"Did you ever see her break a horse, Johnny?" insisted Doug. "Once," said the old man, "a lot of the boys tied me on a mule and the mule ran away. It wasn't broke, that mule. Seem like it had run a gregus long way when Mary come along. She was just a walking and she reached up and grabbed the mule and she rode him back with me. And she made them untie me. And I loved her ever since. I came up here every year to see how John is treating her. I depone--" John rose and, striding around the table, he seized the old man by the collar. Douglas put his hand on his father's arm. "Drop it, Dad, or I swear I'll think old Johnny is a better man than you. I asked him to tell. Throw me out if you want to. Keep your hands off this little chap. One thing is sure. He appreciates Mother more than any of the rest of us have." "Get the half-wit out of my sight, then," growled John, returning to his seat. "I wish a lot of folks with whole wits knew how to be as good a friend as Johnny," said Douglas stoutly. "So do I!" Mary's voice trembled, but her glance at the little old man was very lovely. The rest of the meal was finished in silence, Douglas turning over in his mind this strange new picture of Judith's mother. Could anything, he wondered, change Judith so? A curious anger against his father's stupidity was at that moment born in Douglas' heart, an anger that never was wholly to leave him. That evening, as Douglas sat in his favorite place beside the alfalfa stack, old Johnny led up his little gray mare. "I'll be cowling myself along home now, Doug," he said. "John is awful insidious to me. I just want to say, Doug, that you're the first man in this valley ever stuck up for me and some day I depone I'll get even with you." "Good for you, Johnny!" nodded Douglas. "When I get my old ranch going, you come up and work for me." "I will so do," replied the old man solemnly, and he rode away in the moonlight. And Douglas returned to the new theme old Johnny had given him. Of what were women made that they could be over-broken as his father had over-broken Mary? And why should Lost Chief, so small that control was simple, permit such a thing to be? CHAPTER V THE HUNT ON LOST CHIEF "A guy that don't rustle cattle when the rustling is good, is a fool." --_Scott Parsons_. One hot afternoon in August Douglas had just unhitched the panting team from the plow in the new oat field when Charleton Falkner trotted up on Democrat. "How's the fall plowing, Doug?" "Just out of the woods, Charleton." "Your father says he can spare you for a day or two. I wish you'd come down to my place to-night. I'm planning a trip. I don't suppose John would loan you Beauty for a couple of days?" Douglas shook his head. "Well," Charleton went on, "I guess Buster can stand up under the work."