relative, but it was not so.

The mother could now distinguish the horseman plainly, though not as
much so as her daughter.

"I think it is father," she said, speaking her hope rather than her
conviction.

"No; it is not he," replied the daughter.

"Then it is Fred."

"No; you are mistaken; it is Budd."

"Alas and alas! why should it be he, and neither my husband nor son?"
wailed the parent.

Jennie was right. The man was the veteran cowboy, Budd Hankinson,
who had whirled the lasso on the arid plains of Arizona, the Llano
Estacado of Texas and among the mountain ranges of Montana; who had
fought Apaches in the southwest, Comanches in the south and Sioux
in the north, and had undergone hardships, sufferings, wounds and
privations before which many a younger man than he had succumbed.

No more skilful and no braver ranchman lived.

Budd had a way of snatching off his hat and swinging it about his head
at sight of the ladies. It was his jocular salutation to them, and
meant that all was well.