Sleepy and tired from his long ride Gibson reached the ranch and rode into the warm stable to unsaddle. There to his great surprise he found he had but one animal behind him, the rope which had been around the mule's neck still dragging at the pack horse's tail, a mute evidence of what had happened. "Hm, shucks," he commented grimly, "won't them there boys in the bunk house give me particular hell for this night's work?" Wearily he unsaddled and unpacked the horses. Still more wearily he dragged himself up the path to the house, stirred the fire in the fireplace into a blaze, and when the coffee was hot drank a cup, ate greedily of the food which the cook had left for him, crawled into his blankets and in ten seconds was dead to the world. In his dreams he was swinging a rosy cheeked girl through the steps of an old-fashioned quadrille, she being attired in a most gorgeous watermelon-pink sweater. "Swing yer pardners, swing agin; Kiss the darlings--if you kin." He essayed the kiss only to be awakened on the verge of its attainment by a heavy hand on his shoulder, followed by a voice which demanded in no soft tones, "Where's your Christmas plunder?" He sat up in bed half dazed by his night's experience. "Come alive, Bill; come alive, an' tell us about the things for the kids. We can't find them nowhere." Gibson yawned and rubbed his eyes in a vain attempt to delay the castastrophe which he knew would encompass him when he told of the loss of the pack mule. Before he dropped off to sleep he had planned to get an early start in the morning back on his trail to try to find the lost animal. Popgun had been bought from the widow soon after her husband's demise and he shrewdly guessed that the tired, hungry mule would most likely strike direct for his old and nearby home. He sprang from bed and grabbed his clothes. "Hm, shucks," he began. "I reckon I done lost the mule coming home. Had him tailed up to old Paint and just about the time I passed the trail into Widder Miller's place Paint set back on the lead rope and like to pulled the saddle offen old Mack, me havin' the rope tied hard and fast to the nub. He let up in a minute and come along all right and I'm a figuring 'twere just about there that Popgun gits loose, he probably havin' been leaning back on the pack hosse's tail a right smart causing Paint to pull back hisself. Popgun likely stripped the rope over his head and being about all in turned off down the trail to the widder's and it's dollars to doughnuts he's a eating hay in her shed right now. Me being tired and sleepy I never sensed the loss till I gits here with the mule's rope a dragging along still tied to Paint's tail. Hm, shucks, I'll find him or bust a shoe string." "An' to think they have to go all the way back to Afriky to git ivory when there's such a lot of it to be had nearer home," was the sarcastic comment of the foreman. * * * * *