“Those punchers were not trying to head off the herd, but shouting to keep the long-horns running in a mad bunch,” he said, positively, and getting another affirmative nod from the other he continued: “they had started the stampede themselves, and just had to keep it up until they accomplished their object, which it’s easy to guess had the stealing of the beef as the chief thing.”
“No wonder I’ve been getting such poor returns from the ranch the last year, if this sort of thing has been going on long,” muttered Adrian.
“If it happened down near the Keystone, the ranchers would get together, and soon hunt the rustlers to the end of their trail,” added Donald.
“But this is away up in Wyoming, and seems like they do things differently here,” Billie woke up in time to say, wisely.
“Yes, and only because a lot of bad men have banded together, and held the ranch owners under their thumbs,” Adrian said, bitterly. “Remember what that puncher told us about these Walkers, and how they ran things about as they pleased up around here, getting bolder and bolder all the while. But time was when they would have had my fire-eater of an uncle after them with a hot stick, for he was noted because of his being afraid of nothing—in those good old days before my father died.”
Billie was heard from again at this juncture.
“Huh! that was before he took to himself a wife, and she one of this same Walker breed,” he remarked.
Donald chuckled, while Adrian sighed.
“It’s almost impossible for me to believe such a terrible change has taken place in Uncle Fred,” the latter went on to say, shaking his head sadly; and then as if his anger began to get the better of all other feelings he continued: “but there’s going to be a change take place in other ways too, or else my name isn’t Adrian Sherwood. This wholesale stealing from the Bar-S Ranch has got to stop, even if I have to fire Uncle Fred and his new wife out of the management.”
“It’s my opinion,” remarked Donald, “that these Walkers are taking advantage of the fact that one of their bunch is installed in the ranch house at your place, to just do about as they please. When they