Though the death of Adam Mackay made a great local sensation, its cause remained unexplained. Apparently he had been unarmed, and so it seemed plain murder. But on the other hand his strange silence was puzzling. He had been on good terms with most of his neighbors, or at least not on very bad terms with anybody, save a couple of Indians whom he had caught stealing and handled roughly. But these Indians had a perfectly good alibi. There was no clew, no starting point. Nobody knew even which way Mackay had ridden on the day of his death. And so after a while it was classed with those mysteries which may be solved by time, but not otherwise.

Meanwhile, young Angus took up the burden of his responsibilities. So far as he knew he had no near relatives, and search of his father's papers confirmed this. He was rather relieved than otherwise. He found his father's will, and struggling with its verbiage, set it aside to await the return of the executor Isaac J. Braden, who was absent on a business trip.

Braden was known to Angus by sight and by reputation. He lived in Mowbray, the nearest town, which was some sixteen miles from the ranch, where he was the big frog in its little puddle. He had a good many irons in the fire. He ran a sort of private banking-loan-insurance business, dealt in real estate, owned an interest in a store, dabbled in local politics and was prominent in church matters. He was considered a very able and trustworthy man. But young Angus, though he had very misty notions of the functions of an executor, had a very clear and definite conviction that it was up to him to run the ranch and look after his sister and brother. That was his personal job. And so he took stock of the situation.

Adam Mackay had owned in all a block of nearly two thousand acres. Of this about three hundred was cultivated or in pasture. The whole block was good, very level, with ample water for irrigation. On the range was nearly a hundred head of cattle. There were horses in plenty—a couple of work team, a team of drivers, and each young Mackay had a saddle pony. The buildings were good, and the wagons, sleighs, tools and machinery in excellent condition. The ranch was a going concern, apparently in good shape. None the less it was a hard proposition for a youngster to handle. It was like putting a cabin boy on the bridge to navigate the ship.

Having been brought up on a ranch, he knew quite well how most work should be done, and he had acquired by absorption rather than by conscious thought a good deal of theory. But Adam Mackay had himself done rather more than half the work. He had had but one steady hired man, Gus Gustafson, a huge Scandinavian who was a splendid worker when told what to do, but who had no head whatever. As Angus could not do the work his father had done he had to obtain additional help, and so he made a proposition to Dave Rennie.

Rennie was not much of a farmer, but he came to the ranch temporarily at first out of his friendship for Angus, and remained.

On a certain Saturday afternoon Angus and Dave Rennie, engaged in hanging a new gate, saw a two-seated rig with three men approaching. Rennie peered at them.

"There's Braden," he said. "I heard he'd got back."

"And that's Nick Garland driving," Angus observed. "Who's the other fellow?"

"Stranger to me. Garland, huh! I never had much use for that sport."

Garland was a young man whose business, so far as he had any, was dealing in cattle. Uncharitable persons said that he dealt more poker. He was a good-looking chap, after a fashion, who affected cowboy garb, rode a good horse, was locally known and considered himself a devil among the girls, and generally tried to live up to the reputation of a dead-game sport.

The third man, whom neither Angus nor Dave recognized, was a nondescript, sandy individual with drooping shoulders, a drooping nose above a drooping moustache which but partially concealed a drooping mouth. On the whole, both Garland and this stranger seemed uncongenial companions for Mr. Braden.

That celebrity grunted as he climbed down. He was a fleshy man of middle age, clean shaven, carefully dressed, with small, somewhat fishy eyes. He took Angus' brown, hardened paw in a soft, moist palm, putting his left hand on his shoulder in a manner which he intended to be sympathetic and protecting; but at which Angus squirmed inwardly and grew rigid outwardly, for in common with normal boys he hated the touch of a stranger.

"And so," said Mr. Braden in a short-winded, throaty voice which held an occasional curious pant like an old-time camp meeting exhorter, "and so this is Angus! It is a matter of great regret to me, my boy, that I was absent at the time of your bereavement. You and your young sister and your young brother have my heartfelt sympathy in this your time of tribulation—huh. Your father was a very dear friend of mine, a man in a thousand, one of nature's noblemen. 'We ne'er shall look upon his like again,' as the poet truly remarks. However, there is no use crying over—that is, the Lord giveth and taketh away—huh, as you have been taught, no doubt. As executor of your father's will my dear boy, I regard myself as in loco parentis, and I hope you will regard me in that way, too."

He beamed most benevolently, but Angus was unimpressed. Mr. Braden, if he had only known it, could not have made a worse start. A quiet word of sympathy or a firm grip of the hand without words would have gone far. As it was, he quite failed to inspire liking or confidence.

They went to the house together, where Mr. Braden said much the same thing over again to Jean, and patted her head. And young Turkey, unwarily peeping through the door, was called in and addressed as "my little man" and patted also; which attentions he acknowledged with a fierce scowl and a muttered word, which fortunately Mr. Braden did not hear.

But these preliminaries over, Mr. Braden got down to business at once. In a few brief but pointed questions he found out all there was to know about the ranch and the stock, and he skimmed through such papers as Angus produced, with a practised eye.

"H'm, yes, yes," he said. "Now I think I understand the situation. I have given the future of you young people the most careful consideration, because it is for the future that you must now prepare. Youth is the time of preparation. It is the building time. As we sow in youth, so we reap in age—huh. Then let us ask what to-day is the great essential of success? There is but one answer—education. And so it follows that you young people must receive the best education that your father's estate can give you; and as Art is long and Time fleeting, as the poet truly remarks, you young people must enter upon the path of learning at once."

The young people said nothing. The flow of words bewildered them. Mr. Braden then got down to brass tacks:

"I will make the necessary arrangements right away," he said. "We will rent the ranch and sell off some of the stock, and the money will be used in sending you all to some good school which will fit you for success in life."

This was definite, concrete, different from generalities. Angus stared at the executor.

"Rent the ranch!" he exclaimed. "I guess not. I'm going to run it myself."

Mr. Braden smiled tolerantly. "Your spirit is very creditable, my boy, but you are too young and inexperienced."

"I'm running it now," Angus told him, "and I'm going to keep on. I won't stand for having it rented."

"At your age, my boy, you don't know what is best for you. You must allow me to be the judge."

Youth is hot-headed, and the tongue of youth unruly.

"I will not stand for having the ranch rented," Angus repeated. "I am going to stay here and work it, and that's all there is to it."

Mr. Braden frowned at this brusque ultimatum. "I have already made arrangements with Mr. Poole, here, to take it over."

Angus looked at the drooping Mr. Poole and decided that he did not like him.

"I don't care what you have made," he said bluntly. "Renters rip the heart out of a ranch. They take everything from the land and put nothing back; and when they have worked it out they quit. That's not going to happen here, if I know it."

"You don't know what you're talking about," Mr. Poole observed.

"I think I know more about ranching than you do," Angus retorted.

"I was ranching before you was born," Mr. Poole told him loftily.

"Then why haven't you got a ranch of your own, instead of hoboing it around, renting places?" Angus demanded.

Mr. Poole reddened and scowled. "I had a blame sight better ranch than this, but I sold it," he said.

"By your looks I think the sheriff helped you," Angus said. "You look to me like a man that is too lazy to turn over in bed, like a man that would sleep in winter and never hear his stock bawling for feed. You will never have this ranch. If you try to come on it—"

"Angus," Mr. Braden broke in with dignified severity, "you are forgetting yourself. You must not talk in that way to your elders."

But by this time young Mackay's temper, which had been gradually rising, was beyond being damped off by a stern voice and dignified manner.

"I will say what I think," he declared, "to this man Poole, or to you, or to anybody else, and I will back up what I say the best way I can. You come here and talk about renting the ranch and selling stock as if I had nothing to say about it. I tell you, now, it doesn't go. I am staying here, and so are Jean and Turkey. If you try to put us off, or put this Poole or anybody else on, there will be trouble you can scoop up in a bucket."

Garland chose that moment to laugh. Angus turned on him with a scowl. He was like a young dog cornered by older ones, nervous, snarling, but quite ready to fight for his bone. He looked Garland in the eye.

"And that goes for you too," he said. "You will buy nothing with the MK brand from anybody but me. You try to take a single head of my stock off the range, and you'll do it in the smoke, do you savvy that?"

Garland laughed again, but there was a note of uneasiness in it, for next to the real "bad man," cold, experienced and deadly, comes the boy, who, bred in the traditions of the old West, has the recklessness and hot passions of extreme youth. The history of the West teems with examples.

"You're making a fool of yourself, kid," he said.

Here Dave Rennie broke the silence which had enwrapped him.

"Oh, I dunno," he observed.

"What have you got to say about it?" Garland demanded.

"I ain't said much so far," Rennie pointed out, "and I ain't goin' to. Only this: Don't nobody overplay his hand in this game—nobody at all."

"Who are you?" asked Mr. Braden.

"Me? Dave Rennie. I'm workin' for the kid."

"Then," said Mr. Braden, "I fail to see what interest you have in the matter, my friend."

"I get in this way," said Dave. "I'm a friend of the kid's, as well as a hired man. You can take what you like out of that."

Whatever Mr. Braden took out of it he did not immediately speak, but drummed with his fingers on the table.

"One of my rules of life," he said, "is to get along without friction; I trust I am a reasonable man. When I find that my views conflict with those of others, I weigh both carefully. They may be right and I may be wrong. We must have no friction at the outset, Angus, and I think that you have misunderstood me. As you object to renting the ranch I am going to give you an opportunity to think it over, and I am going to think it over myself. Then we will have another talk. Naturally, I must do what is best for the estate, but I wish to meet your wishes as far as possible. My sole desire is to do my best for all of you. No friction—no, no. We do not want friction, do we, my boy?"

"I do not want trouble at all," Angus said. "All I want is to run the ranch, and that is what I am going to do."

"Yes, yes, I understand," Mr. Braden returned. "Well, do so for the present, my boy. Then we will talk it over again."

"There is no use talking it over," Angus maintained. "I have made up my mind."

Mr. Braden looked as though he desired to express his opinion of this boyish obstinacy, but changing his mind he smiled benevolently and suggested a look around the ranch. Angus accompanied him, pointing out what was needed and what he intended to do. The executor listened, asking an occasional question, giving now and then a bit of advice. But when he had driven away Angus was thoughtful.

"You and him was gettin' to be some tillikums," Rennie observed.

"He seemed all right while I was going around with him," Angus admitted. "He wants to get that notion of renting out his head, though. I wonder how it would be on a show-down, Dave? Do you suppose he could rent the place, no matter whether I wanted to or not, or was he only running a sandy?"

"I dunno," Rennie admitted. "If I was you I'd go and have a talk with old Judge Riley, like your daddy told you to do if anything come up. You may catch him sober. Not," he added, "that the old boy ain't pretty wise when he's drunk."