They had long ago stopped arguing with Billie with regard to his abnormal appetite. Sometimes one or the other would joke him about it, but they never tried to cut him short on his rations.
Looking around Adrian quickly decided that they had come upon as good a place to spend this the last night on the Wyoming trail as any that could be found.
“What better could heart wish?” he put it up to them; “with this fine little watercourse running zigzag along, and right here a motte of timber where we can make our camp? And there are several riders heading toward us, that perhaps we might
try and pump, so as to get some information about the Bar-S Ranch. That landlord at the tavern didn’t seem to know anything.”
“Look like cowboys too,” declared Billie, after an anxious glance toward those who were galloping in their direction; for Billie knew that on the plains it is hardly wise to trust any one you happen to meet until they have proved their title to be looked on as friends.
“Oh! come, don’t keep feeling for your gun that is strapped so safely to your back, Billie,” said Adrian, laughing. “There are only three in the bunch, and they’re sure enough punchers. Let’s give them the cowboy salute, and show that we happen to be of the same stripe; though I reckon our outfit tells that already.”
“Yes,” added Donald, “and don’t forget, Billie, that we said we’d keep mum about Adrian here being the owner of the Bar-S Ranch. Just say we belong down Arizona-way, and have come up here to look around. People mind their own business generally speaking, here on the plains, and they won’t pry into our affairs when they see we don’t care to open up.”
“All the same, I’d like to ask a few questions myself,” Adrian went on to say. “It might be right useful to us if we could get a line on what’s going on up around the Bar-S, before we arrived.”
“A good idea,” commented Billie, quickly.
“They say forewarned is forearmed, you know; and if we learn something is crooked, why, you’ll be able to figure on what you ought to do, eh, Ad?”