On the evening of the sixth day after leaving Austin we came up with the cowboys, who were camped in a belt of post-oaks, and long before we got up to them we found that they had discovered us. Everyone wanted to know how Bob had prospered, and when Mr. Chisholm told them he had been successful in spite of the surrogate’s efforts to cheat him out of it, you ought to have heard that belt of post-oaks resound with their cheers. Now that he had time to think it over, Mr. Chisholm still regarded the efforts of the surrogate to keep the will as a fraud, notwithstanding what President Wallace had told him.
“Aint he just as likely to die as I am?” he demanded. “And can’t that Henderson go there and get that will? I tell you I think it would have been safer in my own hands than his. But I am done probating wills now. The next time anybody dies he can get somebody else.”
At last we arrived at our ranch and found everything there just as we had left it. The cowboys gazed in surprise at the result of Tom’s search, for you will remember that he threw the things in the middle of the floor and had not had time to replace them. Then Tom showed them the stick he had used in unearthing the pocket-book and the very spot where he had dug it out. There weren’t ashes there enough to conceal it from anybody who had tried hard to find it. I could see that Bob was very grateful to Tom for what he had done, and consequently I was prepared for what he had to say to me afterward.
It was two weeks before we got our cattle all rounded out and driven off by themselves where we could take a look at them. There were not more than five thousand head, all the rest that Mr. Davenport had owned having been left on the prairie as a prey to the wolves. He must have lost as many as ten thousand head, which amounted to a considerable sum. But I ought to say that, long before this happened, Bob had brought all his cowboys together and paid them the money that had been left to them in his father’s will. It made less weight for him to carry, and, besides, he wanted it off his mind. I wish I could put it on paper, the scene he had with Mr. Chisholm, who positively refused to pay the money. It raised a roar of laughter, which made the old man so mad that it was all he could do to keep from pulling his pistol; but Bob got around him at last, and finally he gave in.
“If it is as you say—that you want some disinterested party to pay them so that they won’t believe that they have been cheated—why, I will do it,” said he, seizing the nearest bag of gold and emptying it upon the table. “But you promised that there should be no foolishness about this. Now, boys, watch me, and see that I don’t make any mistake. Frank, you come first. I’ve got an all night’s job before me.”
But in an hour they were all paid, and not one of the men had a chance to tell Mr. Chisholm that he had made a mistake. They received it reverently, for their minds were with the man whose liberality had made so great a change in their fortunes. It was more money than they had ever had before in their lives.
Shortly after that—the very next day it happened—Bob said to me in a whisper that he wanted to see me when all the cowboys had gone to the round-up, so I stayed behind. Elam had charge of the cooking now, for I had almost forgotten to say that the Mexican had discharged himself when we drew near to the waters of the west fork of Trinity. He heard that there was going to be a fight, and so took himself safe out of reach of it. But then we didn’t care for Elam; he had been Bob’s friend all the way through, and we were not afraid to trust him.
“Say, Carlos, I hardly know how to speak to you about this,” said Bob, looking down at the floor. “You say Tom Mason’s friends are rich?”
“Well, I know what you have on your mind, and I’ll tell you just what I think about it,” said I. “You know Tom got into serious trouble where he lived, and he has somehow got it into his head that if he can go home with five thousand dollars, that trouble will never come up again. How much truth there is in it I don’t know.”
“I know all about his troubles, but he ought not to let them prey so heavily on his mind. Now, how much has he got left?”