"I'll bet my quirt against yourn that you lose," said the soft-voiced twin.
"Keep your quirt! I don't want it, nohow. One's enough fur me. But I can beat her just the same!" Dave was stubbornly positive.
"You'll have to ride my horse if you do beat her," continued the soft-voiced twin. Dave grew furious.
"Now, see here, that raw-boned, loose-jointed, watch-eyed cayuse o' yourn couldn't run a good half mile without fallin' dead in his tracks! What'er you a-givin' me, anyhow?" At that instant his attention was fortunately taken. "Where'd all them cattle come from?" he exclaimed.
They had turned up a narrow gulch, the youngest boy and Hope taking the lead, and had traveled it for perhaps fifty yards when they found themselves at a stand-still before a drove of cattle that were making their way slowly down the narrow trail.
"We won't go back," called the girl. "Come on up here and wait till they pass." And followed by the boys she guided her horse up the steep, rocky side of a high bank, and waited while the cattle came slowly on. They counted them as they passed in twos and threes down the narrow valley. When nearly two hundred had gone by a rider came in sight around the bend of the hill. Hope's horse whinnied, and the man's answered back, then the girl gave a scream of delight, and, unmindful of the rocky bank, or of the appearance of two other riders, rushed down, nearly unseating the old cow-puncher in her demonstrations of welcome.
"Jim! Dear old Jim! Where did you come from? I am so glad to see you! Why, Jim, I'd rather see you than anyone in the world! How glad I am! Boys," she called, "come down here. This is Jim, my dear old father Jim!" Old Jim McCullen's eyes were dimmed with tears as he looked from the girl's happy, flushed face to the last of the cattle that were going out of sight around the bend of the gulch. "Where did you come from, Jim, and what brings you up here? Whose cattle? Why, they're ours, and rebranded! What are you doing with them?" Just then the two riders, whom in her excitement she had failed to notice, rode up. "Why, Syd, hello," she said. "And you're here, too! I thought Jim was alone."
She changed instantly from her glad excitement, speaking with the careless abruptness of a boy. Her cousin rode alongside. She gave one glance at his companion, then wheeled her horse about and stationed herself a short distance away beside the breed boys.
"This is a happy surprise, Hope," exclaimed her cousin. "What are you doing up here so far away from home?" She regarded him a trifle more friendly.
"Is it possible you don't know? Didn't you tell him, Jim, that I had gone away? Oh, I forgot, you weren't at the ranch when I left, so you couldn't tell him. Well, I am here, as you can see, Sydney—partly because I wanted a change, partly because they wanted a school-teacher up here. I am staying at Joe Harris'. What are you doing here with those cattle?"