WHO ARE THEY?
The encampment of Steve's outfit, and therefore the tent in which
the four girls were sheltered, was on the side of the hill to the
south of the narrow path connecting the twin valleys. It seemed as
though the chuck wagon and tent, as well as the horse corral, were
well out of the path of the charging cattle.
But when Nan Sherwood and her companions, awakened by the louder
peal of thunder, gazed out of the tent opening and gained, by aid
of the lightning, their initial glimpse of the stampede, it seemed
as though a thousand bellowing throats and twice that number of
tossing horns threatened the encampment.
"Grab your things and get out this way!" shouted Rhoda, leading the
retreat through the rear of the tent.
Fortunately the girls had not taken off more than their outer
clothing and their boots. They had no cots during this outing, but
used sleeping-bags instead. Seizing such of their possessions as
they could find in the dark, they followed Rhoda out at the rear
and up the hillside.
From below the pandemonium of sound of the enraged and terrified
cattle was all but deafening. At the corral the men who had been
off watch were mounting their ponies. The girls heard Steve's
stentorian voice shouting to Hesitation Kane:
"Can we swing 'em before they clog that cut into the other hollow,
Hess?"
"Nope!" and to the girls' surprise the horse wrangler snapped out
the answer. "Shoot the leaders and pile 'em up in the gap. Then
swing 'em."
"Oh, I don't want to do that," yelled Steve. "The boss will have a
fit. Who started this thing, anyway? That fool boy?"
"Oh! where is Walter?" gasped Grace.
But another cowboy from down below shouted:
"It's a put up job. I saw somebody start 'em. They've been
stampeded, Steve."
The next moment the hullabaloo of the cattle themselves made human
voices unbearable. A flash of lightning showed the front of the
herd as it charged up the slight rise to the mouth of the cut.
Ahead of them, riding like mad and using his coiled rope to urge
his pony, came a single rider. Another flash of lightning revealed
his identity to the girls.
"Walter! Oh, Walter! He will be killed!" shrieked Grace.
Nan Sherwood leaped a pace in advance as though she would go, afoot
as she was, to his rescue. Bess covered her face with her hands.
Rhoda shouted in so ear-piercing a tone that the men at the corral
heard her:
"Save him! Don't let him go under, boys! Daddy will never forgive
you if Walter is hurt."
But before she spoke a single rider had left the encampment like a
missile from a gun. It was Hesitation Kane, riding low along his
horse's neck, and swinging his big pistol in his left hand. He had
taken it upon himself to go against Steve's orders.
A fusillade of shots met the forefront of the stampeded cattle just
as it seemed Walter Mason must be overwhelmed. It was in the narrow
cut between the two valleys. The leaders went down in a heap, and
against the ridge made by their bodies the steers directly behind
them crashed with an impact like two colliding trains!
The lightning revealed from moment to moment the awful sight. The
cattle behind pressed against those ahead. The bellowing beasts
were smothered--were crushed--by the score! It seemed to the girls
and to Walter, who now had gained control of his pony and came
riding back, as though half that herd of mad beasts must be
sacrificed.
But Steve and the other herders saw their chance. They swept down
on the flank of the herd. The well trained ponies made a living
wall against the cattle. The latter began to mill--that is, turn
and travel on the herd's own center.
Of course, many dropped and were trampled. It was a situation that
took every ounce of pluck in a man's body to go up against that
maddened herd. But Steve and his crew did it.
A rider appeared madly from the west. "Get your guns, boys!" he
yelled. "It is a raid! Greasers! I seen 'em start the cattle
stampeding!"
"You are bringing us stale news, boy," shouted the outfit's cook.
"We're going after them Greasers."
He and Tom Collins were already astride their ponies. Rhoda had got
into her boots and now she ran and noosed her pony out of the herd,
making the cast by the light of the electric flashes. She saddled,
mounted, and was away after the two cooks. Walter joined her,
followed quickly by Nan. Bess had to stay behind with Grace, who
would never have ventured on such an expedition.
They charged down the swale toward the west. Walter shouted to the
others what he had seen at the start of the stampede.
"That is it," cried Rhoda. "Mexicans! When daddy hears about this
he will be just about wild."
When the little party had swept to the far end of the hollow there
were no signs of the Mexicans who had ridden down into the place to
stampede the steers. The rain began to fall; but there was not much
of that. It was mostly a tempest of thunder and lightning.
The circling cattle swung west finally and came down the valley at
a less dangerous pace. The two cooks, with Rhoda, Nan and Walter,
remained to meet and turn their front again. By the time the cattle
had circled the valley twice, they were leg-weary and their fears
were quenched.
It was a hard night that followed for all. Half the gang had to
ride herd until daybreak to make sure that the nervous creatures
did not start again. The other men and ponies dragged the dead
beasts out of the throat of that gap between the two hollows.
More than a hundred were either dead or had to be shot. The bodies
had to be dragged out of the way on the hillsides. Otherwise the
steers remaining could not have been got out of the pasture.
Rhoda cried. Every carcass dragged out of the way meant a decided
loss for Rose Ranch. And the pity of it!
One puncher was sent to the ranch house to report and ask for a
beef wagon to come up. But not more than two carcasses could be
used by the whole ranch force at this time of year. The weather was
too hot.
By morning the path was cleared. Steve said:
"Get 'em out! Get 'em out as soon as possible. Before night the
heavens will be black with buzzards and the hills yellow with
coyotes. There will be some singing around this place for a day or
two."
They drove the exhausted cattle slowly into the outer pasture, and
from there headed them deeper into the hills to a larger valley
where the herbage was known to be good.
"I don't know who them Mexicans were. I don't believe it was the
same outfit that the boss and the Long Bow crowd chased. They got
over the Border, I understand," said Steve.
Walter and the girls talked this mystery over by themselves. It
puzzled them vastly.
They had come up here to hunt for the Mexican bandit's treasure;
and here they had run into a gang of outlaws just as bad as the old
Lobarto gang that had been such a scourge to the country six years
before.
"I believe the single Mexican you girls saw at the bears' den
belonged to this gang that started the cattle stampeding," Walter
declared.
"It must be true," agreed Rhoda.
"Then what shall we do? Don't you think you girls had better go
back to the ranch house and postpone treasure hunting until the
Mexicans are rounded up?"
"And let them find Lobarto's treasure?" demanded Bess. "Maybe that
is what they are after."
"Bess says something sensible, that is sure," Rhoda broke in. "I
hate to think of any of those mean Mexicans getting the hidden
wealth."
"Just think of poor Juanita and her mother," Nan said, agreeing
with her girl friends. "These bad Mexicans will never give back any
of the money Lobarto stole."
"Scarcely!" exclaimed Rhoda.
"I suppose Walter is speaking for me," said his sister simply. "I
know I am timid. But I will stick if you other girls do."
"Hoorah!" shouted Bess, hugging her. "Why! you are getting to be a
regular sport. We've got Tom and Mr. Kane with us, besides Frank,
the other cowboy. I am not afraid of the Mexicans--not much, that
is--whether they are Juan Sivello and his gang or not."
"Hear! Hear!" agreed Nan. "And having done so much harm in this
neighborhood, perhaps they have run away a good many miles to
escape pursuit. Let us go and take a look in the bears' den,
anyway."
And so it was agreed.