“Yes, sir, I am going to get away from here as soon as I can,” repeated Claude, giving his cousin a good looking over as he rode a little in advance of him. “I know just what I will have to do when I arrive at the shanty they call home. Uncle has not said so, but I infer he is going to make a cowboy out of me. If there is anything I do despise it is a horse; and I know this wild Indian will take great delight in giving me the wildest one there is on the range to ride. Then what will I do during my off times? Not a billiard-table nor a bowling-alley here! I wish I could think up some way to get around the old man.”

Claude was filled with such thoughts as these during his ride to the ranch, although he tried his level best to keep up his end of the conversation. He laughed when the others Page 196 did, when Carl told his father of the time that Thompson had had breaking in the sorrel mare—not because he could see any fun in it, but for the reason that he did not want to let his uncle and cousin see how completely his mind was taken up with other matters. Finally he aroused himself and began to take more interest in what they were saying. It would be well enough, he thought, to wait awhile before getting away from there.

“Carl, do you see anything of the Indians out here?” was his first question.

“Oh, yes; we see them every day,” replied Carl.

“But do you have any trouble with them? I have heard that Indians are always on the warpath, and that they shoot and scalp every white man they see.”

“Well, it is not so. We are on the Sioux reservation, and we know that they have been peaceable ever since their surrender.”

“What did they surrender for?”

“To pay for killing Custer and his band,” replied Carl, looking at his cousin with some surprise.

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“I believe I heard something about that. Custer lost several of his own men, didn’t he?”

“Well, I should say so. It was the greatest massacre that ever was known. Custer gave up his own life; and, besides, he lost two hundred and forty-six of his men.”

“Do you find any game about here?” asked Claude, who plainly saw that it would not do to talk to Carl about the Indians.

“More than we want. If you are fond of shooting, I can take you where you can shoot a grizzly bear inside of three hours after you leave our house.”

“They are dangerous, are they not?”

“Well, I guess you would think so after you have been in a battle with one. Last week we took a man down to the fort, to the hospital, who had his left shoulder all torn out.”

“Have you got any books that are worth the reading?” said Claude, who very soon made up his mind that he didn’t want anything to do with grizzly bears. “You must have lots of time at your disposal——”

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“Well, no. We have our evenings if we are not on the watch, but then we are too tired to do anything but sit around and talk. We have plenty of books, however, and among them there is one that I always admired—Scott’s ‘Lady of the Lake.’”

“Yes, I believe I have heard of that book. Scott was a robber, was he not?”

“No,” answered Carl indignantly. “He was a Scottish nobleman. But he made one of his heroes an outlaw, and he ran on until he met his lawful monarch and killed him.”

Both the young men remained silent after that. Carl was astonished that his cousin, who was fresh from the city, where everybody is supposed to know everything, should be ignorant of little matters which he had at his tongue’s end, and Claude saw that he must be careful what subjects he touched upon to avoid showing how little he knew. By this time they were in sight of the ranch. It is hard to tell just what kind of a looking building Claude had picked out in his imagination for his uncle to live in, but it was plain that his amazement increased when he looked at it. Page 199 He got down out of the wagon and was immediately introduced to Thompson, who gave him a hearty shake, and at the same time he bent his eyes upon him as if he meant to look him through.

“Everything is all right, sir,” said he in response to an inquiry from his employer, “and Carl has had one good, hearty laugh since you went away. The old sorrel threw me three times in succession, and I thought Carl would never get over it. I think you will find everything just as it was.”

Claude was shown into his room, which he had to himself; and Carl, after turning his pony loose, sat down upon the porch to think. To say that he was sadly disappointed in his cousin would not begin to express it. He knew that the man was older than himself, and that he would find it hard work to amuse him; but he did not suppose that there was going to be such a gulf between them.

Claude knew literally nothing outside of billiards and bowling-alleys, and he would have to go a long way from that valley to find them. His thoughts, as he sat on his bed Page 200 gazing idly at the rag carpet on the floor, were very much out of place for one who had just come among relatives he had not seen for a long time, and whom he had tired of already.

“I was a fool for ever coming out here, but then I did not know that they lived so far from everybody,” said Claude, running his fingers through his hair and acting altogether as if he were very much displeased with himself. “I wish I were back in the Planters’ House, playing a game of billiards with somebody; but now that I am here, I am going to make the most of it. I don’t like my uncle’s looks. He is a pretty hard man to deal with.”

And we may add that these were his reflections during the two years that he remained an unwilling visitor at the ranch. He conquered himself as well as he could, and stayed there because he had nowhere else to go. If he went to the city he would have to go to work at something, and he thought that living on the ranch was better than going among entire strangers. He tried hard to learn his duties; and being given a sober old horse that Page 201 it was no trouble to ride, and keeping always in company with Carl, he found that he got along better than he otherwise thought he would. But there was one thing that came into Cla............