Ben gave Nevada a quick interrogating look. “Holding out on me, hey?” he flashed.

“Wal, not exactly,” drawled the cowboy. “I seen your haid was full of Ina Blaine. An’ I shore didn’t want to see that sweet little girl forgot all in a minnit.”

“Nevada, I’ll biff you one right on your long jaw,” declared Ben, half in earnest.

“In that case, then I’ll have to elucidate. Day before yesterday Modoc spotted a big band of wild hosses. He was on the mountain yonder an’ saw the hosses down in the valley, makin’ straight for the ice caves.”

“By thunder!” shouted Ben, in an instant all excitement. “What we’ve laid low for all these dry years!”

“You bet. Water all gone on this range. Them wild hosses are sick of drinkin’ out of this mudhole. An’ Forlorn River about your spring is growin’ green an’ bitter. There’s cold clear water down in them ice caves. Modoc tells how his people used to trap hosses there. An’ as you say, we’ve been layin’ low for the chance.”

“Of all the luck! You knew this when you jumped on me with both spurs—driving me to sell my horses?”

“Shore. I just wanted to see how much of a sport you was.”

“Did Modoc see California Red?” asked Ben, eagerly.

“No, but I shore did,” replied Nevada, quickening to the excitement of his friend. “I was ridin’ north six or eight miles above heah, lookin’ for tracks. I climbed pretty high, an’ swingin’ round a curve I run plumb into Red. He had a small bunch with him, mostly mares. They were travelin’ north. Say, when he seen me! Whoopee! Talk aboot your red streak. Closest I ever was to him. I watched him out of sight. An’ I’m shore he was makin’ for that high black range.”

“Good! Out of the way for this summer,” exclaimed Ben, with gratification. “That leaves us time to work. We’ll catch Red when the snow drives him down out of the hills.”

“Ben, you’re gettin’ real human sense. I declare fallin’ in love all over again…. Hold on! Ouch!——I’ll take it back.”

“You’d better. Come on, now. Let’s ride this four eighty, as you call it.”

It required no great acumen for Ben to realize that they had secured a remarkable bargain in the homesteads. There were fully three hundred acres of level land, a gray loam very productive under normal rainfall. This did not include the area of Mule Deer Lake, which was now a ghastly yellow basin, with a small circle of muddy water left in the center. The mouth of Moore’s canyon proved an ideal site for a dam. A wall thirty feet high and two hundred in length would dam up a lake of large dimensions, storing water enough for years. Irrigation in that warm protected bowl would make it a paradise. What an oversight on the part of these homesteaders! Ben and Nevada were highly elated and talked like boys and planned like ranchers with means. Yet the evidence was there to see. Ben realized he had bought a magnificent ranch for a bunch of horses. What would his father say to that? What would Ina Blaine think when some day she saw this sage–sloped valley green and verdant? Ben’s heart beat with unwonted vigor. His luck had turned. He was on the track of something that would surprise those hard–fisted grasping ranchers back at Tule Lake. But he reflected he would never abandon his homestead on Forlorn River.