Chapter 1
TOUGH LUCKA HALF-dozen men sprawled comfortably in back-tilted chairs
against the side of the Bar Y bunk-house at the home ranch. They
were young men, lithe of limb, tanned of face and clear of eye.
Their skins shone from recent ablutions and their slicked hair was
still damp, for they had but just come from the evening meal, and
meals at the home ranch required a toilet.
One of them was singing.
"In the shade of a tree we two sat, him an' me, Where the
Haegler Hills slope to the Raft While our ponies browsed 'round,
reins a-draggin' the ground; Then he looks at me funny an'
laft."
"Most anyone would," interrupted a listener.
"Shut up," admonished another, "I ain't only heered this three
hundred an' sixty-five times in the las' year. Do you think I want
to miss any
