"I reckon we can handle th' situation, all right, no matter how hard it gets," laughed the Bar-20 foreman.
"Well, I'll be leavin' you now," Lucas remarked as they reached the Bar-20 bunk house. "We begin to round up next week, an' there's lots to be done before then. Say, can I use yore chuck wagon? Mine is shore done for."
"Why, of course," replied Buck heartily. "Take it now, if you want, or any time you send for it."
"Much obliged; come on, fellers," Lucas cried to his men. "We're goin' home."
CHAPTER IV
IN WEST ARROYO
Hopalong was heading for Lookout Peak, the highest of the White Horse Hills, by way of West Arroyo, which he entered half an hour after he had forded the creek, and was half way to the line when, rounding a sharp turn, he saw Mary Meeker ahead of him. She was off her horse picking flowers when she heard him and she stood erect, smiling.
"Why, I didn't think I'd see you," she said. "I've been picking flowers—see them? Ain't they pretty?" she asked, holding them out for his inspection.
"They shore are," he replied, not looking at the flowers at all, but into her big, brown eyes. "An' they're some lucky, too," he asserted, grinning.