“He doesn't behave like a horse that has made the long trip he has made,” Bud's mother observed admiringly. “You must be a wonderful little horsewoman, my dear, as well as a wonderful little woman in every other way. Buddy should never have sent you on such a trip--just to bring home money, like a bank messenger! But I'm glad that he did! And I do wish you would consent to stay--such an afternoon with music I haven't had since Buddy left us. You could stay with me and train for the concert work you intend doing. I'm only an old ranch woman in a slat sunbonnet--but I taught my Buddy--and have you heard him?” “An old woman in a slat sunbonnet--oh, how can you? Why, you're the most wonderful woman in the whole world.” Marian's voice was almost tearful in its protest. “Yes--I have heard--your Buddy.” “'T is the strangest way to go about selling a horse that I ever saw,” Bob Birnie put in dryly, smoothing his beard while he looked at them. “We'd be glad to have you stay, lass. But you've asked me to place a price on the horse, and I should like to ask ye a question or two. How fast did ye say he could run?” Marian laid an arm around the shoulders of the old lady in a slat sunbonnet and patted her arm while she answered. “Well, he beat everything in the country, so they refused to race against him, until Bud came with his horses,” she replied. “It took Sunfish to outrun him. He 's terribly fast, Mr. Birnie. I--really, I think he could beat the world's record--if Bud rode him!” Just here you should picture Ed and Jerry with their hands over their mouths, and Bud wanting to hide his face with his hat. Bob Birnie's beard behaved oddly for a minute, while he leaned and stroked Boise's flat forelegs, that told of speed. “Wee-ll,” he hesitated, soft-heartedness battling with the horse-buyer's keenness, “since Bud is na ere to ride him, he'll make a good horse for the roundup. I'll give ye “--more battling--“a hundred and fifty dollars for him, if ye care to sell--” “Here, wait a minute before you sell to that old skinflint!” Bud shouted exuberantly, dismounting with a rush. The rush, I may say, carried him to the little old lady in the slat sunbonnet, and to that other little lady who was staring at him with wide, bright yes. Bud's arms went around his mother. Perhaps by accident he gathered in Marian also--they were standing very close, and his arms were very long--and he was slow to discover his mistake. “I'll give you two hundred for Boise, and I'll throw in one brother, and one long-legged, good-for-nothing cowpuncher--” “Meaning yourself, Buddy?” came teasingly from he slat sunbonnet, whose occupant had not been told just everything. “I'll be surprised if she'll have you, with that dirty face and no shave for a week and more. But if she does, you're luckier than you deserve, for riding up on us like this! We've heard all about you, Buddy--though you were wise to send this lassie to gild your faults and make a hero of you!”