“Somebody’ll have to go back to camp,” said Cal Emmett, in the hushed tone that death ever compels from the living.  “We’ve got to have a spade—­”

“It better be the handiest liar, then,” Jack Bates put in hastily.  “If that old loose-tongued Patsy ever gets next—­”

“Weary better go—­and Pink.  They’re the best liars in the bunch,” said Cal, trying unsuccessfully to get back his everyday manner.

Pink and Weary went over and took the dragging bridle-reins of their mounts, caught a stirrup and swung up into the saddles silently.

“And say!” Happy Jack called softly, as they were going down the slope.  “Yuh better bring—­a blanket.”

Weary nodded, and they rode away, their horses stepping softly in the thick grasses.  When they were passed quite out of the presence of the dead, they spurred their horses into a gallop.

The sun marked mid-afternoon when they returned, and the four who had waited drew long breaths of relief at sight of them.

“We told Patsy we’d run onto a—­den—­”

“Oh, shut up, can’t yuh?” Jack Bates interrupted shortly.  “Yuh’ll have plenty uh time to tell us afterwards.”

“We’ve got a place picked out,” said Cal, and led them a little distance up the slope, to a level spot in the shadow of a huge, gray bowlder.  “That’s his headstone,” he said, soberly.  “The poor devil won’t be cheated out uh that, if we can’t mark it with his name.  It’ll last as long as he’ll need it.”

Only in the West, perhaps, may one find a funeral like that.  No minister stood at the head of the grave and read, “Dust to dust” and all the heartbreaking rest of it.  There was no singing but from a meadowlark that perched on a nearby rock and rippled his brief song when, with their ropes, they lowered the blanket wrapped form.  They stood, with bare heads bowed, while the meadow lark sang.  When he had flown, Pink, looking a choir-boy in disguise, repeated softly and incorrectly the Lord’s prayer.

The Happy Family did not feel that there was any incongruity in what they did.  When Pink, gulping a little over the unfamiliar words, said: 

“Thine be power and glory—­Amen;” five clear, youthful voices added the Amen quite simply.  Then they filled the grave and stood silent a minute before they went down to where their horse stood waiting patiently, with now and then a curious glance up the hill to where their masters grouped.

The Happy Family mounted and without a backward glance rode soberly away; and the trail they took led, not to the picnic, but to camp.

THE REVELER

Happy Jack, coming from Dry Lake where he had been sent for the mail, rode up to the Flying U camp just at dinner time and dismounted gloomily and in silence.  His horse looked fagged—­which was unusual in Happy’s mounts unless there was urgent need of haste or he was out with the rest of the Family and constrained to adopt their pace, which was rapid.  Happy, when riding alone, loved best to hump forward over the horn and jog along slowly, half asleep.