Chapter VI. One of Those Cowboys
Chapter VII. The Kid Makes Himself at Home
Chapter VIII. Contestant Number One
Chapter IX. Dulcie Harlan Looks Around
Chapter XI. You'd Make a Doctor of Him?
Chapter XII. The Kid Goes After His Shirt
Chapter XIV. The Trail of the Shirt
Chapter XV. It Wasn't Anything
Chapter XVI. Mrs. Bennett—Montana Kid!
Chapter XVII. Fame but Feeds the Feud
Chapter XVIII. Beaten, but not Whipped
Chapter XIX. The Kid Plumbs the Depths
Chapter XX. Scraps of Paper Help
Chapter XXI. Troubles Multiply
Chapter XXII. What's a Champion Anyway?
Chapter I. The Happy Family Returns
Two days before the Fourth of July a small procession of three automobiles lifted a ribbon of fine gray dust from the road that wound eastward along the edge of the Bear Paw foothills. Far back toward Dry Lake the haze was still slowly settling to earth when the last car passed through the high gate of the Flying U fence and a small, slight man got out and pulled the gate shut, hooked the chain around the post and into a link worn smooth with much use and climbed back beside the driver.
"Same identical chain, hooked the same way as when I came through here years ago," he observed pensively to his companion. "Don't it seem like yesterday we hit out for California, Weary?"
"It sure does when I look at these hills," Weary replied. "I miss a few chucks in the road, though. They been doing some work on it lately, looks like. We'll be in sight of the coulee in a minute."
Even as he spoke the lead car, a long, low-slung roadster of a famous foreign make, slid up to the very brow of the hill and stopped with a sudden flash of the warning red light seen rather dimly through its coating of dust. The driver, capped and goggled and otherwise bearing the earmarks of a tourist de luxe, twisted his slim body so that he faced to the rear, though his gauntleted hand pointed dramatically down into the valley.
"My God, boys, they've built a red barn!" he cried in the tragic voice of one unexpectedly confronted with the worst that can befall. "Can you feature it? A red barn, and it's trimmed in white like a million other barns in a dozen States!" He sank down into the seat again, shaking his head in mournful acceptance of the sacrilege. "They might as well put up a windmill and a silo and finish the job!"
Heads craned out of the following limousine. The driver flapped a hand forward in the gesture of dismissal.
"Hey, cut the agony scene and drive on, Mig! Or else pull outa the road to do your wailing, and let me past."
"What's wrong?" Weary shouted from the rear car. "Mig stalled in that tin toy of his? Lemme past, Andy, and I'll give him a tow."
But even while he was speaking the yellow roadster slid on down the steep hill, took the narrow Hogsback trail like a darting lizard and swept at a reckless speed down the last slope and across the creek on a bridge that, like the red barn, was a late improvement, leaving the two cars to bore through the thick curtain of dust at their leisure. As he passed through the big gate he remembered so well, the driver slowed and came to a stand before the bunk house where he had slept through many a bitter night when he was only a poor cowboy working for the Flying U.
As he pulled off his brown goggles and gazed reminiscently at the squat log building, the brown limousine and the blue coach that had trailed him from Dry Lake slid up and stopped with a squeal of brakes which brought a tall man to the door of the white house on the knoll beyond the cabin. Through a window beside him an old man looked out with the peering intentness of one whose sight is failing.
"Here come the boys, Dell!" the man in the doorway called over his shoulder and came hurrying down the porch steps. "Hey, you fellows, what're you stopping down there for? Drive on up here. That you in the band wagon, Mig? Hello, Andy! Hello, Weary and Pink—everybody, hello!"
"Hello yourself!" Pink, the little fellow with dimples and eyes of a childlike candor, called exuberantly. "We're running ahead of our schedule, Chip—and that's more than you could expect with these bum cars and drivers."
"The quicker the better. Say, you're sure riding good stock these days, boys. Beats plugging along on a cayuse, don't it?" Chip went from car to car, shaking hands and flinging personal jibes at them, affection turning them to compliments by the very look and tone of him.
"Get out and come in, all of you. J. G.'s been watching the road ever since we got your letter saying you could come. I don't see how you got down the hill without him spotting you. Rosemary, Dell will want to murder you if you didn't bring those two kids of yours along."
"Oh, they're here—asleep on cushions in the back of the car." Mrs. Andy Green turned to glance in where they lay. "It's a pretty long trip for little tads like them, and I hate to wake them up. Drive over there and park in the shade, can't you, Daddy? They ought to sleep another hour or two. We needn't take out the grips yet. We stopped in Dry Lake and cleaned up," she explained to Chip, as they went up to the porch. "The same old hotel—it hasn't changed a chair. Even the same paper on the wall! But we didn't see a soul we knew."
"No, the hotel has changed hands since you left. Here's Dell—come on in, all of you."
Eagerly, yet with a certain gravity hidden beneath the talk and laughter, they went trooping into the big living room of the Flying U ranch house where they had gone booted and spurred more times than they could remember. Eyes shining with something more than welcome, something of gratitude and a secret understanding, the Little Doctor greeted them each with a special significance in her warm handclasp.
It was because she had called them that they had dropped everything and come. She had told them that J. G., their beloved Old Man whose querulous but kindly rule had held them together on the ranch with a bond stronger than the blood tie, was failing with every day that passed. He had lost interest in life and would sit for hours brooding silently