The western line is another river, the Joliette, and the cross-bar is a range of hills--they might almost be called mountains--which I had been facing all that morning till the snow came between and shut them off; White Divide, it is called, and we were creeping around the end, between them and the Midas.

It seemed queer that there was no way of crossing, for the Bay State lies almost in a direct line south from Osage, Frosty told me, and the country we were traversing was rough as White Divide could be, and I said so to Frosty.

Right here is where I got my first jolt.
"There's a fine pass cut through White Divide by old Mama Nature," Frosty said, in the sort of tone a man takes when he could say a lot more, but refrains.
"Then why in Heaven's name don't you travel it ?" "Because it isn't healthy for Ragged H folks to travel that way," he said, in the same eloquent tone.
"Who are the Ragged H folks, and what's the matter with them ?" I wanted to know--for I smelled a mystery.
He looked at me sidelong.

"If you didn't look just like the old man," he said, "I'd think yuh were a fake; the Ragged H is the brand your ranch is known by--the Bay State outfit.

And it isn't healthy to travel King's Highway, because there's a large-sized feud between your father and old King.