[Illustration: "A man's plumb crazy to go round blatting all he knows"] The Happy Family BY B.M. BOWER (B.M. SINCLAIR) AUTHOR OF "Chip of the Flying U," "The Range Dwellers," "Her Prairie Knight," "The Lure of the Dim Trails," "The Lonesome Trail," "The Long Shadow," Etc. G.W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY PUBLISHERS NEW YORK _1907, 1909, 1910, by_ STREET & SMITH. _1910, by_ G.W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY. _The Happy Family_. To B.W.V. _"... met the Ananias of the cow camp. I have knocked about cow camps, mining camps, railroad and telegraph camps, and kicked up alkali dust for many a weary mile on the desert. Yet wherever I went I never failed to meet him. He is part and parcel of every outfit.... He is indispensable, irresistible, and incorrigible; and while in but few cases can he be held a thing of beauty, he is certainly a joy forever--at least to those who have known his type with some degree of understanding...."_ From a letter. CONTENTS. ANANIAS GREEN 7 BLINK 35 MISS MARTIN'S MISSION 61 HAPPY JACK, WILD MAN 90 A TAMER OF WILD ONES 118 ANDY, THE LIAR 178 "WOLF! WOLF!" 210 FOOL'S GOLD 241 LORDS OF THE POTS AND PANS 269 * * * * * THE HAPPY FAMILY * * * * * ANANIAS GREEN Pink, because he knew well the country and because Irish, who also knew it well, refused pointblank to go into it again even as a rep, rode alone except for his horses down into the range of the Rocking R. General roundup was about to start, down that way, and there was stock bought by the Flying U which ranged north of the Bear Paws. It so happened that the owner of the Rocking R was entertaining a party of friends at the ranch; it also happened that the friends were quite new to the West and its ways, and they were intensely interested in all pertaining thereto. Pink gathered that much from the crew, besides observing much for himself. Hence what follows after. Sherwood Branciforte was down in the blacksmith shop at the Rocking R, watching one Andy Green hammer a spur-shank straight. Andy was what he himself called a tamer of wild ones, and he was hard upon his riding gear. Sherwood had that morning watched with much admiration the bending of that same spur-shank, and his respect for Andy was beautiful to behold. "Lord, but this is a big, wild country," he was saying enthusiastically, "and the people in it are big and--"