CHAPTER I COMPANY COMING High and clear the sweet, western wind brought over the rolling hills the sound of singing. At least it was singing of a sort, for there was a certain swing and rhythm accompanying the words. As the melody floated toward them, three young cowboys, seated at ease in their saddles, looked up and in the direction of the singer. Thus the song. "Oh, bury me out on th' lonesome prairie! Put a stone under my haid! Cover me up with a rope an' a saddle! 'Cause why? My true-love is daid * * * * * *" It is impossible in cold print to indicate the mournful and long-drawn-out accent on the word "dead," to rhyme with head. "Here comes Slim!" exclaimed one of the youthful cow punchers to his companions. "As if we didn't know that, Dick!" laughed the slighter of two lads who, from their close resemblance, could be nothing less than brothers. "His voice doesn't improve with age; does it, Nort?" asked Bud Merkel, smiling at his cousins, Norton and Richard Shannon. "But he means well," declared Nort with a chuckle. "Oh, you Slim!" he shouted, as a tall lanky individual, mounted on a pony of like proportions, ambled into view, topping a slight rise of the trail. "Oh, you Slim!" The older cowboy—a man, to be exact—who had been about to break forth into the second, or forty-second verse of his song (there being in all seventy-two stanzas, so it doesn't much matter which one is designated)—the older cowboy, I say, paused with his mouth open, and a blank look on his face. Then he grinned—that is the only word for it—and cried: "Well, I'm a second cousin to a ham sandwich! Where'd you fellows come from?" "We haven't come—we're just going!" laughed Bud. "We're going over to see Dad and the folks. How are they all?" "Oh, they're sittin' pretty! Sittin' pretty!" affirmed Slim Degnan, with a mingled smile and grin. "How'd you fellows come out with your spring round-up?" "Pretty fair," admitted Bud. "A few steers short of what we figured on, but that's nothing." "I should say not!" chuckled Slim. "Your paw was a heap sight worse off'n that." "Rustlers again?" asked Nort quickly, as he and his brother glanced at one another. They had not forgotten the stirring times when they were on the trail of the ruthless men who had raided Diamond X ranch, and their own cattle range. "No, nothin' like that," answered Slim easily. "Just natural depravity, so to speak. Some of 'em ate loco weed and others jest got too tired of livin' I reckon. But we come out pretty fair. Just got th' last bunch shipped, an' I'm mighty glad of it." "Same here!" spoke Dick. "That's why we came over here—on a sort of vacation." "I reckon some other folks is headin' this way on th' same sort of ideas," remarked Slim Degnan, as he rolled a cigarette with one hand, a trick for which the boys had no use, though they could but admire the skill of the foreman. "What do you mean?" asked Bud. "Is Dad going to take a vacation? If he does—" "Don't worry, son! Don't worry!" laughed Slim, as he ignited a match by the simple process of scratching the head with his thumb nail....
