Snap had been looking very anxious during this conversation. Now his keen young face brightened. He saw a chance for himself and his friends.
'But don't you think such an arrangement would be rather unfair to Wharton?' he asked.
'No, not a bit,' answered Nares stoutly. 'You are a really good man about a ranche now, and those two boys looked really likely lads, especially that big, fair-haired fellow; and then, too, Wharton has no capital worth speaking of.'
'I'll sound him anyhow, that can do no harm,' was Snap's comment; 'the boys will be here in a day or two.'
'Very well, if they are here when the round-up is going on they can lend a hand about the camp and make themselves useful, and after that you and Wharton can go with them to find this ranche.'
'Thanks,' replied Snap, and the man and boy bent from their saddles and shook hands warmly.
If Nares was going to leave the Rosebud, Snap was not going to stay. That at any rate was clear to our hero's mind. More than that—if old Wharton would only take him into his venture there was nothing that he would like better. This, too, was clear to Snap's mind.
At the first opportunity the boy sounded old Wharton on the subject. He had not to beat about the bush long.
'Why, lad,' the old fellow cried, 'that is just what I was wanting to say to you, only I thought that the life might be a bit too hard, and the profits come mighty slowly; for you know,' he added, 'we must keep putting the income into the herd for a good many years before we draw anything out for ourselves.'
'Never mind that, Dick,' replied Snap; 'can you do with my two friends?'