Billie gave a screech in order to relieve his overwrought nerves.
“Victory! We came, we saw, we conquered! Bully for the Broncho Rider Boys; they’re a whole team and a dog under the wagon. Told you we could do ’em, fellows! Why, it was as easy as falling off a log. Hope you’re going to hog-tie the lot, Donald, now that we’ve got ’em, so we won’t have to be sitting up to keep the same from vamosing the ranch; because there might be some other things more pleasant we’d like to be at.”
Donald had prepared for just such an emergency beforehand, so that he had plenty of stout cords in his pocket, with which to make the rustlers secure.
He started in to do this. The men had recovered their wits enough by now to display considerable ugly temper. They may even have begun to dimly suspect that they had not been made prisoners by a large company of punchers after all, but that this trio of lively lads represented the sum total of their adversaries.
Donald knew that when they came to understand this humiliating fact they might become so desperate that they would go to any lengths in the endeavor to turn the tables again. That was one reason why he made such haste in getting bonds on the prisoners, with his two chums standing there, guns in hand
and constantly on guard, lest one of the others leap upon Donald.
After the last man had been secured, and they were beginning to growl and swear in a horrible way, Billie thought he might claim a little of his own time in order to carry out some idea he was hugging to his heart.
But when he knelt down where that enormous feeder had been sitting it was only to give a grunt of disgust, for the very last bite of cooked meat had vanished. They had played their hand just a little too late to please Billie, who had such a stubborn way of trying to carry out any scheme he may have conceived, no matter how foolish it might be.
Adrian looked at Donald, and then the two of them shook hands. If ever they experienced the delight of having accomplished something worth while it was then and there, when they found that the four cattle rustlers were in their power, and the way stood open to recover the stampeded herd belonging to Bar-S Ranch.
Billie was not to be left out when the congratulations were going around; and accordingly he insisted on also shaking hands with his chums.