'I reckon the cows sold pretty well, boss, this year,' suggested the old man when he had unhitched the team and kindled a bit of a fire for lunch. 'Yes, they sold well, Wharton, and none of them got damaged on the way down. There won't be much to do on the ranche now till spring,' added Nares. 'Guess that's why you're bringing an extra hand along,' snapped the old man. 'Why! Jeehoshaphat! what's the matter with you now?' he shouted. Poor Snap had tried first one side of the fire, then the other, with an equal want of success. On one side the smoke nearly choked and blinded him, on the other worse things awaited him. A blanket, which just accommodated 'the boss' and Wharton, was stretched on the windward side of the fire. With a weary sigh Snap threw himself down beside it. With a yell of pain he bounded up again, holding first one foot, then the other, in the air, and all the time applying his hands sorrowfully to the softest part of his person. The old foreman had laid a trap for the tender-foot, and he had sat upon it, the 'it' being a bed of what the natives call prickly pears, a peculiarly vicious kind of cactus about the size of a small potato, which unobserved spreads all over the ground, and sends its long thin spines through everything which presses upon them. When, at last, the good-natured Nares understood his friend's sorrows, and had managed to stop laughing, he gave Snap a place on the blanket, and, turning him over on his face, proceeded tenderly to pluck him. It is no fun to be converted at a moment's notice into a well-filled pincushion. At lunch Nares told old Wharton the story of the maniac-hunt recorded in the last chapter. As he told the story of little Madge's danger and salvation Wharton's eyes wandered from 'the boss' to the boy beside him. At last, when the story was over, he sighed softly 'Jee-hosh-a-phat.' Then he rolled his quid and expectorated. Then he got up and held out his great fist to Snap with these words, 'Say! were them pears prickly? Well, never mind. I guess you needn't sit on no more now. I'm a-gwine to be your "miss," Britisher;' and it is only fair to add, the old man kept his word.