“Uncle Jethro must be a man of some importance down this way,” Andy went on to say, “when they go so far as to even name the station after him.” At that Frank chuckled.
“Well,” he remarked, drily, “if it looks like some we’ve seen, that isn’t paying your relative a very great honor; because they were the most terrible tumbledown places I ever did set eyes on. But let’s hope Witherspoon will turn out to be something different.”
“Frank, I do believe the train’s beginning to slacken up right now!” cried Andy, all of a tremble with eagerness.
“You’re right it is and here comes our friend the brakesman to help us off with all our truck,” observed the other Bird boy, who did not show his excitement as much, although no doubt he too was quivering with the anticipation of the coming introduction to Western ways.
Presently the train came to a stop, and the boys having reached the platform of the sleeper stepped off.
As they did so there was a loud whoop from a dozen lusty throats. Looking in the direction from whence these vociferous sounds proceeded they saw a collection of rough and ready picturesque cowboys, just like those who had appeared in the moving picture plays which Frank and Andy had enjoyed from time to time in the little playhouse in Bloomsbury.
They were on foot, but their horses could be seen hitched along a rail close by, and exhibiting more or less of spirit because of the hissing engine, to which they were evidently not accustomed.
Frank had just shaken hands with the accommodating brakesman, and tipped the colored porter of the sleeper, when he discovered Andy caught in the arms of a tall man, whose snow-white mustache and goatee gave him a distinguished appearance.
Of course this could be no other than Uncle Jethro. Frank knew he would like the ranchman from the start, and that nearly everybody must. While his word was law in that section, at the same time the owner of the ranch was a genial gentleman, whom most of his cowboy hands thought so much of, that they would be willing to go through fire and flood at any time to serve him.
Frank at first sight thought Uncle Jethro looked like a Kentucky Colonel; and that impression never left him.