The old lady grunted as she gave Jimmy a keen look.  “What’s her mother say about her?”

“Why, you know Mrs. Falkner isn’t back from Mountain City yet.  She left before Charleton went out after wild horses,” replied Jimmy.

“How should I know?  I’ve hardly been off the ranch this summer.  I guess I will stop by.”

Old Johnny cleared his throat.  “I was thinking I’d ask John if he’d let me go along up with him and Judith when they went to Mountain City.  I got quite a gregus sum of money saved up and I never did see Frontier Day yet.”

“That’s right, Johnny!  You ask him,” said Douglas, with a remote twinkle in his eye.

“Johnny, you are a fool, I swear!” exclaimed Grandma.  “Let me catch you lally-gagging off to Mountain City!  Come on, let’s get started.”

“Anyhow, Doug is my friend,” said the old man, belligerently, as he followed his sister.

“If I go, I’ll take you along, Johnny!” exclaimed Douglas.  “See if I don’t!”

“You sure are crazy, Doug!” laughed Jimmy.

“I like the old boy,” insisted Douglas.  “He and I had better go up and see Jude rake in the prizes.”

“Right now every prize has been doled out to the regulars,” cried Jimmy.  “But you should care, Jude!  You’ll have the grandstand with you, every minute, if the judges aren’t.”

“It will be the big event of my life whether I win or not,” said Judith.  “What’s the matter with Little Marion, Jimmy?  I don’t even remember her at the rodeo.”

“O, she’s busy, you see.  I never did know a busier girl than Marion.  I’m busy too, with Charleton gone so long.  And that fourth-class postmaster of ours sent a lot of unclaimed magazines and mail order catalogs up to the house.  We’ve been reading those.  Say, I bet I know everything that’s for sale in the United States.  I’m the most price-listed rider in the Rockies.”

“I’ll be getting down to see Marion to-night or to-morrow,” said Judith.

“O, you needn’t bother,” returned Jimmy.  “It’s a long trip, and she’ll be all right.”

“So you and Little Marion have been baching it!” mused Douglas.  “Hang Charleton, he promised to take me out after wild horses!”

“He generally goes by himself.”  Jimmy mounted his horse.  “He’s a lone hunter, Charleton.”

“When are you folks going to be married?” asked Douglas.

Jimmy turned his roan homeward.  “I don’t know,” he answered soberly.

“I wish I could have gone with Charleton,” remarked Douglas, watching Judith as she rubbed Sioux’s head.

“Charleton!  I should think you’d hate a long trip with that old coyote.  I hate him.”

“It isn’t to be with Charleton I want to go.  I want to get me some wild horses.  But there was a time when I sure was crazy about being with him.  I thought he knew more about how a fellow could get happiness out of life than any one.”

“Nobody in the Valley knows as much as Inez.”