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“Well, if he does, he’ll regret it a lot,” prophesied Pink. “And anyway, something sure got wrong with Weary; do yuh suppose he’d give up Glory deliberately? Not on your life! Glory comes next to the Schoolma’am in his affections.”

“Wonder where he got that dirt-colored cayuse, anyhow,” mused Cal.

“I was studying out the brand, a while ago,” Pink answered. “It’s blotched pretty bad, but I made it out. It’s the Rocking R–they range down along Milk River, next to the reservation. I’ve never had anything to do with the outfit, but I’d gamble on the brand, all right.”

“Well, how the deuce would he come by a Rocking R horse? He never got it around here, anywheres. He must uh got it up on the Marias.”

“Then that must be a good long jag he’s had–which I don’t believe,” interjected Cal.

“Somebody,” said Pink meaningly, “ought to have gone along with him; this thing wouldn’t uh happened, then.”

“Ye-e-s?” Chip felt that the remark applied to him as a foreman, rather than as one of the Family, and he resented it. “If I’d sent somebody else with him, the outfit would probably be out two horses, instead of one–and there’d be two men under the bed-wagon with their hats and coats missing.”

Pink’s eyes, under their heavy fringe of curled lashes, turned ominously purple. “With all due respect to you, Mr. Bennett, I’d like to have you explain–“

A horseman rode quietly up to them from behind a thicket of choke-cherry bushes. Pink, catching sight of him first, stopped short off and stared.

“Hello, boys,” greeted the new-comer gaily. “How’s everything? Mamma! it’s good to get amongst white folks again.”

The Happy Family rose up as one man and stared fixedly; not one of them spoke, or moved. Pink was the first to recover.

“Well–I’ll be–damned!”

“Yuh sure will, Cadwolloper, if yuh don’t let down them pretty lashes and quit gawping. What the dickens ails you fellows, anyhow? Is–is my hat on crooked, or–or anything?”

“Weary, by all that’s good!” murmured Chip, dazedly.

Weary swung a long leg over the back of Glory and came to earth. “Say,” he began in the sunny, drawly voice that was good to hear, “what’s the joke?”

The Happy Family sat down again and looked queerly at one another.

Happy Jack glanced furtively at a long figure in the grass near by, and then, unhappily, at Weary.

“It’s him, all right,” he blurted solemnly. “They’re both him!”

The Happy Family snickered hysterically.

Weary took a long step and confronted Happy Jack. “I’m both him, am I?” he repeated mockingly. “Mamma, but you’re a lucid cuss!” He turned and regarded the stunned Family judicially.

“If there’s any of it left,” he hinted sweetly, “I wouldn’t mind taking a jolt myself; but from the looks, and the actions, yuh must have got away with at least two gallons!”

“Oh, we can give you a jolt, I guess,” Chip retorted dryly. “Just step this way.”

Weary, wondering a bit at the tone of him, followed; at his heels came the perturbed Happy Family. Chip stooped and turned the sleeping one over on his back; the sleeper opened his eyes and blinked questioningly up at the huddle of bent faces.

The astonished, blue eyes of Weary met the quizzical blue eyes of his other self. He leaned against the wagon wheel.

“Oh, mamma!” he said, weakly.

His other self sat up and looked around, felt for his hat, saw that it was gone, and reached mechanically for his cigarette material.

“By the Lord! Are punchers so damn scarce in this neck uh the woods, that yuh’ve got to shanghai a man in order to make a full crew?” he demanded of the Happy Family, in the voice of Weary–minus the drawl. “I’ve got a string uh cayuses in that darn stockyards, back in town–and a damn poor town it is!–and I’ve also got a date with the Circle roundup for tomorrow night. What yuh going to do about it? Speak up, for I’m in a hurry to know.”

The Happy Family looked at one another and said nothing.

“Say,” began Weary, mildly. “Did yuh say your name was Ira Mallory, and do yuh mind how they used to mix us up in school, when we were both kids? ‘Cause I’ve got a hunch you’re the same irrepressible that has the honor to be my cousin.”

“I didn’t say it,” retorted his other self, pugnaciously. “But I don’t know as it’s worth while denying it. If you’re Will Davidson, shake. What the devil d’yuh want to look so much like me, for? Ain’t yuh got any manners? Yuh always was imitating your betters.” He grinned and got slowly to his feet. “Boys, I don’t know yuh, but I’ve a hazy recollection that we had one hell of a time shooting up that little townerine, back there. I don’t go on a limb very often, but when I do, folks are apt to find it out right away.”

The Happy Family laughed.

“By golly,” said Slim slowly, “that cousin story ‘s all right–but I bet yuh you two fellows are twins, at the very least!”

“Guess again, Slim,” cried Weary, already in the clutch of old times. “Run away and play, you kids. Irish and me have got steen things to talk about, and mustn’t be bothered.”