"Hello!" exclaimed Pratt, recovering his seat and pulling in the grey. "What's the matter with that horse, Frances?" Molly was off like a rocket. Frances fairly stood in the stirrups to pull the pinto down--and she was not sparing of the quirt. It angered her that Molly should "show off" just now. She had heard Sue Latrop's shrill laugh. When she rode back Frances did not offer to shake hands with the Boston girl. And, as it chanced, she never did shake hands with her. "You ride such perfectly ungovernable horses out here," drawled the Boston girl. "Is it just for show?" "Our ponies are not usually family pets," laughed Frances. Yet she flushed, and from that moment she was always expecting Sue to say cutting things. "They tell me it is so interesting to see the calves--er--monogrammed; do you call it?" said Sue, with a little cough. "Branded!" exclaimed Pratt, hurriedly. "Oh, yes! So interesting, I suppose?" "We do not consider it a show," said Frances, bluntly. "It is a necessary evil. I never fancied the smell of scorched hair and hide myself; and the poor creatures bawl so. But branding and slitting their ears are the only ways we have of marking the cattle." "Re'lly?" repeated Sue, staring at her as though Frances were more curious than the bawling cattle. The irons were already in the fire when the party rode down to the scene of the branding. Silent Sam was in charge of the gang. They had rounded up nearly two hundred calves and yearlings. Some of the cows had followed their off-spring out of the herd, and were lowing at the corral fence. Afoot and on horseback the men drove the half-wild calves into the branding pen runway. As they came through they were roped and thrown, and Sam and an assistant clapped the irons to their bony hips. The smell of singed hair was rather unpleasant, and the bawling of the excited cattle drowned all conversation. When a calf or a yearling was let loose, he ran as hard as he could for a while, with the smoking "monogram," as Sue Latrop called it, the object of his tenderest attention. But the smart of it did not last for long, and the branded stock soon went to graze contentedly outside the corral fence, forgetting the experience. Frances had a chance to speak to Sam for a moment. "Ratty will come to you for his time. I'm going to pay him off this noon. I've got good reason for letting him go." "I bet ye," agreed Sam, for whatever Frances said or did was right with him. Pratt insisted upon Frances meeting all these people from Amarillo. There was Mrs. Bill Edwards, whom she already knew, as chaperon. Most of the others were young people, although nearer Pratt's age than that of the ranchman's daughter.