“Worse and worse,” he thought, when he had recovered himself so that he could think at all. “Tom has been doing something else that renders him liable to arrest. What will become of him?”
Then, seeing that the colonel’s eyes were fastened upon him with an inquiring look, he called a sickly smile to his face, and asked, in a voice that was strangely calm, considering the circumstances:
“Are the wolfers all bad men?”
“Oh, no. There are exceptions, of course; but take them as a class, they are a desperate lot. I know of several men, two of whom I have in my mind at this moment, who made their start in life as wolfers. One of them is now a prosperous merchant in an Eastern city, and the other is running an extensive cattle ranch in Texas. But they were careful of their money, while the majority of those who follow that business squander every cent they earn. They brave hunger, cold, and all sorts of hardships for several months in the year, and devote the rest of their time to getting rid of their money. They are held in supreme contempt by all honest plainsmen, and this acquaintance of yours had better break off associating with them before he gets himself into trouble, if he hasn’t done so already. If he is going to be a wolfer, he had better hunt alone than in the company of that miserable fellow he seems to have chosen for a companion. No matter how much money he makes, Lish will find means to obtain possession of the whole of it.”
“Do you think he will rob him?” exclaimed the boy.
“He is capable of anything,” was the colonel’s reply.
And it was accompanied by a shrug of the shoulders that spoke volumes and excited a train of serious reflections in Oscar’s mind.
CHAPTER XIII.
OSCAR WRITES A NOTE.
While the colonel was speaking, Oscar had twisted uneasily about on his chair, waiting with the utmost impatience for him to bring his remarks to a close.
At almost any other time he would have plied the officer with questions regarding the class of nomads known as “wolfers,” for he would like to have learned more about them; but he had already found out all he cared to know just then.