It was now about ten o’clock at night, and on account of the delay, travel was more or less congested along the line.

Frank, upon making inquiries, learned that they would not arrive at their destination until about daybreak, and so he and his chums went to their berths to secure what sleep was possible.

Frank had them up in good time, and long before dawn they were fully dressed, awaiting the arrival of the train at the valley station with impatience.

“Another hour now, and then I shall know,” Bluff was saying to himself.

“Thank goodness!” exclaimed Jerry, who happened to overhear him.  “And for the peace of the party, I do hope the first thing you see when you open your bag will be that awful sword.”

“We’re stopping, fellows!” cried Will, trembling with eagerness.

Five minutes later they jumped down from the train.

“Hello, boys!  Glad to see you!  Better late than never!” said a hearty voice, and then they found themselves shaking hands with a big man, whose gray-bearded face seemed to be a picture of good nature.

Of course, this was Mr. Mabie, the ranchman.  He saw to it that their big trunk was dropped off the baggage car, to be seized by a couple of cowboys and hustled on to the back of a long buckboard wagon, drawn by a couple of skittish horses.

Then they were off, not five minutes after the train had pulled out.

“Here, Reddy,” said Mr. Mabie to the young driver, “let me make you acquainted with some good fellows about your own age,” and he introduced them one after another.

Frank saw that the cowboy was well named, for he had quite a fiery thatch; but his freckled face seemed one of the sort that invited confidence, and Frank believed he would like the other right well.  Of course, Reddy was attired as all well-ordered cowboys should be.  Will was secretly wild for a chance to introduce him in some picture.

“It will give such a pleasing variety to our book of views, for we haven’t got a single cowboy in between the covers,” he said in an aside to Frank.

They followed up the valley for over an hour.  The ranch was miles removed from the railway, and surrounded by the wildest scenery the boys could remember having looked upon, and that was saying a good deal, after such a journey.

Martin Mabie was a widower, without any family.  Still, he had a number of women folks on the place, a sister keeping house for him, with a Chinese cook to attend to the kitchen part of the establishment.

“Ain’t this immense?” remarked Bluff, as he waited impatiently for the men to carry the big trunk indoors, so that he could satisfy his soul about the one object that had been worrying him ever since leaving Centerville.

Somehow or other they seemed slow about doing this.  The horses had to be attended to first of all.  Then there seemed to be some sort of excitement in the neighborhood of the corral, for the boys noticed a mounted cowboy come dashing up and jump from his steed, which was blowing hard, as if from a rapid dash.