Over a thick white cup of dubious coffee and a plate of sticky hot-cakes he meditated glumly on the general unappreciativeness of the world in general, and of the Black Rim in particular. What had happened at the schoolhouse he could only surmise, but from certain fragmentary remarks he had overheard he guessed that the schoolhouse probably had suffered as much as the saloon. Black Rim, it would seem, was determined that the Lorrigans should go on living up to their reputations, however peacefully inclined the Lorrigans might be. Two disquieting thoughts he took with him to the stable when he went after the pinto team: Mary Hope would say that it was not a pleasant surprise which he had given her at Cottonwood Spring. And Belle,--he was not at all sure whether he was too big for Belle's quirt to find the tender places on his legs, but he was very sure that the Irishman spoke the truth. There would still be no dull moments for Lance when he confronted the owner of that pinto team. CHAPTER FIFTEEN HE TACKLES ANOTHER Much to the disgust of Rosa and Subrosa, their new driver turned them from the main trail just as they were beginning to climb joyously the first grade of Devil's Tooth Ridge. Rosa and Subrosa were subdued, plainly resentful of their subjection, and fretting to be in their own stalls. Belle they could and did bully to a certain extent. They loved to fight things out with Belle, they never missed an opportunity for "acting up"--yet this morning they had been afraid to do more than nag at each other with bared teeth; afraid to lope when this big man said, "Hey--settle down, there!" with a grating kind of calm that carried with it a new and unknown menace. Some one had exuberantly fired the Whipple shack, and the pintos wanted to whirl short around in their tracks when they saw the smoking embers. They had wanted to bolt straight out across the rocky upland and splinter the doubletree, and perhaps smash a wheel or two, and then stand and kick gleefully at the wreck. If head-shakings and flattened ears meant anything, Rosa and Subrosa were two disgruntled pintos that morning. They had not dared do more than cut a small half-circle out of the trail when they passed the blackened spot that had been the Whipple shack. Now they turned down the rocky, half-formed trail to Cottonwood Spring, reluctantly but with no more than a half-hearted kick from Subrosa to register their disgust. And to that Lance gave no heed whatever. He did not so much as twitch a rein or yell a threat. He drove surely--with one hand mostly because of the broken knuckle, which was painful in the extreme--ignoring the pintos for the most part.