"If I can help you, Mr. Donald, I'll be glad to," Mason said as the two shook hands; "but I'm just going back to the round-up camp, forty miles or so from here."
"Well," explained the young man, "I was thinking of going out to Mr. Sturgis's ranch. He lives somewhere up North, about forty miles, I think he told me, from the railroad. Is his place anywhere near your camp?"
"No; but there are two or three of his men along with our outfit, and if you want to come out there with me, some one of them may be going over to his place before long, and could take you there. It's a perfectly plain road from here out to the ranch, just as soon as a man knows the road, but if he doesn't know it, he's liable to get lost a good many times before he gets there."
"Yes," said Ross, "I told Donald that it was a plain road out to the Sturgis ranch, but that there were about twenty roads turning off from it, and it wouldn't be easy to take the right one."
"Have you got a horse to ride?" asked Mason.
"No," answered Donald, "I have no horse; but I was going to buy a horse and saddle, or perhaps two horses, here in town. Mr. Ross says that he has one that he would either sell or hire, and that he thinks he could find another that I could use as a pack horse."
"Are you used to the saddle?"
"Yes; I have ridden a little."
"Let's go back to my house," said Ross, "and sit down and talk it over, and I can soon find out what we can do about horses."
As they walked back up the street, Ross turned to Mason.