It was after dark one evening, when Jack and Hugh were sitting before the ranch door, and Shep was lying at Hugh's feet, that they heard a coyote howl right close to the house. The dog sprang to his feet and rushed around the corner of the house to where the sound had come from, and they could hear the patter of his feet as he raced down toward the blacksmith's shop. Suddenly from the shop there came a tumult of growling, yelling and worrying, a noise as if a lot of dogs were fighting.

"By George!" said Hugh, "I believe that fool dog has ran into a nest of coyotes." Hugh ran around the corner of the house, and toward the sounds, which still continued, and Jack, grasping his crutch, half ran, half hopped, after him. In a moment he heard Hugh shouting, the noise of the fighting ceased, and as Jack reached the corner of the blacksmith's shop, he met Hugh coming back with Shep running before him.

"Well, now, what do you suppose I found when I got down there?" said Hugh. "Just inside the garden fence was this dog and six or eight coyotes on top of him, just everlastingly making the fur fly. It's mighty lucky for him that he's got so much of this long yellow hair; if he hadn't had, he'd have been eaten up before I got there. I expect he's some cut up as it is." They took Shep into the kitchen, and by the light of the lamp looked over him, and found that, as Hugh had said, he was bitten and cut in a dozen places. None of the wounds were very serious, but only his shaggy coat had protected him.

"Do you know," said Hugh, after they were again seated in the bright moonlight, "I believe that was just a scheme of them coyotes to kill this dog. You took notice, didn't you, how close that one that howled was to us? I never saw a coyote come so close to the house before. I believe he just came up here to tole Shep down behind the blacksmith's shop, where his partners were waiting. It was a pretty sharp trick now, wasn't it?"

A few days after this, Hugh and Mr. Sturgis looked at Jack's foot and pronounced it well. It no longer pained him at all, but sometimes he thought it felt a little stiff as he walked. He now resumed his riding after the saddle horses and the milk cows, and besides this, went out almost daily with Hugh or with his uncle on their excursions in one direction or another, after horses and cattle.

One day, the cows that had been kept in the pasture were brought up to the corrals, in order that the calves might be branded. They were all put in one of the large corrals and then, one by one, the cows were cut out and driven through a chute into another large corral, leaving all the calves together; then the branding began. Fires were built just outside the corral fence, and the branding irons put in them to heat. Then, one by one the calves were roped, thrown and held down until the hot iron had been put on them. It took a long time to brand the hundred and four calves in this bunch, and by the time the work had been finished all hands were hot, tired and covered with dust. It was a relief to every one when the gates were opened and the calves and their mothers allowed to come together again.

"I'll tell you what it is, son," said Hugh, "working cattle and horses isn't all fun; there's a heap of hard work to it, and I believe I'm getting pretty old to do work of that kind. Fact is, you see, I wasn't raised to this sort of business. We didn't have no cattle in this country till about ten or a dozen years ago. That's the reason I always said I ain't no cowman and won't never be. A man's got to be brung up to the business to do it well."

CHAPTER XXIV
A BERRYING PARTY

One afternoon as Jack was up on the side of the mountain gathering saddle horses he saw far off over the prairie a waggon and two riders coming toward the ranch. He did not know who it could be. Since the horse roundup had left, no strangers had been seen. Soon after he had unsaddled, the team came in sight over the hill, and at length it was near enough for him to recognise that one of the riders was a woman, and that there were two people in the waggon. A little later, the party reached the barn and proved to be Mr. and Mrs. Powell and Charley and the little girl. They had come over to visit Mr. Sturgis. Mr. Powell wanted to kill some meat, and Mrs. Powell said that she had determined to come with him and to ask Mrs. Carter if she would not go up on the mountains with her, berrying. The visitors were made welcome. While they were attending to the horses, Jack said to Charley, "How are the wolf puppies getting along? Have they got tame yet?"