Shiela was carefully guarded. In the first of the mild weather she contributed to the bustling cheer of the bunkhouse a litter of four lusty pups. It was as much as a man’s life was worth to go nearer than six feet to the tugging little rascals; but the boy Oscar, who did not know this, proceeded calmly to inspect and caress them. The mother flared in a sudden, quaping rage, but instantly sank back and became reconciled to the extent of permitting the baby, quite undaunted by his first reception, to stroke her progeny with his pudgy hands. She watched him jealously. Summer rushed upon the land, and the Tumbling H outfit got to horse and rode forth. In November O’Donnell shipped seven thousand head of steers to help stay the world’s maw, and in December there were four men playing at cards again in the bunkhouse. “Steve,”--the cook cleared his throat as he riffled the cards,--“is it my deal? Shore. Say, Steve, one of Shiela’s pups is killing chickens. He’d ’a got a turkey too, only I done seen him.” “You ought for to have killed ’em all when they were teeny pups, Steve,” broke in the blacksmith. “What was the use of keeping two? Anyone kin see they’re more wolf than dog.” “It’s your play,” the boss said evenly. Shiela had the run of quarters, but her broad-jowled, heavy-shouldered pups were chained in the smithy. Just what to do with them was a problem. Shiela had exhibited no special affection since they were weaned, and it needed only the merest glance to detect the bar sinister. Had only the eyes been visible, there was that in their glint which betrayed the wolf. Yet, in the tawny coats and a certain lithe spring in gathering for a stride, the youngsters favored their mother. A loafer wolf made a foray from the cañon on a Sunday night, when the range boss and Mit played seven-up and the blacksmith poisoned life with a concertina. He killed a milch-pen calf close to headquarters; yet so silent was the raid that the men heard nothing of it, though Shiela cried protests to be gone and growled at intervals. In the smithy the pups bayed deep-voiced greetings. They leaped and snapped their teeth, and gnawed and raved to be free. Forgetting that O’Donnell had unchained them, Dick went to the door to still the brutes. They hurled themselves over him. “Here’s where the trouble starts, Shee-la,” observed her master dubiously. She wagged her tail and looked up at him in curiosity, for she had practically forgotten the pups.