Aunt Jane Lawrence was popular with the young folks of the district, not alone because she was a good cook, but because she was a sort of foster mother to the entire community. The young ladies of the community brought to Aunt Jane their old hats and dresses, along with their love affairs, petty quarrels, and youthful longings. A clever woman at needlework, she was often able to remodel the hats and “turn” the dresses so that they would serve a second season or maybe a third.

The love affairs, petty quarrels, and youthful longings were not always so easy to remodel, even when they needed it: but Aunt Jane managed well. She had much patience and sympathy. She knew the community, and so was often able to help her young friends without conflicting with paternal or maternal views. Hat-trimming and dressmaking were really only incidental to her real purpose in life, which was to help young folks realize their ideals, when such ideals did not lead too far from everyday responsibilities.

Yet, with all her capabilities, her gentle wisdom, and her unobtrusive sympathy, she was unable to influence her Brother Jim known by every one as “Cheyenne” toward a settled habit of life. So it became her fondest desire to see that Cheyenne’s boy, Little Jim, should be brought up in a home that he would always cherish and respect. Aunt Jane’s husband Frank Lawrence, had no patience with Cheyenne’s aimless meanderings. Frank Lawrence was a hard-working, silent nonentity. Aunt Jane was the real manager of the ranch, and incidentally of Little Jim, and her husband was more than content that it should be so.

Occasionally Aunt Jane gave a dance at her home. The young folks of the valley came, had a jolly time, and departed, some of them on horseback, some in buckboards, and one or two of the more well-to-do in that small but aggressive vehicle which has since become a universal odor in the nostrils of the world.

Little Jim detested these functions which entailed his best clothes and his best behavior. He did not like girls, and looked down with scorn upon young men who showed any preference for the sex feminine. He made but two exceptions to this hard-baked rule: his Aunt Jane, and her young friend who lived on the neighboring ranch, Dorothy. Little Jim called her Dorry because it sounded like a boy’s name. And he liked Dorry because she could ride, and shoot with a twenty-two rifle almost as well as he could. Then, she didn’t have a beau, which was the main thing. Once he told her frankly that if she ever got a beau, he Jimmy was going to quit.

“Quit what?” asked Dorothy, smiling.

Little Jim did not know just what he was going to quit, but he had imagination.

“Why, quit takin’ you out huntin’ and campin’ and showin’ you how to tell deer tracks from goat’s tracks and everything.”

“But I have a beau,” said Dorothy teasingly.

“Who is he?” demanded Little Jim.

“Promise you won’t tell?”

Little Jim hesitated. He did not consider it quite the thing to promise a girl anything. But he was curious. “Uh-huh,” he said.

“Jimmy Hastings!” said Dorothy, laughing at his expression.

“That ain’t fair!” blurted Little Jim. “I ain’t nobody’s beau. Shucks! Now you gone and spoiled all the fun.”

“I was only teasing you, Jimmy.” And she patted Little Jim’s tousled head. He wriggled away and smoothed down his hair.

“I can beat you shootin’ at tin cans,” he said suddenly, to change the subject.

Shooting at tin cans was much more interesting than talking about beaux.

“I have to help Aunt Jane get supper,” said Dorothy, who had been invited to stay for supper that evening. In fact, she was often at the Hastings ranch, a more than welcome guest.

Jimmy scowled. Dorry was always helping Aunt Jane make dresses or trim hats, or get supper. A few minutes later Little Jim was out back of the barn, scowling over the sights of his twenty-two at a tomato can a few yards away. He fired and punctured the can.

“Plumb center!” he exclaimed. “You think you’re her beau, do you? Well, that’s what you get. And if I see you around this here ranch, just even lookin’ at her, I’ll plug you again.” Jimmy was romancing, with the recently discussed subject of beaux in mind.

When Little Jim informed the household that his father and another man were coming over, that evening, Uncle Frank asked who the other man was. Little Jim described Bartley and told about the wonderful Luger gun.

“My dad is huntin’ his hosses,” he said. “And I know who’s got ’em!”

“Was the other man a deputy?” queried Uncle Frank.

“He didn’t have a badge on him. He kind of acted like everything was a joke shootin’ at that stump, and everything. He wasn’t mad at nobody. And he looked kind of like a dude.”

Little Jim meanwhile amused himself by trying to rope the family cat with a piece of clothesline. Uncle Frank, who took everything seriously, asked Little Jim if he had told his father where the horses were.

“Sure I told him. Wouldn’t you? They’re dad’s hosses, Filaree and Josh. I guess he’ll make olé Clubfoot Sneed give ’em back!”

“You want to be careful what you say about Mr. Sneed, Jimmy. And don’t you go to ridin’ over that way again. We aim to keep out of trouble.”

Little Jim had succeeded in noosing the cat’s neck. That sadly molested animal jumped, rolled over, and clawed at the rope, and left hurriedly with the bit of clothesline trailing in its wake.

“I got to git that cat afore he hangs himself,” stated Little Jim, diving out of the house and heading for the barn. Thus he avoided acknowledging his uncle’s command to stay away from Sneed’s place.

Supper was over and the dishes were washed and put away when Cheyenne and Bartley appeared. Clean-shaven, his dark hair brushed smoothly, a small, dark-blue, silk muffler knotted loosely about his throat, and in a new flannel shirt and whipcord riding-breeches which he wore under his jeans when on the trail Bartley pretty well approximated Little Jim’s description of him as a dude. And the word “dude” was commonly used rather to differentiate an outlander from a native than in an exactly scornful sense. Without a vestige of self-consciousness, Bartley made himself felt as a distinct entity, physically fit and mentally alert. Cheyenne, with his cow-puncher gait and his general happy-go-lucky attitude, furnished a strong contrast to the trim and well-poised Easterner. Dorothy was quick to appreciate this. She thought that she rather liked Bartley. He was different from the young men whom she knew. Bartley was pleased with her direct and natural manner of answering his many questions about Western life.

Presently he found himself talking about his old home in Kentucky, and the thorough-bred horses of the Blue Grass. The conversation drifted to books and plays, but never once did it approach the subject of guns and Little Jim, who had hoped that the subject of horse-thieves might be broached, felt altogether out of the running.

He waited patiently, for a while. Then during a lull in the talk he mentioned Sneed’s name.

“Jimmy!” reprimanded his Uncle Frank.

“Yes, sir?”

Uncle Frank merely gestured, significantly.

Little Jim subsided, frowning, and making a face at Dorothy, who was smiling at him. It seemed mighty queer that, when he “horned in,” his Aunt Jane or his uncle always said “Jimmy!” in that particular tone. But when any of the grown-ups interrupted, no one said a word. However, Bartley was not blind to Little Jim’s attitude of forced silence, and presently Bartley mentioned the subject of guns, much to Little Jim’s joy. Little Jim worked round to the subject of twenty-two rifles, intimating that his own single-shot rifle was about worn out.

Uncle Frank heard and promptly changed the subject. Little Jim was disgusted. A boy just wouldn’t talk when other folks were talking, and he couldn’t talk when they were not. What was the use of living, anyhow, if you had to go around without talking at all, except when somebody asked you if you had forgotten to close the lane gate and had let the stock get into the alfalfa and you had to say that you had?

However, Little Jim had his revenge. When Aunt Jane proffered apple pie, later in the evening, Jimmy prefixed his demand for a second piece with the statement that he knew there was another uncut pie in the kitchen, because Aunt Jane had said maybe his dad would eat half a one, and then ask for more.

This gentle insinuation brought forth a sharp reprimand from Uncle Frank. But Jimmy had looked before he leaped.

“Well, Aunt Jane said so. Didn’t you, Aunt Jane?”

Whereat every one laughed, including the gentle Aunt Jane. And Jimmy got his second piece of pie.

After the company had found itself, Uncle Frank, Cheyenne, and Bartley forgathered out on the veranda and talked about the missing horses. Little Jim sat silently on the steps, hoping that the talk would swing round to where he could have his say. If he had not discovered the missing horses, how would his father know where they were? It did not seem exactly fair to Little Jim that he should be ignored in the matter.

“I’d just ride over and talk with Sneed,” suggested Uncle Frank.

“Oh, I’ll do that, all right,” asserted Cheyenne.

“But I’d go slow. You might talk like your stock had strayed and you were looking for them. Sneed and Panhandle Sears are pretty thick. I’d start easy, if I was in your boots.”

This from the cautious Uncle Frank.

“But you’d go get ’em, if they happened to be your hosses,” said Cheyenne. “You’re always tellin’ me to step light and go slow. I reckon you expect me to sing and laugh and josh and take all the grief that’s comin’ and forget it.”

“No,” said Uncle Frank deliberately. “If they was my hosses, I’d ride over and get ’em. But I can’t step into your tangle. If I did, Sneed would just nacherally burn us out, some night. There’s only two ways to handle a man like Clubfoot Sneed: one is to kill him, and the other is to leave him alone. And it’s got to be one or the other when you live as close to the hills as we do. I aim to leave him alone, unless he tries to ride me.”

“Which means that you kind of think I ought to let the hosses go, for fear of gettin’ you in bad.”

Uncle Frank shook his head, but said nothing. Bartley smoked a cigar and listened to the conversation that followed. Called upon by Uncle Frank for his opinion, Bartley hesitated, and then said that, if the horses were his, he would be tempted to go and get them, regardless of consequences. Bartley’s stock went up, with Little Jim, right there.

Cheyenne turned to Uncle Frank. “I’m ridin’ over to Clubfoot’s wikiup to-morrow mornin’. I’ll git my hosses, or git him. And I’m ridin’ alone.”

Little Jim, meanwhile, had been raking his mind for an idea as to how he might attract attention. He disappeared. Presently he appeared in front of the veranda with the end of a long rope in his fist. He blinked and grinned.

“What’s on the other end of that rope?” queried Uncle Frank, immediately suspicious.

“Nothin’ but High-Tail.”

“I thought I told you not to rope that calf,” said Uncle Frank, rising.

“I didn’t. I jest held my loop in front of some carrots and High-Tail shoves his head into it. Then I says, ‘Whoosh!’ and he jumps back and I hung on.”

“How in Sam Hill did you get him here?” queried Uncle Frank.

“Jest held a carrot to his nose and he walked along tryin’ to get it.”

“Well you shake off that loop and haze him back into the corral.”

High-Tail, having eaten the carrot, decided to go elsewhere. He backed away and blatted. Little Jim took a quick dally round a veranda post. High-Tail plunged and fought the rope.

“Turn him loose!” cried Uncle Frank.

“What’s the matter?” said Aunt Jane, appearing in the doorway.

Little Jim eased off the dally, but clung to the rope. High-Tail whirled and started for the corral. Little Jim set back on his heels, but Little Jim was a mere item in High-Tail’s wild career toward freedom. A patter of hoofs in the dark, and Little Jim and the calf disappeared around the corner of the barn.

Cheyenne laughed and rose, following Uncle Frank to the corral. When they arrived, High-Tail had made his third round of the corral, with Jimmy still attached to the rope. Cheyenne managed to stop the calf and throw off the noose.

Little Jim rose and gazed wildly around. He was one color, from head to foot and it was a decidedly local color. His jeans were torn and his cotton shirt was in rags, but his grit was unsifted.

“D-didn’t I hang to him, dad?” he inquired enthusiastically.

“You sure did!” said Cheyenne.

With a pail of hot water, soap, and fresh raiment, Aunt Jane undertook to make Little Jim’s return to the heart of the family as agreeable as possible to all concerned.

“Isn’t he hurt?” queried Bartley.

“Not if he doesn’t know it,” stated Cheyenne.