This Gilly Froud had been a hand on the X Bar X ranch, which was owned by Mr. Manley, the father of Roy and Teddy. One day the ranch owner had caught Froud abusing Flash. Teddy had come around the corner of the bunkhouse at the same instant, and took in the scene at a glance. White to the lips, the boy started for Froud. Mr. Manley took one look at his son’s face, and, springing forward, seized Teddy by the shoulders. Flash--Teddy’s Flash--had been kicked, and Teddy had seen it. Mr. Manley tightened his grip on his son’s shoulders. There was not going to be that sort of fight on his ranch if he could prevent it. Teddy had come to his senses quickly, and Mr. Manley released him. Then he turned and looked at Froud, whose face was sickly pale underneath his tan. After this occurrence, Froud went away from that ranch in something of a hurry. As Teddy recalled the incident, his fist clenched and he unconsciously drew up on Flash’s rein. The horse snorted and shook his head, as though he knew what was passing through his master’s mind. “Always did hate a man who mistreated a horse,” Teddy murmured. “Sure to be something else the matter with him. No decent fellow would kick a pony.” “Still thinking about Gilly Froud?” Roy asked. “Come on, snap out of it! Lots of nicer things to think about. For instance, that wrist watch you bought at school. Baby, wait till Nick Looker finds out you own a wrist watch! Maybe he won’t ride you a little!” Teddy grinned in reply, and pushed his sombrero back from his forehead. It was certainly a hot day. The two Manley brothers, Teddy, aged fifteen, and Roy, one year older, were at home, for a long time, they hoped, if not for good, from the Hopper Boarding School, an institution just outside of Denver. Teddy had the golden hair and blue eyes of his mother, Barbara Manley, “the blonde angel of the West,” her husband often jokingly called her. But the laugh that always went with this remark deceived no one--least of all the boys. They caught the note of love in their father’s voice, and it found an echo in their own hearts. “Jinks! She _is_ an angel!” Roy, the taller of the two, had hair as brown as the hills around him, and eyes but a trifle lighter in hue. He it was who had inherited from his mother a fondness for literature, and, though this last was carefully concealed, a liking for poetry. Barbara Manley, before her marriage, had been a teacher of English in a Denver school, and until she had met Bardwell Manley, poetry had been her only sweetheart. Her eyes would shine with maternal pride when she observed Roy reading a “book of silly verses,” as Teddy called it.