The good looking young cowboy removed his sombrero, wiped his hot brow with his red bandana handkerchief and then burst into unexpected laughter.
“Well, Malcolm,” he chuckled, “Ah reckon that thar dod-busted steer that’s been so plumb rampagious this mornin’ was at the bottom of the whole thing.”
“Then you don’t think that gypsies tried to steal them?” It was the first time that Betsy had addressed Slim.
He had not noticed the young stranger. Virginia, noting his expression of surprise exclaimed, “Betsy, this is Slim our prize broncho buster and sure shot roper.”
The young cowboy laughed disparagingly. “Don’t take no stock in all a-that, Miss Betsy,” he said.
“Oh, I know it without being told,” was the young girl’s eager response. “Didn’t I see you rope that wild steer with my very own eyes.”
Malcolm, anxious to know where the cattle had been found turned the subject back to the point where it had digressed.
“No, sir, ’twant gypsies nor yet again cattle thieves that let the yearlings out of their pen. ’Twas that wild one himself.”
“But, Slim, that doesn’t seem probable or possible for the fence was not broken and the cattle cannot open the gate,” Malcolm was saying when Betsy who had turned to glance at the corral in which the restless herd was pacing back and forth, uttered a cry of warning.
“Look! Quick! Slim is right! That wild steer is pushing the bar.”