Oscar had picked up this expression since he came on the plains.
“To get the drop” on one, means, in frontier parlance, to get the advantage of him.
“When I first came up here you said you had been looking for me,” continued Oscar. “How did you know that your mule was in my possession?”
“I didn’t know that he was in your possession. I only knew that he was coming, and that he would be here to-night.”
“Who told you?”
“Nobody told me. I found it out in this way.”
As the ranchman said this, he advanced and handed Oscar a piece of soiled paper, on which was written something that almost knocked him over.
He had never dreamed that he could have an enemy in that country, where he was so little known; but here was the plainest evidence to the contrary.
The note ran as follows:
Mr. Barker: