Therefore, Tom was highly pleased when they finally rode over a ridge and saw the cowboys’ camp at the base of a gently-sloping surface which extended before them.
A big chuck-wagon stood in the shadow of a grove of cottonwoods. Around a smouldering fire a number of shirt-sleeved men had gathered and every one was staring hard toward them.
“That’s the finest sight I’ve seen for some time!” cried Tom, enthusiastically. “Hooray!”
The mustang, responding to his commands, broke into a swift gallop which carried him in a moment to the cottonwoods where, with a hearty salutation to the cowboys, he slipped from his horse.
Their actions filled him with the greatest astonishment. They were looking at him as though in open-mouthed wonder. He heard them speaking, in low excited tones; he saw the biggest, a man well over six feet in height, step forward, extending a huge brown hand toward him. Then his amazement was made complete when he listened to these words, spoken in a loud chuckling tone:
“Shake, Jimmy Raymond. We’re sartinly more’n glad to see you.”
CHAPTER XIX
CAPTURED BY COWBOYS
“Jimmy Raymond!” gasped Tom. “What do you mean?”
“Business, Jimmy!” came the terse answer. “Our fellows have been a-lookin’ fer ye; so has the Texas Rangers, to say nothin’ o’ Jake Raigan the sheriff—but what made ye come? Was it our Mexican pard yonder; or did ye git tired of the lonesome trail?”
“Sure enough it’s Jimmy!” broke in one of the others. “Jist as the colonel says. One o’ the longest boys in all creation. Wal, Blimby, I call this here a fine piece o’ luck.”