope and eyed the roan.  “Aw, I betche you’re just lying,” he hazarded; but, like many another, when he did strike the truth he failed to recognize it.  “I betche—­”

“All right, rope him out and climb on, if yuh don’t believe me.”  The tone of Andy was tinged with injury.  “There’s fifty dollars—­yes, by gracious, I’ll give yuh a hundred dollars if yuh ride him for five minutes straight.”

A conversation of that character, carried on near the top of two full-lunged voices, never fails in the range land to bring an audience of every male human within hearing.  All other conversations and interests were immediately suspended, and a dozen men trotted up to see what it was all about.  Andy remained roosting upon the top rail, his rope coiled loosely and dangling from one arm while he smoked imperturbably.