The old reprobate was gazing into the bowl of his pipe as if in its depths he had found something extremely interesting. I began to see a light. "You miserable old hot air artist!" I said. "You picked a load into us the very first hour after we landed on the ranch, didn't you? You've been humbugging us all this time, haven't you?" I tried hard to be fiercely indignant. "You fooled your own selves," he snickered, "fer I never tole you them there pups was drownded; you jist nachelly jumped at it of your own accord, an' seein' as how you'd find it out anyhow when the boys came in, I jist let it run along." [Illustration] [Illustration] LOST IN THE PETRIFIED FOREST By permission _Overland Monthly_, San Francisco, Calif. When the stockholders of the "Lazy H" outfit met annually in solemn conclave to receive the report of their range manager and find out how much more the expenses for the year had been than the receipts, they called it the "Montezuma Cattle Company," but as their brand was an H lying down on the sides of their cattle thus, ([symbol: H]) everyone on the range called it the "Lazy H" outfit. We were in the Lazy H winter horse camp looking after a hundred and seventy-five cow-ponies that had seen a hard summer's work, and the job was a snap. Two men rode out every morning and saw that none of the animals strayed too far, bringing them all in for water down the trail in the cañon, salting them once a week, and keeping a sharp lookout for horse thieves, both white and Indian. The camp was a dugout in the side of a hill, part logs, part hill, with a dirt roof a foot thick. A grand fireplace in one end served alike for heating and cooking purposes, and at night with a fire of pine knots you could lie in the "double decker" bunks and read as if the place was lighted with an arc lamp. There was a heavy door in the end, while half a dozen loopholes cut in the logs served for windows and for defense if necessary. Two of the boys were playing a solemn game of "seven-up" to decide which of them should build the fire in the morning, and the balance were smoking or reading some two-weeks-old newspapers that had come out from town with the last load of grub. Outside the wind was whistling around the corner, and the coyotes, attracted by the scent of a freshly killed yearling hanging in a cedar near the dugout, were howling and shrieking like a lot of school-children at play. "Just about such a night outside as the night old man Hart's wife and kids got lost two years ago," remarked Peg Leg Russel, who was busy with leather strings and an awl plaiting a fancy quirt. "Didn't you help hunt for 'em?" queried a voice from one of the bunks. "Sure thing I did," answered the quirt maker, "and, what's more," he continued, "I hope I never get another such job as long as I live."