Once only during the brief ride did the girl give the least sign that her interest lay on anything but her good-looking escort. It was at a moment when Dugdale was pointing out to her the humorous inspiration of his own registered cattle brand. "You see, 'B.B.' don't sound much of a scream, Miss Tristram," he said, in great seriousness. "I don't guess it's likely to set you falling out of your saddle in one wild hysterical whoop of unrestrained mirth. Course I'm known by it, same as you're known by the 'Obar,' but some of the language the boys fix to my brand 'ud set a Baptist minister hollerin' help. Say, I can't hand you it all. I just can't, that's all. 'Bill's Bughouse' is sort of skimmed milk to pea soup. Then there's 'Bill's Boneyard.' That wouldn't offend any one but my foreman. 'Busy Bee' kind of hands me a credit I don't guess I'm entitled to. But there's others smack of the intelligence of badly raised hogs." Then he laughed. "The truth is, when I first pitched camp on Lime Creek I wasn't as wise to things ranching as a Sunday-school committee. I lived mostly on beans an' bacon, and when the boys fell in at night, why, I don't guess there was much beside beans and bacon to keep 'em from falling into a state of coma on my blankets. It generally fixed them right, and I'm bound to say they never seemed to find they couldn't sit a saddle after it. Yes, and hit the trail for fifty miles, if there was fresh meat at the end of it. I sort of got known around as 'Beans and Bacon.' Then it was abbreviated to B.B. And so when I registered my brand it just seemed natural to set down B.B." Nan's laugh was very genuine. Dugdale's ingenuous manner always pleased her. "You hadn't learned prairie hospitality," she said. "You surely were committing a grave offense." The man was full of pretended penitence. "I don't guess that needed _learning_!" he said, with a wry smile. "The boys just handed it to me same as a parson hands a heart-to-heart talk on things you're hatin' to hear about. Oh, I was put wise quick. But when you've got just about ten thousand dollars that's telling you you're all sorts of a fool, and you're yearning for 'em to believe you're a twin brother to Pierpont Morgan, why, you don't feel your hide's made of gossamer, and don't care a cuss if folks start right in to hammer tacks into it for shoe leather." "And the dollars? You convinced them?" Nan's eyes were full of humor.