"All right, boys, we're comrades now. I'll tell you what we'll do; we'll form a band--brigade--all by ourselves. I am commanding officer and you are my faithful scouts. How's that?" Hope's fancy was leading her away. "Come on," she cried, "let's race this flat!" The self-appointed commanding officer reached the smooth valley far in advance of her faithful scouts, who yelled in true Indian fashion as they rode up with her. "I'll run you a mile an' beat you all hollow," declared Dave. "But on a two hundred yard stretch like this here place my horse don't have no chance to get started." "I'll bet my quirt against yourn that you lose," said the soft-voiced twin. "Keep your quirt! I don't want it, nohow. One's enough fur me. But I _can_ beat her just the same!" Dave was stubbornly positive. "You'll have to ride my horse if you do beat her," continued the soft-voiced twin. Dave grew furious. "Now, see here, that raw-boned, loose-jointed, watch-eyed cayuse o' yourn couldn't run a good half mile without fallin' dead in his tracks! What'er you a-givin' me, anyhow?" At that instant his attention was fortunately taken. "Where'd all them cattle come from?" he exclaimed. They had turned up a narrow gulch, the youngest boy and Hope taking the lead, and had traveled it for perhaps fifty yards when they found themselves at a stand-still before a drove of cattle that were making their way slowly down the narrow trail. "We won't go back," called the girl. "Come on up here and wait till they pass." And followed by the boys she guided her horse up the steep, rocky side of a high bank, and waited while the cattle came slowly on. They counted them as they passed in twos and threes down the narrow valley. When nearly two hundred had gone by a rider came in sight around the bend of the hill. Hope's horse whinnied, and the man's answered back, then the girl gave a scream of delight, and, unmindful of the rocky bank, or of the appearance of two other riders, rushed down, nearly unseating the old cow-puncher in her demonstrations of welcome. "_Jim! Dear old Jim! Where_ did you come from? I am so glad to see you! Why, Jim, I'd rather see you than anyone in the world! How glad I am! Boys," she called, "come down here. This is Jim, my dear old father Jim!" Old Jim McCullen's eyes were dimmed with tears as he looked from the girl's happy, flushed face to the last of the cattle that were going out of sight around the bend of the gulch. "Where did you come from, Jim, and what brings you up here? Whose cattle? Why, they're ours, and rebranded! What are you doing with them?" Just then the two riders, whom in her excitement she had failed to notice, rode up. "Why, Syd, hello," she said. "And you're here, too! I thought Jim was alone."