Instantly Banty found his heart warming towards this big pink cousin, who bore with such sturdy good humor the affliction of such a terrible name.  “It is bad,” he assented, “but it might be doctored.  Haven’t you got a middle name?”

“It’s worse,” grinned the victim.  “It’s St. Ives.  I tried it on the second term, and the crowd called me ‘Ivy,’ and one smartie sent me a piece of blue ribbon to tie my yellow curls with—­he wrote that in an insulting note.”

“What’d you do?” gasped Banty.

“Licked him in full view of the whole school, and he was a senior; trimmed him till he couldn’t see,” was the smiling reply.

“Good boy!” almost shouted Banty.  “You’re the stuff for out West.  I’m glad you came.”

“I’m glad, too,” answered his cousin, “but I’ll be ‘gladder’ if you will tell me where I can get some togs like yours.  I declare, but I like that outfit,” and he looked enviously at Banty’s leather chaps, blue flannel shirt, scarlet silk neckerchief and cowboy hat.

“These duds?” questioned Banty.  “Oh, you can get them anywhere.  They’d hardly suit you, though.”  And he measured the stranger with a critical eye.

“Suit or not, I’m going to have them,” said “Con”—­as his genial father called him.  “Let’s go right to the shops and get an outfit now.”

So Banty tied up the horses, stowed the luggage away in the afterpart of the trap, and led the way to the trader’s.

When they started for the ranch, Con had, in addition to his English bags, boxes, shawl-straps and portmanteaus, a most beautiful outfit of typical Western finery, a handsome Mexican saddle, a crop, a quirt, fringed gauntlet gloves, chaps, Stetson hat, silk handkerchief, ties, and three pairs of sporting and riding boots.

“We’ll put these patent leathers gently into the river, or on a shelf, until I face the East again,” he said, half apologetically.  Then with a quick burst of English simplicity, he said:  “Oh, Banty, I want to be one of you!”

“And you’re going to be one of us,” said that sturdy young Westerner.  “In fact, Con—­well, you just are one of us,” he added.

The lanky, pink-faced boy grew pinker.

“I know I’m an awful length and all that,” he said, “but I’m only sixteen, don’t you know!”

Banty grinned.  The “Don’t you know,” which at first horrified him, was, oddly enough, growing to be almost fascinating.  Banty would have felt himself an awful owl were he to say it, but it somehow suited the tall, pink boy, and did not sound one particle “dudish,” or offensive, and during the ten-mile drive across the Kamloops Hills Banty decided that Con was a first-rate fellow, notwithstanding his abominable clothes and “swagger” English accent.  At the ranch house door they were greeted by Banty’s parents and a couple of range riders, and Eena, who, Indian-like, never revealed the fact by word or look that he had observed the patent leather shoes, and the wonderful high collar; who, also Indian-like, in spite of these drawbacks, liked the stranger without cause, a peculiar instinct of liking that came when the young King Georgeman shook hands with him, a wholesome British “shake” that engendered confidence.