Consternation eclipsed the smiles; none of them got up from their chairs. Limber looked at them, then said, "Come along." Slowly the chairs were pushed back with a loud rasping noise; slowly the sombreros were transferred from wooden pegs above the table to the heads of the three cowpunchers; slowly the spurred feet moved toward the door, passed draggingly through it, and trailed meekly behind Limber until he reached the rooms above the depot, occupied by the Agent and his wife. Limber knocked. The cowboys' hearts were thumping more loudly than Limber's knuckles, it seemed to them. The door opened, they did not look up, but the feminine voice that bade them enter, sounded ominous. With eyes still downcast, and hats in hands, they followed Limber's heels. They saw nothing else in that room except the rugs on the floor. Then Limber's voice broke the deadly silence. "The boys say they've got into more trouble on the range, Mrs. Green," Limber said soberly. "I should say they have," she retorted vehemently. "They ought to be ashamed of themselves, putting a woman in such a position in a strange place! Making her the laughing stock of the whole country! She's been crying her eyes out, ever since she got here. And, you almost frightened the boy to death with your idiot ideas of fun! It takes a big brain to do those things!" she paused breathlessly to look at them with flashing eyes. Not one of the Diamond H boys would have hesitated at any danger, but now, their one desire was to scurry ignominiously down stairs and hit the home trail without delay. They cast longing eyes at the door that led to freedom and safety. It was closed. Between them and it stood an angry woman. "We came to you because we all are stampeded, Mrs. Green," pleaded Limber, and the men, hearing the incriminating pronoun, swore allegiance to Limber for the rest of their lives. "Can't you get us headed right, somehow?" Mollified, she answered, "What had you thought of doing?" No one had thought of anything, but they were all loathe to admit it, so each one cudgelled his brains vigorously. "Say, so long as we busted up the weddin'," gasped Bronco, "we'll chip in and refund her fare--ship her back in a box car--I mean--pay her way to whar she come from. Won't we, boys?" "Sure!" was the chorus. Now that the ice had been broken, the situation was less strained. "Derned--hanged--! Oh, say, Mrs. Green! We'll do any damned thing you say, to put an end to this yer doggone millin';" floundered Holy, struggling to be intelligible without profanity. "We never figgered it would buffalo no one but ol' Walton, and to Hell--Oh, shucks! I mean he don't count noways!"