As he seemed to have no choice in naming his own dog, Whitey turned in despair to Injun, who had stood solemnly by. "How about you?" Whitey asked. "Haven't you a name to suggest?" The dog knew that he was the subject of the talk, and possibly felt that he ought to keep awake, for he sat on the veranda and blinked at the humans. Injun gazed at him stolidly. "Huh!" he grunted. "Sittin' Bull." "Great!" cried all the others. This matter settled, the men went away. Sitting Bull stretched himself out on the veranda and again fell asleep, and Whitey told Injun that the dog's coming probably was a good omen. That there ought to be something doing on the ranch now. CHAPTER II A SURPRISE It was early morning, and the Bar O Ranch slept, heedless of the keen late-autumn air that had in it just a faint, brisk hint of the fall frosts to come. Whitey came out of the ranch house and moved toward the stable. Sitting Bull trudged after him. The dog was entirely rested, having slept the better part of two days and nights. He seemed to know that Whitey was his new owner. Dogs have an instinct for that sort of thing. And though Bull was civil and friendly enough with every one else on the ranch, he took to Whitey by selection. At six o'clock each night Bull sat near the ranch-house front door as though waiting for some one. He waited a long time. Bill Jordan, who prided himself on what he knew about dogs, and men, said that Bull's former owner probably was a city man, and was in the habit of coming home at six; that the dog was waiting for him to appear. Be that as it may, in the days to come Bull gave up this custom. No one knew what he felt about the loss of his old master. He became a Montana dog. The city was to know him no more. Now he waddled along after Whitey, who was making for a straw stack, near the stable. Among the field mice, gophers, rabbits, and such that thought this stack was a pretty nice place to hang around, were two hens that were of the same opinion. At least they made their nests in the stack and laid their eggs there. And they were the only hens that the Bar O boasted, for hens were scarce in Montana in those days--as Buck said, "almost as scarce as hen's teeth, an' every one knows there ain't no such thing." It was Whitey's particular business to gather the eggs of those hens, which they saw fit to lay early in the morning. So Whitey came to the stack early, to be ahead of any weasels or ferrets, who had an uncommon fondness for eggs. This morning as he moved around the stack he didn't find any eggs, but he saw something black and pointed sticking out of the straw. Whitey took hold of the object and pulled, and the thing lengthened out in his hands.