“Oh! I get on to what you mean!” declared Billie, admiringly; “by that time they just couldn’t give us any bother, even if they did hurry away to find the rest of the ugly Walker crowd! That’s a fine scheme of yours, Adrian. Ain’t it funny now, with all my thinking that never came into my mind? But count on me agreeing with you, Adrian. It couldn’t be bettered, no matter how much I badgered my head over the business. And Donald here says the same, don’t you, old fellow?”
“I sure do that same,” Donald was quick to say; “and I think that our chum has covered the ground the best ever.”
“There’s another thing I’ve decided on,” Adrian went on to remark, encouraged by the success of his first proposition.
“Let’s have it then,” Billie begged him; “might as well hear all these bully ideas in a heap while we’re ready to take a shock; and you do beat the world on thinking up things, Adrian, that’s right.”
“The very first chance I get I mean to send word to the sheriff of this county as the owner of Bar-S Ranch, and demand that he come to my place instanter with a posse behind him, ready to break up
this rustler business. Those cowboys told us a new sheriff had just taken office, and they kind of hoped he wouldn’t be like the last one, right under the thumb of these terrible Walkers. Fact is, they seemed to have an idea he stood ready to do his duty the first time any ranchman got nerve enough to call on him to break the gang up. And I’m going to be that rancher to take the bull by the horns!”
He did not say this boastingly, nor was his voice elevated so that the listening prisoners might hear his words; but as he spoke there was a determined look on Adrian’s face that told Donald, who knew him so well, he had never been more earnest in all his life than when he made this bold assertion looking to throwing down the glove of defiance to the Walkers.
“A great scheme, Adrian,” Donald remarked, and his manner told even more than his few words.
“Don’t talk louder than we are now,” said Billie just then; “because I saw one of them fellows bob his head up like he was mighty curious to know what we had our heads together for.”
The three Broncho Rider Boys continued to confer for some time longer. Billie was holding out manfully, but every now and then he would stretch his mouth in a dreadful way, as the irresistible impulse to yawn came upon him.