A week passed. Every day the boys had taken long rides with Sue and sometimes her father had accompanied them. Satan had proved all that Bob hoped and was devoted to his master. Jack had been allotted a splendid mare named Midnight, as she was as black as coal, and almost as fleet as Satan. The cowboys on the ranch were gradually thawing out, as Sue called it, having learned that the boys were not at all "stuck up" as they had expected. Bob, especially, they had accepted almost as one of themselves, his horsemanship having paved the way to their hearts. Slim had even acknowledged that "mebby that rattler wasn't more'n about twenty feet long" and Slats had even gone so far as to confess that giving him Satan to ride had been a put-up-job on the part of the whole gang.
"But you rid him, dog on my boots if yer didn't, an' it was a job as I would'd hated ter tackle," he grinned.
Sue was a fearless rider and many a race had they had, but Satan was too swift for the other horses, although both ran him a close second.
"I believe that horse of yours can outrun anything on four legs," Jack said at the close of a long race as Bob waited for them to catch up with him.
"Shouldn't wonder if you're right," he agreed.
They had been at the ranch eight days and had begun to feel themselves a part of it when Jeb, returning from a trip to Cold Springs, entered the dining room just as they were sitting down to supper. From the look on his face Sue knew at once that something was worrying him.
"What's the matter, Dad?" she asked.
"Who said anything was the matter?" Jeb smiled.
"Your face did. Come out with it. You know you can't fool me."
"Don't I, though?" he smiled. "Well, it's the Hains gang again."