Comrades of the Saddle Part 5

"Come on," commanded Horace, seizing Tom's suit-case. "We won't dally here in Tolopah. We must get to the ranch before it gets too hot." And he led the way to where four bronchos stood tied to a railing.

Quickly the Wilders made fast the suit-cases to their saddles and untied the ponies.

"This is Blackhawk, Tom, and this is Lightning, Larry," said Horace as he handed the reins to the two boys. "They're a couple of the best ponies in New Mexico, and while you're here they'll be yours.

You can get acquainted with them on the ride to the ranch."

Both animals were splendid creatures, well built and powerful.

Blackhawk, as the name suggests, was jet black, his coat glistening in the sun, and Lightning was a roan.

Already Bill and Horace were on their ponies, and the two brothers were just swinging into their saddles when a voice cried:

"Tom! Larry!"

Turning their heads, the boys beheld Hans, the tears streaming down his cheeks, rushing toward them as fast as his valises would let him.

No need was there to ask if he had found a trace of his brother.

The tears told all too plainly that he had not.

"Who in the world is that?" asked Horace in astonishment.

"A German boy who traveled with us," explained Tom. "Do you know any one in Tolopah by the name of Chris Ober?"

"Struck out for old Mexico, prospecting for gold, three months ago," replied Bill. "Why?"

"That's his brother Hans, who has come from Berlin to visit him,"

returned Tom. And hurriedly he gave an outline of the German lad's story.

"Phew! Chicken-hearted, is he?" commented Horace. "It won't do to leave him in Tolopah. Luckily one of our men is in town with our grub wagon. He can ride out to the ranch with him."

When Tom imparted this information to Hans, the poor fellow was delighted and asked where he could find the outfit.

"I'll show him. You all ride on," said Horace. But the others refused, declaring they would all go together.

As the cavalcade started with Hans and his valises trying to keep up with them, many were the jests and laughs cast after them.

But the boys paid them no heed, and in a few minutes the German youth was safe in the provision wagon.

Putting their horses into a brisk canter, the four lads set out for the ranch.

Many were the questions the Wilders asked about their friends back in Ohio, and so busy were Tom and Larry in answering, and in relating all the events of consequence that had transpired since the family had left Bramley two years before, that the twenty miles which lay between Tolopah and the ranch seemed scarcely one.

CHAPTER V

THE HALF-MOON RANCH

As the boys drew rein in front of the broad, vine-covered piazza of the ranch house they were greeted by Mr. and Mrs. Wilder,

"Well, it does seem good to see some one from home," exclaimed the latter as she shook the hands of Tom and Larry.

"It sure does," a.s.serted her husband. "Wish you'd brought your father and mother with you. What in the world started them off to Scotland?"

Quickly the brothers explained.

"Well, well! So Uncle Darwent really had some money," commented Mrs. Wilder. "I'm real glad, though of course it isn't as though your father needed any more. I should have thought you boys would have wanted to go with them."

"Not when we could spend the summer on your ranch," returned Larry.

"But we began to be afraid we would be obliged to go, and we should have if the telegram had been any later. No time ever seemed so long as when we were waiting for your answer."

"It was just luck we got your message," declared Horace.

"Sometimes we don't go to town for a week. But something seemed to urge me to ride in the other morning, and when I arrived Con Brown hollered to me he had a telegram. When I read it, I didn't lose any time answering, and I made Con promise to rush it."

"Con's our telegraph operator," explained Bill. "Come on in and change your duds and then we'll look the ranch over."

Nothing loath to remove their clothes, which still smelled of engine smoke, despite their ride over the plains, as the brothers seized their suitcases and followed their young hosts, Larry exclaimed laughingly:

"You see we took your advice not to bring a trunk."

"Glad of it," a.s.serted Horace joyously. "There's no need to dress out here. It's just great! You don't have to put on a collar from one week's end to another. But if you had brought a lot of clothes, mother would have made us dress too. That's why I mentioned the matter in my telegram."

This explanation was given in a low tone that Mrs. Wilder might not know her son had taken such effective measures to prevent his being obliged to "dress up," and the boys laughed heartily at the harmless joke.

The home of the Wilders was only one story high, but the rooms were big and comfortable. Around three sides ran the piazza, from which French windows, extending from the floor to the ceiling, opened, admitting any breeze that might be stirring.

The room a.s.signed to the boys was on the west side of the house, and through the vines they could look across the plains to some mountains that towered in the distance.

"Our room is the next one to yours," said Bill. "We'll wait there till you are dressed. If you want anything, sing out."

Hastily Tom and Larry took off the clothes in which they had traveled, and bathed, glad of the opportunity to remove the cinders which had caused them no little discomfort.

"Bill and Horace seem just the same as when they lived in Bramley,"

observed Tom when they were alone. "Horace hasn't grown a bit."

"They are tanned up till they look like Indians, that's the only change I can see," returned his brother. "Horace always will be short, but Bill's tall enough for two."

"You can't wear those caps," declared Bill as Tom and Larry appeared with the light baseball caps they had brought with them.

"But that's all we have," protested Larry, "except, of course, our straw hats. You don't expect us to knock round in those, do you?"

"Sure not. But if you wore those caps you'd get sunstruck out on the plains. We've got some sombreros you can take."

As the boys trooped out onto the piazza Tom espied a five-bar fence about a hundred yards from the house.

"That's the horse corral," explained Horace, noting the direction of his friend's gaze. "We don't keep our ponies in barns out here.

The horses are all out on the range now, except eight we keep at home for ourselves."