“Yes, sir—­you bet!”

“Oh.  You do?  Well, get in.”

At the corral he turned again to Johnny.  “Stop at the house when you’re ready.  There’s a pile of Modern Mechanics you may as well take along.  You won’t have any too much time for reading, though—­not if you work the way you rhyme.”

“Well, I hope I work better,” said Johnny, his spirits risen to where speech bubbled.  “I get paid for my work—­and I guess I’d starve writing poetry for a living.”

“Yes, I guess you would.  Good thing you know it.”  Sudden swung his machine around and drove into the garage, and Johnny, untying his rope from his saddle, went into the corral to catch two fairly gentle horses.

When he was ready he rode over to the bungalow, leading the gentlest horse packed with bedding roll, “war bag,” and a few odds and ends that Johnny wanted to take along.  Sudden was waiting on the porch with a rifle, cartridge belt and two extra boxes of ammunition, and a sack half full of magazines.  He stood with his hands in his pockets while Johnny tied rifle and sack on the saddle.

“Now I want you to understand, Johnny, that you’re going down there on special work,” he said, coming down the steps and standing close to the horse.  “There’s a telephone, and that’s your protection if anything looks off-color.  Keep the stock pushed back pretty well away from the line fences.  There’s some good feed in those draws over east of Sinkhole creek.  Let ’em graze in there—­but keep an eye out for rustlers.  Get to know the bunches of horses and watch their moves.  You’ll soon know whether they are being bothered.  Pete leaves camp this afternoon.  You’ll probably meet him.

“And this gun—­well, you keep it right with you.  I don’t want you to go around hunting trouble, but I want you to be ready for it if it comes.  A horse looks awfully good to a greaser, remember.  But no greaser likes the looks of a white man with a gun.  Now let’s see how much brains you’ve got for the job, young man.  If you see to it that no Rolling R stuff comes up missing, and do it without any trouble, I’ll call that making good.”

“All right, I’ll try and make good, then.”  Johnny’s shoulders went back.  “When a man’s got some object in life besides just earning a living, he—­”

From within the house full-toned chords were struck from a piano.  Johnny scowled, gave his packed horse a yank, and rode off.  Couldn’t that girl ever let up on a fellow?  Playing that darn fool tune over and over!  It sure showed how much brains she had in her head!  He hoped she’d get enough of it.  If he was her mother or her father, he knew what he’d do with her and the whole outfit.  He’d stand ’em all up in a row and make ’em sing that fool song till they were hoarse as calves on the fifth day of weaning.  There was a time, too, when he had liked that girl.  If she had shown any brains or feeling, he could have loved Mary V. Good thing he found out in time.