Comrades of the Saddle | Page 3

well! It's a good thing you boys were so near home. This is sure a great day for happenings. My sons get chased into their own dooryard and I----"
But as though to arouse their curiosity, the farmer did not finish his sentence.
"You what?" asked Larry.
"Never mind now. Put the horses up. You won't have to feed them; they're too hot. Give them a little hay and then come in to supper."
Knowing it was useless to try to get their father to satisfy their curiosity, for Mr. Alden, though a kindly man, was what his neighbors called "set in his ways," Tom and Larry ran to the barn to open the door, while the hired men followed with the horses.
After rubbing the animals down and giving them some hay, the four returned to the house.
But not until the supper was finished did the farmer deign to impart his news. Then, tilting back in his chair, he looked at his wife and asked:
"How would you like to take the boys to Scotland for the summer, ma?"
"To Scotland?" repeated Mrs. Alden, as though scarcely believing her ears. "Theodore Alden, are you going crazy? What are you talking about?"
"About going to Scotland," answered the farmer, grinning. "And I'm not crazy."
At the mention of the trip, Larry and Tom looked at their parent and then at each other in dismay, for they had planned a different sort of way for spending the summer. But their attention was quickly drawn to their father again.
"I've got to go to Scotland and we might as well all go," he was saying. "The hired men can run the farm for the summer."
Lapsing into silence as he watched the effect of his words, Mr. Alden enjoyed the looks of surprise and curiosity, then continued:
"When I got to Bramley this morning I found a letter from a man named Henry Sargent, a Glasgow lawyer. He said my uncle, Thomas Darwent, had died, leaving me the only heir to his estates. Just how much money this means I don't know. He said it might be ten thousand pounds."
"Phew! that's fifty thousand dollars," interposed Larry, excitedly.
"Just so," returned his father. "It may be more. I can't make out whether that's the amount of cash or if that's what it will come to when the land and houses are sold."
"You can write and find out," suggested Mrs. Alden.
"I can write, but I doubt if I can find out," chuckled the farmer. "Those lawyer chaps use such high-sounding words, you can't tell what they mean. If Uncle Darwent made me his heir, I'm going to see I get all there Is to get. No Scotchman is going to cheat Theodore Alden out of what's his. Soon's I'd made up my mind to that, I drove over to Olmsted and made arrangements to sail from New York on Saturday."
"Saturday? Why that's only three days off!" protested Mrs. Alden.
"Well, it'll only take a night and part of a day to get to New York. That'll give you a day and a half to get ready, ma."
The thought of a trip to Scotland delighted Mrs. Alden, and she immediately began to plan how she could get the boys, her husband and herself ready in such a short space of time.
But Larry and Tom showed no signs of enthusiasm.
Noticing their silence, their father exclaimed:
"Don't you boys want to go? I never knew you so quiet before when a trip was mentioned."
"But the ball game with Husted is on Saturday," said Larry, giving voice to the thought uppermost in his mind. Then, as though he realized that it was foolish to compare a trip to Scotland with a game of baseball, he added: "Besides, Tom and I were planning--that is, we were going to ask you if we couldn't go out to Tolopah and spend the summer with Horace and Bill Wilder on their ranch."
With this announcement of a plan which the brothers had discussed over and over, wondering how they could bring it about, the boys anxiously watched their father's face.
"So that's how the wind blows, eh?" he commented. "Well, ma, what do you say? Shall we take the boys with us or let them go to the ranch?"
With her quiet mother's eye Mrs. Alden caught the appeal on her sons' faces and after a short deliberation replied:
"I think they'd be better off with the Wilders--that is, if they'd like to have the boys visit them."
"Hooray! hooray!" cried the boys together.
"We can telegraph and ask Mr. Wilder tonight," said Larry. "Can we go to Bramley and send the message, father?"
"You can telephone the message to the station and the operator will send it."
And while the boys puzzled over the wording of the telegram, their father re-read his letter from Scotland.
"I've got the telegram ready," Tom exclaimed presently. "Listen." And