"He caught my boot one night," remarked Charley Bailey, reflectively, "right plumb on his near eye. Oh, he's a catcher, all right."

"He's so good he ought to be stuffed, then he could sit without having to move around catching boots and things," said Jim. "Why don't you have him stuffed, Humble?"

"Oh, yore a whole lot smart, now ain't you?" blazed the persecuted puncher, glaring at his tormentors.

"He can't catch his tail, Silent," offered Bud. "I once saw him trying to do it for ten minutes--he looked like a pinwheel what we used to have when we were kids. Missed it every time, and all he got was a cheap drunk."

Humble said a few things which came out so fast that they jammed up, and he left the room to hunt for his dog.

"Any particular reason why you call him Lightning, or is it just irony?"

asked The Orphan as he helped himself to the beef for the third time. "I never heard that name used before."

"Oh, it ain't irony at all!" hastily denied the foreman. "That's a real good name, fits him all right," he a.s.sured. Then he explained: "You see, lightning don't hit twice in the same place, and neither can the dog when he scratches himself. And, besides, he can dodge awful quick. You have to figure which way he'll jump when you want him to catch anything."

"But you don't have to remember his name at all, Stranger," interposed Silent, who was not at all silent. "Any handle will do, if you only yells.

Every time anybody yells he makes a crow line for the plain and howls at every jump. He's got a regular, sh.o.r.e enough trail worn where he makes his get-away."

Silence descended over the table, and for a quarter of an hour only the click of eating utensils could be heard. At the end of that time Blake pushed back his chair and arose. He glanced around the table and then spoke very distinctly: "Well, Orphan, get acquainted with your outfit." A head or two raised at the name, but that seemed to be all the effect of his words. "The boys will put you onto the game in the morning, and Bud will show you where to begin in case I don't show up in time. Better take a fresh cayuse and let yours rest up some. Don't hurt Humble's ki-yi and he'll be plumb nice to you; and if Silent wants to know how you likes his singing and banjo playing, lie and say it's fine."

The laugh went around and all was serene with the good fellowship which is so often found in good outfits.

"Joe, I'll bring the mail out with me, so you needn't go after it,"

continued the foreman as he strode towards the door. "That's what I'm going over for," he laughed.

"Lord, I'd go, too, if pie and cake and good coffee was on the card,"

laughed Silent.

"We'll sh.o.r.e have to go over in a gang some night and raid that pantry,"

remarked Bud. "It would be a circus, all right."

"The sheriff would get some good target practice, that's sh.o.r.e," responded Blake. "But I've got something better than that, and since you brought the subject up I'll tell you now, so you'll be good.

"Mrs. Shields has promised to get up a fine feed for you fellows as soon as Jim's sisters are on hand to help her, and as they are here now I wouldn't be a whole lot surprised if I brought the invitation back with me. How's that for a change, eh?" he asked.

"Glory be!" cried Silent. "Hurry up and get home!"

"Say, she's all right, ain't she!" shouted Jack, executing a jig to show how glad he was.

"Pinch me, Humble, pinch me!" begged Bud. "I may be asleep and dreaming--_here!_ What the devil do you think I am, you wart-headed coyote!" he yelled, dancing in pain and rubbing his leg frantically.

"You blamed doodle bug, yu!"

"Well, I pinched you, didn't I?" indignantly cried Humble. "What's eating you? Didn't you ask me to, you chump?"

"Hurry up and get that mail, Tom," cried Jim. "It might spoil--and say, if she leads at you with that invite, clinch!"

Blake laughed and went off toward the corral. As he found the horse he wished to ride he heard a riot in the bunk-house and he laughed silently.

A Virginia reel was in full swing and the noise was terrible. Riding past the window, he saw Silent working like a madman at his banjo; and a.s.siduously playing a harmonica was The Orphan, all smiles and puffed-out cheeks.

"Well, The Orphan is all right now," the foreman muttered as he swung out on the trail to Ford's Station. "I reckon he's found himself."

In the bunk-house there was much hilarity, and laughter roared continually at the grotesque gymnastics of the reel and at the sharp wit which cut right and left, respecting no one save the new member of the outfit, and eventually he came in for his share, which he repaid with interest.

Suddenly Jim, catching his spurs in a bear-skin rug which lay near a bunk, threw out his arms to save himself and then went sprawling to the floor. The uproar increased suddenly, and as it died down Jim could be heard complaining.

"---- ----!" he cried as he nursed his knee. "I've had that pelt for nigh onto three years and regularly I go and get tangled up with it. It sh.o.r.e beats all how I plumb forget its habit of wrapping itself around them rowels, what are too big, anyhow. And it ain't a big one at that, only about half as big as the one I got for a tenderfoot up in Montanny,"

he deprecated in disgust.

The outfit scented a story and became suddenly quiet.

"Dod-blasted postage stamp of a pelt," he grumbled as he threw it into his bunk.

"The other skin couldn't 'a' been much bigger than that one," said Bud, leading him on. "How big was it, anyhow, Jim?"

"It couldn't, hey? It came off a nine-foot grizzly, that's how big it was," retorted Jim, sitting down and filling his pipe. "Nine whole feet from stub of tail to snoot, plumb full of cussedness, too."

"How'd you get it--Sharps?" queried Charley.

"No, Colt," responded Jim. "Luckiest shot _I_ ever made, all right. I sh.o.r.e had visions of wearing wings when I pulled the trigger. Just one of them lucky shots a man will make sometimes."

"Give us the story, Jim," suggested Silent, settling himself easily in his bunk. "Then we'll have another smoke and go right to bed. I'm some sleepy."

"Well," began Jim after his pipe was going well, "I was sort of second foreman for the Tadpole, up in Montanny, about six years ago. I had a good foreman, a good ranch and about a dozen white punchers to look after. And we had a real cook, no mistake about that, all right.

"The Old Man hibernated in New York during the winter and came out every spring right after the calf round-up was over to see how we was fixed and to eat some of the cook's flapjacks. That cook wasn't no yaller-skinned post for a hair clothes line, like this grinning monkey what we've got here. The Old Man was a fine old cuss--one of the boys, and a darn good one, too--and we was always plumb glad to see him. He minded his own business, didn't tell us how we ought to punch cows and didn't bother anybody what didn't want to be bothered, which we most of us did like.

"Well, one day Jed Thompson, who rustled our mail for us twice a month, handed me a letter for the foreman, who was down South and wouldn't be back for some time. His mother had died and he went back home for a spell. I saw that the letter was from the Old Man, and wondered what it would say. I sort of figured that it would tell us when to hitch up to the buckboard and go after him. Fearing that he might land before the foreman got back, I went and opened it up.

"It was from the Old Man, all right, but it was no go for him that spring.

He was sick abed in New York, and said as how he was plumb sorry he couldn't get out to see his boys, and so was we sorry. But he said as how he was sending us a friend of his'n who wanted to go hunting, and would we see that he didn't shoot no cows. We said we would, and then I went on and found out when this hunter was due to land.

"When the unfortunate day rolled around I straddled the buckboard and lit out for Whisky Crossing, twenty miles to the east, it being the nearest burg on the stage line. And as I pulled in I saw Frank, who drove the stage, and he was grinning from ear to ear.

"'I reckon that's your'n,' he said, pointing to a circus clown what had got loose and was sizing up the town.

"'The drinks are on me when I sees you again, Frank,' I said, for somehow I felt that he was right.

"Then I sized up my present, and blamed if he wasn't all rigged out to kill Indians. While my mouth was closing he ambled up to me and stared at my gun, which must 'a' been purty big to him.

"'Are you Mr. Fisher's hired man?' he asked, giving me a real tolerating look.

"Frank followed his grin into the saloon, leaving the door open so he could hear everything. That made me plumb sore at Frank, him a-doing a thing like that, and I glared.

"'I ain't n.o.body's hired man, and never was,' I said, sort of riled. 'We ain't had no hired man since we lynched the last one, but I'm next door to the foreman. Won't I do, or do you insist on talking to a hired man?

If you do, he's in the saloon.'

"'Oh, yes, you'll do!' he said, quick-like, and then he ups and climbs aboard and we pulled out for home, Frank waving his sombrero at me and laughing fit to kill.

"We hadn't no more than got started when the hunter ups and grabs at the lines, which he sh.o.r.e missed by a foot. I was driving them cayuses, not him, and I told him so, too.