want to cling to me any longer, and I will be free to go, and start afresh some place where they don’t know me. But introduce me to your friends, Adrian. I hope I haven’t sunk so low but that I’d be proud to shake the hands of such brave fellows.”
Poor old Uncle Fred was trying his best to appear something like himself; but it is very hard for a man who has been made the cringing slave of a virago to seem at all dignified; he was so in the habit of looking quickly around as though expecting a blow that it would have been comical had it not at the same time seemed quite sad, especially to Adrian, who had known how proud and consequential a strut Uncle Fred used to have in other days.
“This is my chum, Donald Mackay, about whom I’ve written you often,” the boy went on to say; “and this other is his cousin, Billie Winkle.”
Mr. Comstock gravely shook hands with each of them. He was not aware that from behind a bunch of the punchers his wife was watching them like a hawk, for she managed to keep herself concealed from view, while she listened and looked, evidently sizing the situation up, and deciding what all this row meant, with the missing herd back under the charge of a pack of strange punchers, too.
“I chanced to run across three cowboys who were out of employment, since the man they had
worked for sold his ranch; and taking a fancy to the lot I engaged them to work for me. They are reliable, honest fellows, who will stand back of me; for I reckoned, you see, Uncle, that there might be a few punchers here that wouldn’t care to stay—after I came!”
He lowered his voice when saying this. Perhaps, after all, Adrian may have known of the presence of his uncle’s wife back of the group; or else he did not mean to let his plans be known to every Tom, Dick and Harry.
Apparently Mr. Comstock grasped the situation, reading between the lines. He must have known that there were employees on the ranch devoted more to the service of his wife, and her relatives, the Walkers, than they were to the interests of the owner of Bar-S; and that if Adrian meant to stay and assume charge of his own property he would have to fire these unworthy punchers the first thing.
How wise he had been then to make sure of having reliable fellows to step into the places that would thus be made vacant. Uncle Fred saw that the boy was surely able to plan, and also carry out his arrangements. It might be different when he found himself up against a woman’s wits; but he began to have hopes that the reign of petticoats was nearly at an end in connection with Bar-S Ranch.
The more the boy saw of his uncle the greater