After lunch they again mounted, Donald now taking the lame pilgrim up behind him for a change; and when the punchers had started the herd along, the journey toward Bar-S Ranch was resumed, with a prospect that another hour might see them bringing up at their destination.
[CHAPTER XV.—FACE TO FACE AT THE CORRAL.]
It appeared that that fine lunch had made the lame man feel a thousand per cent better. The coffee had gone to the right spot, and warmed up his heart, so that he really looked like a different man.
At the same time it developed that Thomas was something of a master-hand at talking, just as he claimed to be with figures. As he rode there behind Donald he kept up a perpetual flow of chattering, and his own adventures in the past, “further south,” as he described it, made up the main theme.
It seemed as though he had indeed been through a heap of trouble, and so far as his accounts went, he was never to blame for the distressing things that happened to him. A ruffian had waylaid him, and robbed him of his hard-earned savings, besides badly using him, so that he was still lame. Then back of that he had been set upon by a band of outlaws, who made him a prisoner, gave it out that he was dead, and for a whole year and more he had been forced to wait on them in their mountain cave, a regular slave.
He entertained Donald with a glowing account of how he had finally managed to stupefy the whole band with some drug he found among their plunder, and in this fashion made his escape. How much of this was true, and what portion ought to be laid to the fancy of an overwrought brain the boy could not tell. He simply put the fellow down as a timid man who liked to boast of things he claimed to have accomplished in the past, which could not be proven either way.
And Donald, too, believed that Thomas was a harmless fellow, given to boasting somewhat, perhaps, or telling extravagant tales about himself, but not at all dangerous.
In turn the other managed to ask a few questions concerning what their intended destination might be like. He had heard about Mr. Comstock being a generous man, and had started out to see if he could not find employment at the Bar-S Ranch. And if these young gentlemen happened to have a personal acquaintance with the manager of the place perhaps they might say a good word for him.
When he learned that Adrian was really the sole owner of the ranch the pilgrim entreated Donald to urge his chum to think kindly of a poor wretch who had been so long the football of fate.
Donald said he would, and hoped thus to get the other to stop talking; but now it was a shower of thanks which continued to fall from the lips of