“Well, I should say not!” Bob exclaimed, with so much feeling that his chum had to press a warning finger to his lips; “and remember, that I’m just as eager about turning the trick as you can be. Only,” and there was a wistful tone to his voice now, “I’ll be awful glad when it’s over.”
Frank chuckled softly.
“Looks like you’d never make a very good sheriff, or marshal, Bob,” he remarked.
“I don’t reckon I would,” replied the other. “Perhaps it’s because I’ve got too soft a heart. But Frank, if I saw the biggest scoundrel that ever went unpunished nagging a little chap, or a girl, I think I’d jump in, and try to hold him up.”
“Don’t I know it, old fellow?” the other hastened to declare. “Haven’t I seen you do just that same thing more’n once? But we’d better cut this talk out now, Bob, and get along because they’ve all gone but us; and we want to see what goes on, whether we have a hand in it or not.”
“Right we do, Frank; lead the way!”
The two saddle boys started to follow the rest, creeping along as stealthily as the best of them, and heading for the camp of the cattle thieves.
The night was near its close, just as Frank had declared when mentioning the fact that it must be after four o’clock. And the moon would presently vanish behind the summit of the ridge that marked the cap of the western range, of which Thunder Mountain was a part.
When Frank and his chum arrived within seeing distance of the several cabins comprising the camp of the rustlers, all seemed quiet. The fires had been allowed to die down, so that there was only a little glow where they had been.
From the direction of the big corral where the cattle were kept, such sounds as would indicate the presence of a herd could be heard by ears accustomed to the various noises of a ranch.