THE RUSTLERS AT WORK.
"Jack!"
"Um-um-um-huh!" from Jack Merrill, as he turned over in his cot.
"Listen! There it is again---- What is it?"
Ralph Stetson sat bolt upright in bed, listening with all his might to
the strange and shivery sound which had awakened him. It was shortly
after midnight, following the evening of the boys' arrival, and both
were sleeping--or rather had been sleeping--in a room set aside for
them in one wing of the low, straggly ranch house in the foothills of
the Sierra de la Hacheta.
"Wow-wow-wow!" came the cry once more from somewhere among the dreary,
moonlit hills outside.
"Oh, that!" said the ranch-raised boy, with a laugh. "That's coyotes!"
"Oh," rejoined Ralph wisely. "Coyotes, eh?" But he did not lie down
again. Instead, he listened more intently than before. Presently came
another howl from some distance off.
"They're conversational beasts, aren't they?" inquired Ralph.
"What do you mean?" sleepily muttered Jack.
"Why, some friend of the one I just heard is answering him. Hark!"
Jack Merrill became suddenly interested as he heard the second howl.
His eyes grew round as he listened intently, and he, too, sat up in his
bed.
"Say," he remarked, "that _is_ funny. And hark! there's another
one--off there to the south."
"What do you suppose they are up to?"
"I've no idea, but I tell you what--if you like, we'll take the rifle
and sneak out and see. What do you say?"
"Um--well, it's a bit chilly to go coyote hunting, but I should like to
get one. Professor Wintergreen said at supper last night that he would
like to have the hide of one of the beasts for his collection. Let's
go!"
"All right. Just slip on a few clothes. The magazine of my rifle's
full. Don't make a racket getting out of the house, though. I don't
just know how dad would take it."
"But he'll hear the rifle if we shoot one."
"That's so; but it will be too late then."
Silently as cats, the two boys got out of bed and dressed, an operation
which was performed by slipping on trousers, shirts and boots over
their pajamas. Then, with their sombrero hats on, they were ready to
creep outside. The moon had been up for an hour, and was shining down
in a radiant flood, illuminating the heaving surface of the foothills
as if they had been a silver sea.
"Which way will we go?" whispered Ralph, as they stole along in the
dark shadow of the low timber house like two culprits.
"Over there. Down toward the corral. The chicken house is down there,
and those four-footed thieves are fond of chicken _au naturel_."
Taking advantage of every bit of shadow that offered, the two lads
crept toward the corral, a big inclosure about half an acre in extent,
in the center of which stood a fenced haystack. The horses of the
ranch were generally turned loose in it to browse about at their will.
Usually not more than enough for the use of the ranch-house family were
kept there, the rest being driven in from the "remuda" as required.
"Say, it's silent, isn't it?" whispered Ralph, as they crawled along
behind a big stack of wild-oat hay.
"Well, you didn't expect to find a roaring city in the heart of the
foothills of the Hachetas, did you?" inquired Jack, with vast sarcasm.
"Hush! Now I think I saw something!"
"Where?"
"Off there to the south. It was slipping along among the hills. There,
there it is again!"
Ralph strained his eyes into the darkness, but could see nothing of the
object Jack had indicated. It had gone as utterly as if it had not been
there.
Suddenly the wild howls that had awakened Ralph broke out once more.
This time they came quite close at hand, and neither boy could repress
a start at the sound. It gave an impression of an outburst of demoniac
mirth.
"Wow! ow-ow-ow-ow-ow!"
The cry was immediately echoed from the direction in which Jack had
declared he had seen a gray shadow flitting in and out. The next
instant both boys gave an involuntary shout of surprise, which they
hastily checked, realizing that they were face to face with a stern
necessity for silence.
Outlined as clearly against the moonlight as if it had been cut from
black paper, the _figure of a horseman_ had momentarily appeared, and
then as abruptly vanished.
At the same instant there came a wild disturbance of hoofs in the
corral, and before the boys' astonished eyes four more horsemen dashed
from it and swept off toward the south. Behind them there trailed
half a dozen of the animals which had been feeding or sleeping in the
corral. To the neck of each was attached a lariat, and they followed
their captors at breakneck speed.
"Horse thieves!" shouted Jack, springing to his feet and giving the
alarm by firing a volley of bullets after the retreating rustlers.
Instantly the sleeping ranch galvanized into active life. Lights
flashed here and there, and from the bunkhouse on a hillside below the
main house there poured a strangely assorted score of hastily aroused
cowboys. Some of them were trouserless, but all carried their revolvers.
"What's the matter? What is it?" shouted Mr. Merrill's voice.
"Dad, it's horse thieves!" shouted Jack.
"Some of Black Ramon's bunch, for a bet!" roared Bud Wilson, emerging
with a lantern and vaulting into the corral.
"Oh, the dirty scoundrels!" he broke out the next instant.
"What is it? What have they done, Bud?" cried Jack, who realized from
the usually impassive vaquero's tone that something very much was amiss.
"Why, they've taken the pick of the bunch! Look here, Firewater's gone,
my calico, and----"
"But they've left some horses. Quick! Let's get after them. We can
overtake them!" urged Mr. Merrill, who had hastily thrown on some
clothes, and, followed by the professor, was now down at the corral.
"We can't," wailed Bud; "the precious rascals have hamstrung all the
horses they didn't want."
A chorus of furious voices broke out at this. Black Ramon, if it
were he or his band that had made the midnight raid, had planned it
cleverly. It would be hours before fresh horses could be rounded up
from the "remuda," and the poor animals remaining had been crippled
fatally. Few minds but that of a Mexican could have conceived of such
a fiendish act. The unfortunate animals, uncomplainingly, as is the
manner of horses, were lying about the corral, looking up at the men
about with mute agony in their large eyes.
"Oh, blazes! if I could get my hands on that greaser!" roared Bud
Wilson.
"Steady now, Bud, steady!" said Mr. Merrill, though his own frame
trembled with rage at the needless brutality of the raiders. "Hard
words will do no good now."
"Let's keep quiet a minute. Maybe we can hear the clatter of their
hoofs," said one of the cowboys, a young chap who had come to the
ranch from a peaceful California range not long before.
"Not much chance of that," said Bud Wilson bitterly. "Those chaps had
the hoofs of their own mounts and the ones they stole all muffled--you
can bet your Sunday sombrero on that."
"That's why they made so little noise when they led them off," said
Ralph. But in the general agitation no one paid any attention to him.
Everybody was rushing about asking questions, giving orders, hastening
this way and that with lanterns. Even the Chinese cook was out with a
frying pan in his hand, seemingly under the impression that it was up
to him to cook something.
It was Mr. Merrill who first found his head.
"Silence!" he cried in a stern, ringing voice. "You, Bud, select two
men and put these poor brutes here out of their pain."
"If it's all the same to you, boss, will you give that job to some one
else?" said Bud, with a queer little break in his voice. "I've rode
some of them plugs."
"All right, then. Your job will be to round up a dozen of the best nags
you can find from the Escadillo pasture. Get a bite to eat, take two
men with you, and start right now. Don't lose a minute."
Bud Wilson hastened off. He didn't want to be near the corral when the
shots that told that the ham-strung beasts were being put out of their
misery were heard.
"What are they going to do?" whispered Ralph, as two cowboys finally
climbed into the corral with their revolvers drawn.
"Kill those poor brutes. It's the only thing to do with a hamstrung
horse," said Jack bitterly, turning away.
Ralph, having no more wish than his friend to see the final chapter of
the raiders' visit, followed him. As they turned they almost ran into
the professor.
The estimable scientist, in his agitation, had just thrown aside
a valuable book, and held tightly to a piece of straw, under the
impression that he had thrown away the straw and kept the book. Jack
picked up the volume and handed it to the professor. To his surprise,
however, the man of science waved the book aside, and the boys could
see in the moonlight that a new light, foreign entirely to their usual
mild radiance, beamed in his eyes.
"No, no!" he said in a sharp voice, one which the boys had never heard
him use before. "No books now. What I want is a rifle and a horse. I
never knew I was a man of blood till this moment, but--but I'm hanged
if I wouldn't like a shot at those--ahem--I believe they are called
greasers, and a good name for the rascals!"
"Good for you, professor!" exclaimed Jack; "and if we have our way,
you'll get your chance before long. We're going to take the trail after
those rascals as soon as Bud and the others get the horses."
"Oh, Jack, are we to go?" gasped Ralph.
"Well, if we don't, something's going to drop!" said Jack in a
determined tone. "They've taken my little Firewater, and I've got
something to say to them on my own account."
"Say," exclaimed Ralph suddenly, as the professor and the boys
hastened toward the house, "I want to take back something I said
yesterday."
"What's that?"
"That there are no adventures left in the modern West."
Jack, even in the midst of his agitation, could not help laughing at
Ralph's earnest tone.
"I wonder what they'd think at Stonefell if they could see us now,"
he mused. Suddenly he pointed toward the professor, who was angrily
shaking a fist at the Southern sky, where the saw-like outline of the
Hachetas cut the moonlit horizon.
"And what would his Latin class say if they could see him?"
"That he was all right!" rejoined Ralph, with deep conviction.
Inside the great living room of the ranch house, with its brightly
colored rugs on the dark wood floor and walls, and a blaze leaping in
its big open hearth, for the night was chilly, the Chinese cook was
already setting out a meal, when the boys entered. Mr. Merrill, his
brow furrowed with deep thought, was walking up and down. He looked up
as his son and Ralph entered, and spoke quickly.
"You boys had better remain at the ranch," he said. "We are not likely
to be gone long and----"
He stopped short. The blank faces of the two lads had caused him to
break into a broad smile despite the seriousness of his mood.
"Why, why," he said amusedly, "surely you didn't expect to come along?"
"Why, dad, of course. They've taken my Firewater, the rascals, and I've
got a personal interest in the thing."
"And I, sir," began Ralph, "I am out here for experience, you know."
"Well, you certainly seem to be getting it. I am half inclined to allow
you to come. I must attach one condition to it, however, and that is
that you obey orders implicitly, and if any danger arises that you will
do your best to conceal yourselves from it."
"What, run away--oh, dad!" began Jack, but his father cut him short.
"Accept my conditions or stay here, Jack."
"Very well, then, dad, we accept--eh, Ralph?"
The Eastern boy nodded. Not for the world would he have missed what was
to come. And now the professor spoke up.
"Mr. Merrill, sir, I shall take it as a favor if you will provide
a horse for me. In my young days I was not unaccustomed to equine
pursuits, and I feel that I should make one of your party. I could
wish, sir, to be in at the--the finish--if I may say so--of those
ruffians."
"There is small likelihood of our catching them, professor," said Mr.
Merrill, smiling at the other's excitement. "They have a long start. I
am afraid you would only have a long, tiring ride for your pains."
"I am willing to chance it," said the professor simply. "I feel, in
fact, that such a dash across the er--er, Rubicon would be classic,
sir, classic, if nothing else."
"That being the case," said Mr. Merrill, checking his amusement, in
view of the professor's evident earnestness, "you shall certainly come.
But now breakfast, or supper, or whatever one may call the meal, seems
to be ready. Let us sit down and eat, for we have a long ride ahead of
us."
During the meal Mr. Merrill was plied with questions by the eager boys.
In fact, so numerous did the queries become, that he was relieved at
last when a diversion offered in the shape of a clattering of hoofs
outside the door.
"Rap!" came at the portal.
"Ah, the horses at last!" exclaimed Mr. Merrill, eagerly rising to his
feet, and betraying by his haste how anxious he was to be off, despite
his assumed indifference.
"Come in!" he called in answer to the rap.
The boys looked expectantly confident of seeing the familiar features
of Bud Wilson.
To their astonishment, however, the newcomer was a total stranger. A
small, swarthy Mexican. He wore bear-skin chapareros, and seemed to
have ridden far and hard. At the sight of him they all sprang to their
feet, so complete was their surprise at the unexpected nationality of
their visitor.