which can be depended on to back me up, if it comes to choosing a boss.”
“And how do you make out?” asked Donald, eagerly; “will the big end swing for or against us, do you believe, Adrian?”
“So far,” replied the other, “as well as I can tell from here, it’s about an even toss-up all around. Where one puncher looks scowling and mad, there’s another ready to throw his hat up, and yell with joy at seeing the long-horns coming back, when everybody counted them lost for keeps.”
“But none of them suspect that you’re here?” interposed Billie.
“Of course not; how could they, when even my uncle is resting under the belief that Adrian Sherwood is right now away down under the hot sun of Arizona, hanging his hat on a peg in the Keystone Ranch building.”
“You don’t see him yet, do you, Adrian, or the lady either, for that matter?” continued Billie, wild with impatience to witness that remarkable meeting when his chum would come face to face with the once strong-minded manager of the cattle ranch, but who was now a slave to petticoat rule as instituted by the sister of Hatch Walker, known at the time of her second marriage as the Widow Smeed.
“Not yet, but soon,” replied the other, who was
rising in his stirrups, the better to see what was transpiring.
The trio of punchers who had been hired by Adrian to assist him in his work of reconstruction at Bar-S Ranch went about their business of shunting the cattle into the corrals as though they had worked here for years, and knew all the ropes; but then it was all a part of their stock in trade, and one ranch is pretty much like another, wherever cattle are raised for the market.
A couple of fellows belonging to the place took it upon themselves to lend a hand at turning the herd in at the proper moment, and by their actions informed Adrian that they were overjoyed to see the way things had turned out. He marked them down in his mind, and felt that here were a pair of worthy punchers, at least, on whom he might depend for aid when the time for choosing came.