“Yes, and how it’s going to end I can’t for the life of me see,” added Adrian; “because she’s his own wife after all, so that the only escape for him would be running away, and that would lose me my manager, which I wouldn’t like a bit; but perhaps it may all come out right in the end; you never can tell, Donald.”
[CHAPTER XXVIII.—COUNTING THE MINUTES.]
“That clears the situation a heap, let me tell you, Adrian!” was what Uncle Fred said, heartily, after he had been told what a clever trick the young owner of the Bar-S Ranch had succeeded in turning.
Donald took especial pains to note that Mr. Comstock did not appear to be annoyed in the slightest because the wife of his bosom had been thus made a prisoner in her own house; in fact, the prairie boy was inclined to believe that Adrian’s relative seemed to breathe easier than he had done for some time, because now he could be absolutely certain that Mrs. Fred was so placed that she might not confront him unexpectedly, to confound him, when he ought to be fixing his mind on other things than family differences of opinion.
“The corrals are all secure so far, are they, Uncle?” asked the boy, anxiously; for he had become deeply interested in this strange game which was being waged for the possession of his herds.
“Yes, up to now nothing has happened,” came
the reply; “but what lies ahead of us no man can say. They’re a wily and unscrupulous lot, those Walkers, and wouldn’t hesitate at anything short of murder, I reckon, and even that crime might be laid at their door, if you cared to go back to certain unexplained things that’ve happened around these diggings in times past.”
“It’s too bad the moon is hidden by the clouds, so that the darkness is likely to keep right along,” Donald remarked, as he cast a critical eye upward toward the gloomy heavens; and as boys on the plains learn early in life to read the signs of the weather almost as well as the Indians can themselves, Donald knew what he was talking about when he regretfully admitted that there was little hope of the sky clearing in time to do them any good.
“Yes, because we can never say what lies hidden right out yonder,” Mr. Comstock went on to observe, sweeping his hand off toward the blackness. “Somewhere in the midst of that pall we believe there are a dozen riders hanging out, waiting to swoop down on us at a certain time, and cut the barricade that holds the cattle safe, if they can manage it. That may mean the exchange of dozens of shots; and some people are apt to get their summons this very night; but what does Hatch Walker care for that, when he’s made up his mind to do a thing? I’d be a happy man if only some
of us could get him to with a bullet. It’d be the best thing that ever happened for this section of country if Hatch was put out of the running for keeps. And remember, I’m not a blood-thirsty man at all, but one who would have peace all the time, even if I had to fight for it.”