"That's right, Tom!" shouted the irrepressible Johnny. "Always have chuck ready for yore uncle. He likes his meals hot. This is shore real gayful. I wasn't expectin' to find any folks here." "I s'pose not," said Red Kane. "You was figurin' on romancin' in while we was away an' stockin' up on _our_ grub. I know you. Hock, you better cache the extry bacon an' dobies. Don't let Johnny see 'em." "Well, o' course," observed Ramsay, superciliously, "I've got the appetite of youth an' a feller with teeth. I don't have to get my nourishment out of soup." "He must mean you, Hock," said Red Kane, calmly. "You've done lost eight." "The rest of 'em all hit," asserted Hockling, grinning. "But what Johnny wants with teeth, I dunno. By rights he'd ought to stick to milk. Meat ain't healthy for young ones. Ain't we got a nursin'-bottle kickin' round some'ers, Red?" "Shore, Red owns one," drawled Loudon. "I seen him buyin' one once over to Farewell at Mike Flynn's." "O' course," said Johnny, heaping his plate with bacon and beans. "I remember now I seen him, too. Said he was buyin' it for a friend. Why not admit yo're married, Red?" "Yuh know I bought it for Mis' Shaner o' the Three Bars!" shouted the indignant Kane. "She done asked me to get it for her. It was for her baby to drink out of." "Yuh don't mean it," said Johnny, seriously. "For a baby, yuh say. Well now, if that ain't surprisin'. I always thought nursin'-bottles was to drive nails with." In this wise the meal progressed pleasantly enough. After supper, when the four were sprawled comfortably on their saddle-blankets, Loudon launched his bombshell. "Had a small brush this mornin'," remarked Loudon, "with a gent over by the mud-hole north o' Box Hill." The three others sat up, gaping expectantly. "Djuh get him?" demanded Johnny Ramsay, his blue eyes glittering in the firelight. Loudon shook his head. He raised his left arm, revealing the rent in his shirt. Then he removed his hat and stuck his finger through the hole in the crown. "Souvenirs," said Loudon. "He busted the lever off my Winchester an' gormed up the action." "An' he got away?" queried Red Kane. "The last I seen of him he was workin' in behind where he thought I was." "Where was you?" "I was watchin' him from the top o' Box Hill. What did yuh think I'd be doin'? Waitin' for him to surround me an' plug me full o' holes? I come here some hurried after he crossed the creek. I was hopin' you'd have left a rifle behind." "Wish't we had," lamented Hockling. "Say, you was lucky to pull out of it without reapin' no lead." "I'll gamble you started the fraycas, Tommy," said Johnny Ramsay. "Not this trip. I was lookin' at some mighty interestin' cow an' pony tracks opposite the rock ledge when this gent cuts down on me an' misses by two inches." "Tracks?"