And, Pink, I wish you'd keep this quiet--about him having Chub. I told
Rodway I couldn't put him next to the fellow that brought that bunch across
the line. I told him the fellow went north and got killed. He did go
north--fifty miles or so; and he'd ought to been killed, if he wasn't. Let
it go that way, Pink."

Pink looked like a cherub-faced child when he has been told there's no Santa
Claus. "Sure, if yuh say so," he stammered dubiously. He eyed Rowdy
reproachfully, and then looked away to the horizon. He kicked the rock out
of place, and then poked it painstakingly back with his toe--and from the
look of him, he did not know there was a rock there at all.

"How'd yuh happen to run across Rodway?" he asked guilelessly.

"I stopped there last night. I got to milling around in that storm, and ran
across the schoolma'am that boards at Rodway's, She was plumb lost, too, so
we dubbed around together for a while, and finally got inside Rodway's
field. Then Chub come alive and piloted us to the house. This morning Rodway
claimed him--says the brand has been worked from a Roman four. Oh, it's all
straight goods," he added hastily. "Old Eagle Creek here knew him, too."

But Pink was not thinking of Chub. He hunched his chap-belt higher and spat
viciously into the snow. "I knowed it," he declared, with melancholy
triumph. "It's school-ma'amitis that's gave yuh softening uh the vitals, and
not no Christian charity play. How comes it you're took that way, all
unbeknown t' your friends? Yuh never used t' bother about no female girls.
It's a cinch you're wise that she's Harry's sister; and I admit she's a
swell looker. But so's he; and I should think, Rowdy, you'd had about enough
uh that brand uh snake."