he had need to shield him like he had done. Still, Rodway would wonder why
he hadn't told it at first; and that little girl believed in Harry, and said
he was "splendid!" Humph! He wondered if she really meant that. If she
did--

He squared his back to the house--and the memory of Miss Conroy's eyes--and
plodded across the field to the gate. Now the sun was shining, and there was
no possibility of getting lost. The way to the Cross L lay straight and
plain before him.

Rowdy rode leisurely up over the crest of a ridge beyond which lay the home
ranch of the Cross L. Whether it was henceforth to be his home he had yet to
discover--though there was reason for hoping that it would be. Even so
venturesome a man as Rowdy Vaughan would scarce ride a long hundred miles
through unpeopled prairie, in the tricky month of March, without some reason
for expecting a welcome at the end of his journey. In this case, a previous
acquaintance with "Wooden Shoes" Mielke, foreman of the Cross L, was Rowdy's
trump-card. Wooden Shoes, whenever chance had brought them together in the
last two or three years, was ever urging Rowdy to come over and unroll his
soogans in the Cross L bed-tent, and promising the best string in the outfit
to ride--besides other things alluring to a cow-puncher. So that, when his
relations with the Horseshoe Bar became strained, Rowdy remembered his
friend of the Cross L and the promises, and had drifted south.

Just now he hoped that Wooden Shoes would be home to greet him, and his eyes
searched wishfully the huddle of low-eaved cabins and the assortment of
sheds and corrals for the bulky form of the foreman. But no one seemed to be
about--except a bigbodied, bandy-legged individual, who appeared to be
playfully chasing a big, bright bay stallion inside the large enclosure
where stood the cabins.