"Have to catch up a real cow, I reckon," dreamily went on one of the boys' tormentors, gazing at the ceiling abstractedly, but fingering the condensed milk can. "What for?" inquired the other, playing into his hand. "Why, the tin cow might disagree with mama's boys." "Ho-ho-ho! Say, Clark." "What, Jess?" "Reckon they must be overstocked with yearlings East." "Looks that way. Do you suppose Easterners are born or jest grow?" The youth addressed by his companion as Jess looked straight at Rob as he spoke, and the insult was unmistakable. Rob's self-control suddenly deserted him with a rush. "I'll answer for your friend," he snapped out. "They grow-and-they-grow-right." Tubby looked up in surprise from his raisin pie, and Merritt's eyes opened wide at Rob's tone. It foreboded trouble as sure as a hurricane signal foretells a storm. "My! my!" grinned Jess, but it was an uncomfortable sort of a grin, "hear the little boy with the medal talk. Come on, Clark, let's go see to the ponies while the tenderfeet wait for their nurse to come and take their bibs off." They rose from the table, but Rob, still inwardly raging but outwardly cool as ice, stopped them. "Say," he said, "are you fellows cattlemen?" "You bet, stranger, from the ground up," rejoined Clark, with a vast air of self-importance. "Well, then we've been misinformed in the East," said Rob, coolly brushing a few stray crumbs from his knees. "How's that?" "Why, we'd been told that cattlemen were natural gentlemen; but whoever told us that was dead wrong. Judging by you fellows, they're not natural, and certainly not the other thing." Clark's face grew crimson and he muttered something about "fixing the fresh kid," but his companion drew him away. "We'll have plenty of time to rope and brand these young mavericks," he said, as they left the room. As they vanished Rob burst into a shout of laughter. "Score one for the Boy Scouts," he said. "If ever there were two discomfited cow-punchers, those fellows are it." The landlord, who had entered the room a few moments before, came forward as the boys arose from the table. He was a tall, lanky man, with a look of perpetual gloom on his face. A drooping, straw-colored mustache did not help to enliven his funereal features. "Say, strangers," he said, in a dismal voice, "you've started in bad." "How's that?" inquired Rob, in a somewhat peppery tone. "Why, riling up Clark Jennings and Jess Randell; they's two of the toughest boys in the country." "Think so, I guess," snorted Tubby. "Well, wait and see," said the landlord, with a melancholy shrug of his sloping shoulders. "Three dinners, please." He extended a yellow palm. "How much?" asked Rob, putting his hand in his pocket. "Three dollars and six bits." "What! three dollars and seventy-five cents for that fly-ridden stuff?" "That's the charge, stranger."