After the midnight supper had been disposed Of the punchers strolled forth again. Ned and Chunky were in consultation, for the puncher, knowing that Mrs. Haines had somehow conceived the idea that the young scout leader had a long head for a boy and could be depended on in an emergency, realized that it was the right thing to put certain things up to him. Of course, Chunky knew best what should be done, and Ned quickly told him to exercise his own judgment in the matter of guarding the big stockade in which the cattle had been shut up. The boys were all tired after such a long and arduous experience. Even Jack, who as a rule could stand for almost anything, admitted that he could hardly put one foot in front of the other, he felt so stiff. "That's because I'm not used to being so long in the saddle and playing the game they have out here," he acknowledged, "but given a chance, and we'll show our friends, the punchers, that scouts can ride pretty decently. I'm going to pick up all the kinks of the job while I'm on it; and before we leave here we ought to know how to throw a rope, drop a steer, use the branding iron on his flank, and ride the trickiest broncho there is to a stand-still." "That's me," asserted Jimmy, like a flash. "He's a spotted little devil, too, and his name, sure it's Satan, or if it ain't it ought to be. He beat me out in the first clash and run me all the way home, like a blue streak; but there's another day acomin', don't you forget it; and that score between Jimmy McGraw and Satan has got to be rubbed out. I'm on to his curves now and I'll sting him, or it's me chased to the tall timber. You hear me warble, boys!" "Then we'll expect to have lots of fun out of the circus, Jimmy," said Harry, "because they've been telling me that calico pony has got the meanest name around here. Some of the boys heard you boasting about how you could manage any animal, and they just couldn't help running that beast in on you. But if Uncle Job had been here I don't think they'd have dared to take the risk. You might have been killed." "He didn't get me off and that's some comfort," muttered Jimmy, grimly, "I'm a good sticker, you see." "Yes, I noticed that it was hard work to get you away from that table," Jack remarked, with a chuckle. They had been given comfortable quarters on the ground floor, for the ranch house really boasted of two stories in part. Cots took the place of beds, but they seemed to be all that might be desired; and, as Jack said, were a thousand per cent better than the hard ground, or the hot sand of the desert, which had been their resting place ever since they left Los Angeles, in that ramshackle automobile that had played them false on the journey and had to be abandoned.