It required numerous trips to the kitchen for buckets of hot water before the boys removed the greater part of the concoction that clung tenaciously to faces, hands and hair; then began a more vigorous attack on their boots and clothes. "It's durned lucky that Bronc disremembered about the glue," congratulated Roarer. "We'd a never got that off." Bronco slumped into a rickety chair, tipping it against the wall to ease its weakest leg, "It takes a woman to round up a stampede like our'n and get the bunch headed right when it gets to millin'. I'm derned glad the Boss is married, for this outfit needs female purtection." "I never worked so hard in my life," sighed Holy, flopping on his bunk. Bronco grinned across the room. "Ain't you forgot the time you wrote a letter to Bill Johnson's sister? You sure worked that time--Set around the bunkhouse till daylight tearin' up paper." "Well, she asked all of us to write her," snapped Holy, "but none of you fellers had the nerve to do it, and when you bet I couldn't, I called your bluff and won out, didn't I?" "You sure did," agreed the others, recalling the historic missive which had been read aloud and duly admired before it was mailed. _Dere Miss Johnson_ as I hav northin mutch to do I wil rite you a few lines we are al wel hear but my pony has a soar back and we hope you are the same as i have northin mutch to say i wil now clos yours truly HOLY. None of the Diamond H knew that Holy's letter, neatly framed, hung in Miss Johnson's room at a fashionable girls' school, where it was the centre of attraction; and a valued souvenir of her summer visit to her brother's ranch, which included the episode of a dance at Willcox. The silence of the prairie brooded over the Diamond H ranch. Inside the bunkhouse four cowpunchers slept serenely unconscious of the odour of freshly baking bread that drifted from the ranch kitchen. CHAPTER THIRTEEN Jamie was tucked comfortably between his sister and the big, new brother, and as they drove swiftly along the smooth prairie road behind the high-headed trotters, the boy forgot his shyness in constant wonder. "This is a prairie-dog town," explained Traynor to the child, but Nell was equally interested. "Those holes are where they live, and when a rain is coming they all get busy heaping up the earth to prevent water going down into their homes and drowning them out. They are good weather prophets." "Oh, look! It's sitting up!" cried the child in delight, pointing at a tiny brown-furred animal squatted on its hind legs and barking shrilly. "Watch him when we get nearer," suggested Traynor. "See, they are stationed at regular intervals, just like soldiers. They are the sentinels who warn the others of approaching enemies." The prairie-dog nearest the carriage, gave a final bark of defiance, wiggled its short tail and dodged into the hole. The next nearest dog then took up the warning bark.