head, and looking straight at Whitey.

"Oh, I know well enough. Lots of the cowboys do. It isn't so much of a
secret as you think. If you don't believe me ask your father--no, he ain't
your father--but ask the Old Man himself. Just ask him what your name is,
and where you came from, and see what he says."

Whitey was sneering now, and he chuckled as he looked at Len. Dave's face
paled beneath his tan, and he did not answer.

A nameless, picked-up nobody! How the words stung! And he had considered
himself, proudly considered himself, the son of one of the best-liked,
best-known and most upright cattle raisers of the Rolling River country.
Now who was he?

"Come on, Len," said Whitey. "If you've got the strays we'll drive them
back. Been out long enough as 'tis."

He wheeled his horse, Len doing the same, and they started after the
straying cattle.

"Hold on there, if you please," came in a drawling voice. "Jest cut out
them Bar U steers before you mosey off any farther, Whitey," and riding
around a little hillock came Pocus Pete.

"Um!" grunted Whitey.

"Guess you'll be needin' a pair of specks, won't you, Whitey?" went on the
Bar U foreman, without a glance at Len or Dave. "A Centre O brand an' a
Bar U looks mighty alike to a feller with poor eyes I reckon," and he