Bud hastily untied the two led horses and mounted Smoky, the
mouse-colored horse he himself had broken two years before.

His father came slowly up to him, straight-backed and with
the gait of the man who has ridden astride a horse more than
he has walked on his own feet. He put up his hand, gloved for
riding, and Bud changed the lead-ropes from his right hand to
his left, and shook hands rather formally.

"Ye've good weather for travelling," said Bob Birnie
tentatively. "I have not said it before, lad, but when ye own
yourself a fool to take this way of making your fortune, ten
thousand dollars will still be ready to start ye right. I've
no wish to shirk a duty to my family."

Bud pressed his lips together while he listened. "If you keep
your ten thousand till it's called for, you'll be drawing
interest a long time on it," He said. "It's going to be hot
to-day. I'll be getting along."

He lifted the reins, glanced back to see that the two horses
were showing the proper disposition to follow, and rode off
down the deep-rutted road that followed up the creek to the
pass where he had watched the Utes dancing the war dance one
night that he remembered well. If he winced a little at the
familiar landmarks he passed, he still held fast to the
determination to go, and to find fortune somewhere along the
trail of his own making; and to ask help from no man, least
of all his father who had told him to go.