“Fact is, dad,” laughed Frank, “there isn’t a sign of a new mark on the flank of Old Baldy. Somebody took the pains to wipe out our brand, all right; but they didn’t have the nerve to continue the work. I reckon that Old Baldy just tore around, so they had to let him severely alone.”
“Well, I wouldn’t wonder,” chuckled the stockman, who had known the tough old steer to do many queer things in his time. “Only wonder is they didn’t put a bullet in him, and end his loping. But I must go out and see our old friend when he shows up. You think he was on the way here, don’t you, Frank?”
“Sure he was,” continued the boy, “when he caught a whiff of that lame wolf, and set up a siege by the little bunch of timber. Give him half an hour, and you’ll see him show up at the cattle corral, acting just as if he’d never been away.”
“There’ll be some high old jinks played
around there,” remarked Bob. “Old Baldy used to be the Great Mogul, I remember; and since he disappeared several candidates have bobbed up to take his place.”
“Yes, he’ll have to beat the lot of ’em before he’s proved his right to his old position of boss!” declared Frank.
“And he’ll sure do it,” echoed Bob. “The way he acted out there on the plain proved that even a month’s vacation hasn’t taken any of the ginger and spirit out of the old chap. Why, I guess he’s that tough, his flesh would turn the edge of a hunting knife—that is, any ordinary blade,” and Bob sighed as he spoke.
Frank knew that he was thinking once more of the mystery concerning the disappearance of his own knife, which he valued so highly, and thought without an equal.
Some of the cowboys connected with the Circle Ranch came galloping in just then. They were grinning, as though wonderfully pleased over something; a fact the boys with Colonel Haywood noticed immediately.
“Two to one they’re on,” remarked Bob, upon seeing the three punchers make a bee-line for the piazza, as though each wanted to be the first to communicate some pleasing information.