Shortly after dinner of that last day, the train slowed down to stop at a little water tank station. Hinchman’s Ranch could be reached, forty-five miles north from here. The boys searched avidly the little flat, back of the station, with eager eyes. It seemed a mile or so wide and was backed by rock-ribbed bad lands that ascended to the plateau. Whirling clouds of red dust, each the storm center of a cowboy on a cayuse, smoked through the sparse greasewood that dotted the plain, banging out a welcome with fanning revolvers. Alongside the track they spied Big John, mounted on a restive white wild mustang that had evidently only recently been “gentled,” for he seemed inclined to hop right over their locomotive. With him were two saddled ponies, evidently for _them_, and a big roan horse for the Colonel. Barking at the train was the largest and boniest hound the boys had ever seen. “That must be Ruler, Les--and there’s Big John with the horses-- Gee--roo! I want to yell!--_Can’t_ we get this window open?” cried Sid excitedly. “C’mon, boys, grab your rifles and let’s vamoose,” called the Colonel, hustling out of the smoking compartment with the stump of a black cigar smoldering under his white mustache. “Here, Sambo, fall on this duffel, boy.” They tumbled out of the vestibule and the Colonel, after a hearty handshake with Big John, hurried forward to see about their crate of dogs in the baggage car. “Hi, Sergeant Sid!--Gosh-all, but you do look nat’ral!” yelled Big John from the white horse, as Sid rushed across the cinder platform of the station. “Down, Ruler, down!--you ol’ pisen houn’ dawg!” he roared.--“An’ dam’f thar ain’t that ornery little shavetail Looie, Scotty! Put ’er here, you li’l rooster!--Put ’er here!” chortled Big John, leaning far out of his saddle as the white horse braced against his weight on the stirrup. The boys fell all over one another shaking Big John’s huge paw. Except for a frightful shrapnel scar that seamed his face, he had not changed much since Montana days. The same big hawk nose, the same piercing black eyes and long, twirling mustache, the same intense black hair, under--yes,--the same old Stetson that he had worn in the Rockies! Evidently the giant Montanan scorned the “greaser” hat of the Southwest. “Them black eyes and black hair of yourn, Sid, make you look like a reg’lar greaser under that dome;--an’, gosh, ef he ain’t raisin’ a _mus_tache,” guffawed Big John. “Scotty, you look like a red candle what’s hed a extinguisher set on to it,” observed the irrepressible cowman. “Otherwise the Colonel ain’t made no mistakes,” he added, sizing up their outfit critically. Just then that gentleman himself came down the platform, followed by two of the ranch teamsters carrying a huge dog crate.