"I know you would."

"Best old pal a fellow ever had."

"It's really a pity you haven't a sister," she teased.

Bob guessed that June had brought him here to talk about Dud. He did, to the exclusion of all other topics. The girl listened gravely and patiently, but imps of mischief were kicking up their heels in her eyes.

"You give him a good recommendation," she said at last. "How about his friend?"

"Tom Reeves?"

"No, Bob Dillon." Her dark eyes met his fairly. "Oh, Bob, I'm _so_ glad."

He was suddenly flooded with self-consciousness. "About us preemptin'?"

he asked.

"No. About you being the hero of the campaign."

The ranger was miserably happy. He was ashamed to have the thing he had done dragged into the light, embarrassed to hear her use so casually a word that made him acutely uncomfortable. Yet he would not for the world have missed the queer little thrills that raced through him.

"That's plumb foolishness," he said.

"Yes, it is--not. Think I haven't heard all about it? How you dragged Jake Houck into the willows right spang from among the Utes? How you went to the river an' got him water? How you went for help when everybody thought you'd be killed? An' how you shamed Dud into going back with you?

I made Mr. Harshaw tell me all he knew--and Dud too. He said--Mr. Harshaw said--"

Bob interrupted this eager attack. "I'll tell you how it was, June. When I saw Houck lying out there with a busted leg I didn't know who he was--thought maybe it was Dud. So I had to go an' get him. If I'd known it was Houck--"

"You knew it was Houck before you dragged him back, didn't you?" she charged. "You knew it when you went to the river to get him water?"

"Truth is, I was scared so I shook," he confessed humbly. "But when a fellow's sufferin' like Jake Houck was--"

"Even your enemy."

"Oh, well, enemies don't count when you're fightin' Utes together. I had to look after him--couldn't duck it. Different with Dud when he rode back to get Tom Reeves. Did you hear about that?"

She put a damper on the sudden enthusiasm that lilted into his voice.

"Yes, I heard about that," she said dryly. "But we're talking of another man now. You've got to stand there an' take it, Bob. It won't last but a minute anyhow. I never was so tickled in my life before. When I thought of all you've suffered an' gone through, an' how now you've stopped the tongues of all the folks who jeered at you, I went to my room and cried like a little girl. You'll understand, won't you? I had to tell you this because we've promised to be friends. Oh, I am _so_ glad for you, Bob."

He swallowed a lump in his throat and nodded. "Yes, I'll understand, June. It--it was awful nice of you to tell me. I reckon you ought to hate me, the way I treated you. Most girls would."

She flashed a quick look at his flaming face. His embarrassment relieved hers.

"As if _you_ knew what most girls would think," she derided. Nevertheless she shifted the conversation to grounds less personal and dangerous. "Now you can tell me some more about that Dud you're always braggin' of."

Bob did not know as he talked of his friend that June found what he said an interpretation of Robert Dillon rather than Dudley Hollister.

[4] Piling up brush to protect the bank from being washed away.

CHAPTER XXXVII

A RESPONSIBLE CITIZEN

Dillon and Hollister were lounging on the bank of Elk Creek through the heat of the day. They had been chasing a jack-rabbit across the mesa for sport. Their broncos were now grazing close at hand.

"Ever notice how a jack-rabbit jumps high when it's crowded?" Dud asked idly.

Bob nodded. "Like a deer. Crowd one an' he gets to jumpin' high. 'D you see that jack turn a somersault just as I threw my rope the last time?"

Dud's keen eyes ranged the landscape. They were on the edge of the mesa where it dipped down into the valley. Since he and Bob had decided to preempt a quarter-section each, it had become a habit of his to study the localities over which they rode.

"Country looks good round here," he suggested.

"Yes," agreed his friend.

"What we lookin' for anyhow, Bob?"

"Wood, grass, and water."

"Well, they're right here, ain't they?"

Bob had been thinking the same thing himself. They saddled and quartered over the ground carefully. There was a wide stretch of meadow close to the junction of Elk Creek and the river. Upon part of it a growth of young willow had sprung up. But he judged that there was nearly one hundred and fifty acres of prairie. This would need no clearing. Rich wild grass already covered it luxuriously. For their first crop they could cut the native hay. Then they could sow timothy. There would be no need to plough the meadow. The seed could be disked in. Probably the land never would need ploughing, for it was a soft black loam.

"How about roads?" Bob asked. "The old-timers claim we'll never get roads here."

"Some one's going to take up all this river land mighty soon. That's a cinch. An' the roads will come right soon after the settlers. Fact is, we've got to jump if we're going to take up land on the river an' get a choice location."

"My notion too," agreed Bob. "We'd better get a surveyor out here this week."

They did. Inside of a month they had filed papers at the land office, built cabins, and moved their few possessions to the claims. Their houses were made of logs mud-chinked, with dirt floors and shake roofs instead of the usual flat dirt ones. They expected later to whipsaw lumber for the floors. A huge fireplace in one end of each cabin was used for cooking as well as for heat until such time as they could get stoves.

Already they planned a garden, and in the evenings were as likely to talk of turnips, beets, peas, beans, and potatoes as of the new Hereford bulls Larson and Harshaw were importing from Denver.

For the handwriting was on the wall. Cattlemen must breed up or go out of business. The old dogy would not do any longer. Already Utah stock was displacing the poor southern longhorns. Soon these, too, would belong to the past. Dud and Bob had vision enough to see this and they were making plans to get a near-pedigreed bull.

Dud sighed in reminiscent appreciation of the old days that were vanishing. He might have been seventy-two instead of twenty-two coming February. Behind him lay apparently all his golden youth.

"We got to adopt ourselves to new ways, old Sure-Shot," he ruminated aloud. "Got to quit hellin' around an' raisin' Cain. Leastways I have.

You never did do any o' that. Yes, sir, I got to be a responsible citizen."

The partner of the responsible citizen leaned back in a reclining chair which he had made from a plank sawed into five parts that were nailed together at angles.

"You'll be raisin' little towheads right soon," he said through a cloud of smoke.

"No, sir. Not me. Not Dud Hollister. I can boss my own se'f for a spell yet," the fair-haired youth protested vehemently. "When I said we got to adopt ourselves, I was thinkin' of barb-wire fences an' timothy hay. 'S all right to let the dogies rough through the winter an' hunt the gulches when the storms come. But it won't do with stock that's bred up. Harshaw lost close to forty per cent of his cattle three years ago. It sure put some crimp in him. He was hit hard again last winter. You know that. Say he'd had valuable stock. Why, it would put him outa business. Sure would."