Of course there were the usual occurrences as there were always such on a big ranch. One or more of the cowboys was continually getting hurt, more or less seriously, and being doctored in the rough and ready fashion that, perforce, prevails in the unsettled part of the West.
For though the life of a cowboy may seem very picturesque when you view it from a seat in a tent or say from Madison Square Garden, in New York, the real facts of the case are vastly different.
No one can ride horses in the slap-dash style the cowboys ride them, and they can not handle cattle—often vicious ones—the way the beasts are handled, without accidents happening.
Nor are cowboys the ones to favor themselves for the sake of avoiding risks. Rather they go out of their way to look for trouble, as it were.
They are filled with bravado.
So it was that while I have said matters were quiet at the two ranches, yet small accidents were continually happening. But, as the boys reported, after a talk over the wire, nothing of great moment had taken place.
"Your dad hasn't heard anything about his stolen papers, has he?" inquired Billee.
"Nary a thing," answered Bud in the vernacular of the west, "and he's beginning to wonder if anything is going to happen down here."
Almost as Bud spoke there came a hail from one of the cowboys who was on the watch, and his cry was instantly taken up with the shout:
"Somebody's coming!"