CHAPTER XXV
FROM RANCH TO RICHES
Bob asked many questions about his father on the ride to Red Top, learning that he had died from pneumonia; that his mother had died soon after Bob was born, and that it had been his father's dying request that he be sent to New York, where he could grow up and receive the education he himself had been denied. But their arrival at Red Top put an end to their conversation and they turned to the matter at hand.
As the citizens saw Bob's pursuers return captives they were amazed, and when they learned the reason they expressed in no uncertain terms their anger at having been made to chase an innocent boy.
At the jail, the forged deed and other papers that were to be used in stealing John Ford's ranch away from him were found on the prisoners and were filed away to be used against them at the trial.
To one or two of his firm friends, the ranchman introduced Bob, and sincere were their expressions of delight both at meeting him and in knowing that he was to come into his own. Ford, however, swore them to silence, for there were some of the townsfolk who had supported Dardus in his lawsuit, and neither the ranchman nor Bob wished a word of his presence to leak out till they had perfected their plans for bringing the dishonest guardian to book.
"But your boys know it, John, and so do the prisoners," asserted one of these friends.
"My boys won't talk about it," declared the ranchman. "I'll see to that. If the prisoners do, you all can say the story is absurd, probably another of their plots to steal another ranch."
This decided, the grizzled plainsman summoned his cowboys, explained the situation briefly, and offered them a year's wages for their silence, which they promised when Bob added his entreaties.