Chapter 3
Still, Dad had always expected Dan to take the younger man under his wing. “Make a man and a cowboy of him,” he’d said. Dan had tried, but it seemed his efforts were for naught.
He got along all right with Mabel, the stepmother who’d come to the ranch three years after Dan’s mother died of cancer, although she was only a few years older than he was and had brought a then twelve-year-old son with her. It was the boy who’d always been prickly, scornful, often even downrightrude. Dad had shown him what Dan thought was every kindness, been totally fair and even generous to helpand support him, but it didn’t seem to be enough to suit Darrel. Now all that hostility fell on Dan.
He swore under his breath as they rolled into the ranch yard. “Drop me off at the house, Fred. I’ve gotto get some paperwork done, but I’ll be down to the corrals as soon as I can.”