“And of course you said you could crawl better than any snake that ever lived,” added the other chum, desirous of hurrying things up; for it always took Billie an everlastingly long time to tell a story.
“Well, I told him to show me the way, and I’d do the rest,” Billie went on to explain. “So he led me out of the mess room, and along a passage that seemed to take us into the ranch house. Then he explained in his heathen way that fortunately I was able to understand, how, by lying down flat, and hunching myself along, I could get to where there was only a thin partition, and even this had a knothole in the same through which sounds would ooze.”
“The cunning Celestial knew all about that, did he?” remarked Adrian. “Chances are Uncle Fred had him hired to watch his wife, and notify him if she seemed to be plotting with any of the punchers who sided with her. But what else happened, Billie? You did the grand crawling act all right, I reckon?”
“Well, I guess, yes,” chuckled the fat chum. “I managed to get close up to that same partition, and sure enough there was a little blot of light coming through the knothole Charley said was there. And while I couldn’t look through, because it was so low
down near the floor I wasn’t able to crowd down that far, I could get my ear close to the opening, and was able to hear the talk that was going on in the other room.”
“And one of those five unfriendly punchers was in there, was he, conferring with Aunt Josie, when he ought to have taken his orders only from Uncle Fred?” Adrian went on to say.
“He seemed to be the boss of the outfit of mean skunks,” Billie admitted; “and from the way he talked about your uncle I don’t think he’s got much respect for him any longer. But the first thing I heard was her asking what he’d done about sending word to her brother, which I take it means that old rascal, Hatch Walker, the head of the rustler gang.”
“He’s the man, Billie; and what reply did he make to that?” asked Adrian.
“Why, he says as how he’d taken care of that job; because there was already one of his boys on his pony and riding straight for where the rustlers showed up before it got too dark to see ’em. And as he had given the fellow the signal he reckoned that he’d get among the bunch right soon.”
“And what message did this puncher say he had sent out to our enemies?” Donald inquired.