THE BOYS FIND TROUBLE.
"No shootee! No shootee!"
The blue-overalled Chinaman plumped down on his knees in the thick
dust, with his hands clasped in entreaty. Above him, threatening the
cowering wretch with his pistol, stood the figure of the man who had
emerged so suddenly from the restaurant door. The crowd doing nothing
stood stoically looking on.
The tormentor of the Mongolian was a tall, swarthy figure of a man,
crowned with a high-peaked, silver-braided sombrero, the huge brim of
which almost obscured the repulsive details of his swarthy face. The
remainder of his garb was a short jacket, beneath which a broad red
sash upheld the most peculiar nether garments Ralph had ever seen.
They were tight about their wearer's thin legs as far as the knees,
when the black velvet of which they were made suddenly became as full
and baggy as the trousers of a sailor. High-heeled boots and a pair
of jingling silver spurs completed his fantastic costume--the typical
holiday garb of a Mexican, including the revolver.
"By Sam Hooker, I know that chink!" cried Jack, as the boys ran up and
joined the crowd. "It's Hop Lee. He used to cook on my father's ranch.
I remember hearing now that he had started some kind of a restaurant in
town. Here, Hop Lee, what's the matter?"
"Oh, Misser Mellill, you helpee me! No let Misser De Ballios shootee
me! I do no halm. Me catch um----"
"What are you boys interfering here for?" demanded the Mexican
suddenly, wheeling angrily. He spoke in good English, but with a trace
of accent. Jack, despite his brown face and the keen, resourceful
look which comes from a plainsman's life, wore Eastern-cut clothes.
The Mexican had promptly sized him up for a tenderfoot. "You just run
along, or you'll get hurt," he continued menacingly.
He leveled his gun, and brusquely ordered the Chinaman, who had by this
time arisen, to kneel once more in the dust.
"Don't do it, Hop Lee. Get back to your cook stove," cried Jack.
"He _will_ kneel!" declared the Mexican, facing about, "or----"
"Well, or what?" demanded Jack, looking the silver-braided bravado
straight in the eyes.
"Or you will!"
Question and answer came sharp as pistol shots.
The Mexican raised his pistol menacingly. But at the same instant a
foot suddenly projected between the Spanish-American's slender legs and
twisted about one limb. The next instant the gaudily garbed bully lay
prostrate in the dust, the pungent stuff filling his eyes, mouth and
nose.
It was Ralph Stetson's foot which had tripped the man. The boy had
acted in a sudden excess of fear that the Mexican was about to shoot
his chum. As a matter of fact, the fellow had had no such intention.
But now he had shared the fate of many another man who has made a
bluff, only to have it promptly taken at its full value.
A sort of murmur of alarm went through the crowd as the Mexican
measured his length in the dust.
"Say, pard," said a short, chunky little cowboy behind Ralph, "you've
done it now; that's Black Ramon De Barrios."
"Well, he's white now!" laughed the boy, as the Mexican rose to his
feet with his features smothered with white dust.
"Looks as if he'd been taking a dive in the flour barrel!" laughed
Jack. He turned to Ralph with a quick, "Thanks, old fellow. I see that
you're as much on the job here as on the football field. But I don't
think he meant to shoot----"
"No, he _did_ not, but he _does_ now!"
De Barrios approached the boys, his pistol leveled and his black,
serpent-like eyes glinting wickedly. "I'll show you what Black Ramon
can do! He never forgets an insult nor forgives an injury!"
Aghast at the threatened tragedy, the crowd did nothing, and the boys
stood rooted to one spot. Closer and closer, like a snake, the Mexican
crept, determined, it seemed, to get the full measure of anticipation
out of his revenge for his tumble. Jack never flinched, but his heart
beat unpleasantly fast.
The Mexican's brown, cigarette-stained forefinger trembled on the
trigger. He was quite close now.
The fat little cowboy gave a yell of alarm, and sprang suddenly forward.
"Look out! The varmint's going to shoot!"
But at the same instant a strange thing happened A snaky loop whizzed
through the air and settled about the bully's neck. The vengeful
Mexican was suddenly jerked off his feet as it tightened, his long legs
threshing the air like those of a swimming frog.
"Roped, by ginger!" yelled some one in the crowd, as De Barrios, at the
end of a lariat, went ploughing through the dust on his face for the
second time.
And roped, Ramon De Barrios was. So absorbed had the crowd been in
watching the tense scene before them that few of them had noticed a
cowboy mounted on a small calico pony who had ridden slowly up from
a point behind the boys. This cow-puncher, a long-legged, rangy,
sun-burned fellow, in typical stockman's garb, had watched everything
attentively till the critical moment. Then, with a quick twist, he had
roped the Mexican as neatly as he would have tied a calf on branding
day.
"Well done, and thank you, Bud!" shouted Jack, running up and shaking
the cowboy's hand.
The latter had halted his pony a short distance from them. But the
distance had been quite far enough for De Barrios, whose method of
traveling had been far from comfortable.
"Where did you spring from, old fellow?" Jack went on.
"From the corral up the street," said Bud, displaying no more emotion
than if he and the boys had had an appointment to meet at that spot
under quite ordinary circumstances. "Just wait till I get this here
sidewinder of a greaser cut loose, and I'll talk to you."
All this time De Barrios had lain prone in the dust, with the rope
stretched tight, just as the trained cow pony had kept it. Bud now
cast loose the end which he had wound about his saddle horn, and the
Mexican, with a sulky look, rose to his feet and threw off the rawhide
loop.
"Here's your gun," said Bud Wilson, leaning from his saddle and picking
up the fallen weapon from the dust.
"Hold on, though," he said suddenly. Breaking the weapon open, he
"sprung" the shells out of it. This done, he handed it to the Mexican,
who took it with a sinister look.
"To our next meeting!" he grated, as he turned away.
"Well, stay on your feet next time!" rejoined Bud composedly, amid a
roar from the crowd.
"Now, Hop Lee," demanded Jack Merrill of the Chinaman, as De Barrios
strode off without a word, but with a black look on his swarthy face,
"what was the trouble in there?"
"Why, the Chink spilled a spot of grease on the brim of the Mexican's
sombrero," volunteered somebody, "and when he wouldn't wipe it off
again, De Barrios got mad."
"Well, I don't know as I blame the greaser so very much, those being
the circumstances," remarked Bud dryly. "These Chinks has got to be
kep' in order some way. Now get back to your chuck wagon, Hop, and
don't give no more dissatisfaction to your customers."
Ralph now learned who Bud Wilson was--a cow-puncher who had worked for
Jack's father for many years, and had practically brought Jack up on
the range. Bud had two strong dislikes, Mexicans and Apaches, and his
services against the latter had given him his nickname of Apache Bud.
For tenderfeet, Bud had merely pity.
"Poor critters," he would say, when at his ease in the bunkhouse, or
when sweeping across the range on his favorite calico pony, "I s'pose
it ain't their fault--being raised unnatural--but the most of 'em is
dumb as a locoed coyote."
"What ponies have you brought for us, Bud?" asked Jack, as, with the
two boys walking beside him, the cowboy rode slowly back to the stable,
from the door of which he had first espied their difficulty.
"Waal, I brought Firewater fer you," said Bud, "and Petticoats, the
buckskin, for your tenderfoot friend here."
"Petticoats!" said Jack in a tone of vexation. "Why, Petticoats is the
tamest old plug on the ranch."
"That's all right, Jack," said Ralph, bravely choking back a feeling of
mortification. "I guess, when I've shown I can ride, I'll get a chance
at a better animal."
Bud Wilson gazed at him with a kindlier expression than he had yet
bestowed on the rather pale-faced young Easterner. Although an athlete
and a boxer, Ralph had had some slight bronchial trouble of late, and
had been recommended to spend his vacation in New Mexico as a means of
effecting a complete cure.
"So you kin ride?" Bud asked.
"A little," said Ralph modestly.
As a matter of fact, Mr. Stetson, the railroad magnate, owned several
good horses, and had always encouraged his son Ralph in using them.
In this way Ralph had had plenty of experience with one or two of the
Eastern "drag hunts," and had played polo a little. Jack Merrill knew
this. It mortified him, therefore, to think that old Petticoats had
been brought for his guest.
"I tell you, Ralph," he said generously, "you take Firewater and see
how you like him."
"Not much, Jack," exclaimed Ralph. "He's your own pet particular pony.
I've often heard you speak of him. No; I'll take old Petticoats. I
guess we'll get on all right together."
Both ponies were saddled and ready for them when the party reached the
stable. De Barrios, who had had his heavy black horse in the corral,
was riding out as they came up. The Mexican gave them a black look, to
which they paid no attention. The Mexican, whatever he may have looked
like on foot, presented an impressive sight on his black horse--a
superb, long-tailed animal with a glossy coat and great, restless eyes.
De Barrios's saddle and bridle and martingale were covered with silver,
and both horse and rider were typical productions of the border.
"Even you will admit that that's a good horse," said Jack to Bud, as
the Mexican loped off at an easy, swinging gait, and the boys started
into the barn.
"Oh, yes. He's all right; but give me my calico here for a traveler,"
said Bud, patting the neck of his beloved Chappo.
Poor Petticoats was certainly not an imposing-looking pony. She was a
small buckskin, and appeared to be a good enough traveler; but she had
an ewe neck, and a straggly tail, and a lack-lustre eye, very unlike
Jack's glossy-coated, bright bay pony.
"I thought you said she was a quiet old plug," said Ralph, as his eyes
fell on the mare for the first time.
"So she is, why?" asked Jack, who had been too busy tightening
Firewater's cinch to notice the really remarkable antics of Petticoat.
"Well, look at that!" exclaimed Ralph, as Petticoats lashed out at him.
For a quiet steed, Petticoats certainly was jumping about a good deal.
There was a restless look in her eyes. She rolled them back till only
the white showed. Her ears were pressed wickedly close to the side of
her not very shapely head.
"Say, she's acting queerly, for fact," said Jack. "Maybe she's been
eating loco weed. Shall I ask Bud to look her over before you mount?"
"No, don't. He'd only josh me about her. I guess she's only restless.
Just come off pasture, maybe."
So without a word to Bud, who had remained outside the barn while the
boys were getting their ponies, Ralph swung himself easily into the
saddle.
His body had hardly touched the leather before the placid--or, rather,
supposedly placid--Petticoats leaped into the air with a spring which
would have unseated a less-experienced rider, and then came down with
all four feet stiffly braced together in a wicked buck.
If Ralph had been a less plucky rider, he would have been unseated, and
almost to a certainty seriously hurt. As it was, however, he stuck to
the saddle.
"Whoa, Petticoats, whoa!" shouted Jack, steadying his own pony, which
was getting excited and prancing about as it saw the other's antics.
"W-w-w-what's the m-m-matter with her?"
The words were jerked out of Ralph's mouth, as Petticoats plunged and
reared and gave a succession of stiff-legged bucks.
Jack had no time to reply before the buckskin, with a squeal and a
series of running leaps, was out of the stable door.
"What in the name of the great horn spoon!" yelled the startled Bud, as
a buff-colored streak flashed past him. The next instant, with a rattle
of hoofs and an alarming crackling and flapping of saddle leathers, the
little pony was off in a cloud of dust, headed for the desert.
"Locoed?" shouted Jack, as he and Bud Wilson dug their big,
blunt-rowelled spurs into their mounts and started in pursuit.
"I dunno," muttered Bud, shaking a big loop out of his "rope," as they
tore along at break-neck speed, "but we've got to catch him."
"Why? If he doesn't fall off he'll be all right. She'll soon run
herself out."
"No, she won't, either. Since you've been East they've put through a
big irrigation canal out yonder. That cayuse is headed right for it,
and if the kid can't stop her, they'll go sky-whooping over the edge."
"Wow! We've got to get him."
"That's what. Spur up now, and get your rope ready. Now's your chance
to show me you haven't forgot all I ever taught you about roping."
Jack unslung the thirty feet of plaited rawhide from the right hand of
his saddle horn, and shook out a similar loop to Bud's. Both ponies
were now going at the limit of their speed, and the distance between
them and the runaway seemed to be diminishing.
"Will we get him in time?" gasped Jack.
"Dunno. There's the canal yonder. It's a twenty-foot drop."
The cowboy pointed dead ahead to where a dark, purplish streak cut
across the dun expanse of desert.
"We've _got_ to beat him to it!" said Jack, gritting his teeth.