Accordingly he made his way toward the corrals, being careful to give the call that had been arranged between the defenders, so that they might not shoot one another by mistake.
Donald was glad to have him back.
“I heard about what you did,” he said, as he squeezed his chum’s hand. “Uncle Fred brought that wounded chap past here; and he said you did it for him.”
“But what about the other three?” demanded Adrian; “Uncle Fred told me he wanted to get back here so as to make prisoners of the rest of the batch.”
“Well, they seem to have disappeared,” replied Donald; “nobody knows whether they scented trouble, and slipped away; or if Mrs. Comstock has hidden them in the ranch house, meaning to turn a sly trick later on; but let’s hope the sheriff’ll get along here before the worst happens.”
[CHAPTER XXVI.—A BOLD PROPOSAL.]
“Suppose we take a tally, and see just about how the game stands right now,” suggested Donald, presently, after they had stood there for a bit listening to the various sounds of the night that was in all probability bound to mark the turning point of Bar-S Ranch’s fortunes, either up or down.
The cattle were uneasy in the corrals. Plainly they objected to this summary way of taking them from the pasture-land and shutting them up between walls, even if the confines did consist for the most part of a fence-like structure.
They bellowed more or less, and roamed around, as though in hopes of finding a weak spot where they might force an exit.
But thanks to the great care of Uncle Fred, who knew steers from the ground up, not a loophole of a chance for such a thing happening had been left, unless human hands started to make the break.