The X Bar X boys at the round-up

Pulling his pony to a sudden stop, the rider gazed intently at a cloud of dust sweeping over the horizon. His companion, a slightly younger lad, with facial characteristics so s...

With necks outstretched, flesh quivering, and eyes white from fear, the ponies flashed across the prairie. Direction was forgotten in the mad rush to escape those dripping fangs...

Teddy and Roy swung quickly around. Facing them, guns out and still smoking, were three men. One of them had a wart on his nose. The second was shorter, and looked a great deal...

When Roy Manley left Teddy alone by the bush and went through the night toward the camp he had just left, two thoughts were paramount in his mind. One was that he hated to trick...

When the Manley boys came down to breakfast the next morning they found their mother waiting for them at the foot of the stairs. Her soft blue eyes, her blond hair, with never a...

“Good-bye, flowers!” shouted Teddy Manley, and ran closer to the scene of impending disaster with a vague notion of doing something to stop the onrushing monster. But as he took...

Peterson passed his hand over his chin as though he were thinking up the answer to this last question. But his hesitation was too obvious to be real. Roy knew he had made his ch...

“Talk to these bow-legged skillet-curlers? Not me! I wouldn’t waste breath on ’em. Maybe when round-up time comes they won’t be quite so chipper. I’ve known buckets to welch bef...

“Couldn’t help it. Seems to be a habit with those Lefton boys--that eight mile stuff and about the cars. We’ve got a nice little jig-saw puzzle to fit together, Teddy, my lad. H...

Like a carved statue the bronco stood, silent, immobile. As an arrow pauses for a moment at its zenith before descending. As a gunner, intent on destruction, takes deadly aim be...

Stiff and sore in every muscle, Teddy arose from his bed the morning following his disastrous ride and bent over experimentally. Roy, who had a bed on the other side of the room...

Teddy’s surprise did not prevent him from going into immediate action. He had not been hurt by the bullet, which had been just low enough to draw blood and not stun him. He jump...

Late as it was when Teddy and Roy Manley reached home that night, a conference was called. Mr. Manley sat in his office, a room set aside for his exclusive use, and listened to...

That Gus Tripp was the bearer of news was easy to be seen. It fairly oozed from him, and he had a hard time to keep from shouting it as he approached. But he managed to contain...

There was a moment’s silence, while Gus essayed a grin which failed to live up to his expectations. The brown face across the table was too much in earnest, too sincere, to allo...

“Sure does,” Roy answered Mohammed Ali Ben Suliman’s question casually. He saw that Teddy was about to speak, and silenced him with a glance. Both boys urged their ponies forwar...

Straight toward the rising sun the herders rode. The corral, within which the cattle were to be driven, was about seven miles out, and they were to go there and get their instru...

As the men rode forward, a small herd, some seventy-five or a hundred head, which was grazing quietly in a shallow valley, looked up inquisitively. The horsemen did not quicken...

Teddy, himself, realized the post of danger that he held. Behind him came some three thousand cattle--some horned and all hoofed with bone as sharp as steel. He, alone, was to g...

The ground in the shady side of the chuck wagon resembled a small section of a battlefield where carnage had been complete. Tired bodies were sprawled in every imaginable attitu...

“Well, I wanted to express my opinion of this bird,” Peterson growled. “I’m getting the raw end of this deal, and I take the most chances, too. Suppose that Manley bunch finds o...

Bound as he was, he crawled nearer. Oblivious of consequences, realizing only that his brother was in pain, he kicked out with both feet, as hard as he could. They caught Jamiss...

“Well,” he said slowly, “I reckon it’s our day. Hope you boys are comfortable. If you want anything, sing out. Um. It’s fine weather to-night. Yep, it sure is fine weather.”

When one has counted so heavily on something, has worked desperately for it, the moment when one realizes failure seems so definite, so unrelieved, that the world spins on unnot...

The cars were old and their joints rusty, and the noise they made as they rumbled along resembled an avalanche. The pistol shots, puncturing the roar, sounded like the popping o...