Even Cal forgot, eventually, that he had asked a question which remained unanswered; what interest he had felt at first was smothered to death beneath that blanket of words, and he eagerly followed the boys out and over to Rusty Brown's place, where Denson, because of an old grudge against Rusty, might be trusted not to follow. “Mamma!” Weary commented amusedly, when they were crossing the street, “that Denson bunch can sure talk the fastest and longest, and say the least, of any outfit I ever saw.” “Wonder who did buy him out?” Jack Bates queried. “Old ginger-whiskers didn't pass out any facts, yuh notice. He couldn't have got much; his land's mostly gravel and 'doby patches. He's got a water right on Flying U creek, you know--first right, at that, seems to me--and a dandy fine spring in that coulee. Wonder why our outfit didn't buy him out--seeing he wanted to sell so bad?” “This wantin' to sell is something I never heard of b'fore,” Slim said slowly. “To hear him tell it, that ranch uh hisn was worth a dollar an inch, by golly. I don't b'lieve he's been wantin' to sell out. If he had, Mis' Bixby woulda said something about it. She don't know about this here sellin' business, or she'd a said--” “Yeah, you can most generally bank on the Countess telling all she knows,” Cal assented with some sarcasm; at which Slim grunted and turned sulky afterward. Denson and his affairs they speedily forgot for a time, in the diversion which Rusty Brown's familiar place afforded to young men with unjaded nerves and a zest for the primitive pleasures. Not until mid-afternoon did it occur to them that Flying U coulee was deserted by all save old Patsy, and that there were chores to be done, if all the creatures of the coulee would sleep in comfort that night. Pink, therefore, withdrew his challenge to the bunch, and laid his billiard cue down with a sigh and the remark that all he lacked was time, to have the scalps of every last one of them hanging from his belt. Pink was figurative in his speech, you will understand; and also a bit vainglorious over beating Andy Green and Big Medicine twice in succession. It occurred to Weary then that a word of cheer to the Old Man and his anxious watchers might not cone amiss. Therefore the Happy Family mounted and rode to the depot to send it, and on the way wrangled over the wording of the message after their usual contentious manner. “Better tell 'em everything is fine, at this end uh the line,” Cal suggested, and was hooted at for a poet. “Just say,” Weary began, when he was interrupted by the discordant clamor from a trainload of sheep that had just pulled in and stopped. “'Maa-aa, Ma-a-aaa,' darn yuh,” he shouted derisively, at the peering, plaintive faces, glimpsed between the close-set bars. “Mamma, how I do love sheep!” Whereupon he put spurs to his horse and galloped down to the station to rid his ears of the turbulent wave of protest from the cars.