"If ye got five hundred cold plunks in yaller ye kin get him; if not,
you walk straight to that tree thar an' don't drop yer hands or turn
or I'll fire. Now start."

Mountain etiquette is very strict, and Lan, being without weapons,
must needs obey the rules. He marched to the distant tree under cover
of the revolver. The wail of little Jack smote painfully on his ear,
but he knew the ways of the mountaineers too well to turn or make
another offer, and the stranger went on.

Many a man has spent a thousand dollars in efforts to capture some
wild thing and felt it worth the cost--for a time. Then he is willing
to sell it for half cost, then for quarter, and at length he ends by
giving it away. The stranger was vastly pleased with his comical Bear
cubs at first, and valued them proportionately; but each day they
seemed more troublesome and less amusing, so that when, a week later,
at the Bell-Cross Ranch, he was offered a horse for the pair, he
readily closed, and their days of hamper-travel were over.

The owner of the ranch was neither mild, refined, nor patient. Jack,
good-natured as he was, partly grasped these facts as he found himself
taken from the pannier, but when it came to getting cranky little Jill
out of the basket and into a collar, there ensued a scene so
unpleasant that no collar was needed. The ranchman wore his hand in a
sling for two weeks, and Jacky at his chain's end paced the ranch-yard
alone.



V. THE RIVER HELD IN THE FOOTHILLS