Together they rode on, circling to the right to get around the
edge of the fire.

"She's dying out," observed Dick.

"Yes, it can't burn much longer," admitted Bud. "And no great
damage done, either, unless we find something we haven't yet
seen."

But when they had completed the circuit around the edge of the
blazing grass, and could ride across the fire-blackened area, and
behind what was still a thick screen of smoke, they saw something
which caused them great surprise.

This was not the sight of a bunch of stampeding cattle, though it
was what Bud and his cousins folly; expected to encounter. There
were some cattle on this side of the fire, but they had run far
enough away to be out of danger, and beyond where they could be
frightened into a frenzied rush.

"Look!" exclaimed Nort, pointing.

"Four Eyes!" exclaimed Dick.

"By the great horned toad and Zip Foster--yes!" agreed Bud, and
his cousins knew he must be stirred to unusual depths of feeling
to use this name. Zip Foster had not been mentioned in several
weeks. The mysterious personage, on whom Bud called in times of
great excitement, was almost a stranger, of late, in Happy