“Phew! it looks like another hot day, Frank!”
Andy had just dressed, and gone to the window to look out. The sun
was already up, and had that queer, dark red glow that betokens an
unusual display of heat. It would be a hard day for the long ride
across the treeless level stretching out between the ranch buildings
and the grassy valleys where the cattle generally bunched at this
time of year.
Frank had been strangely silent while dressing; and as he now joined
his cousin at the window, Andy noticed for the first time that he
was looking rather “peaked.”
“Here, what’s the matter with you, old fellow?” he asked, with his
customary breezy impulsiveness. “You don’t seem a bit tickled over
the idea of spending a whole day in the saddle, and that’s a fact.”
“Well,” replied the other, with a little smile, “the fact is, Andy,
I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint you.”
“How’s that?” demanded his cousin, aggressively. “I don’t think I’d
better try going today, and that’s a fact,” Frank went on.
“Are you sick? Is that what ails you? Seemed to me you kicked around
a whole lot last night, now I come to think of it. Why, didn’t you
call me up, Frank? What’s the matter? I just bet the heat was too
much for you yesterday. We shouldn’t have done that long ride on so
nasty a day; felt like I was drawn through a straw myself, though
I’m all right now. But do you really mean that you won’t ride out
today with the boys?”
“The way I feel now, it would be silly for me to try it,” Frank
continued, with a little shake of his head. “I seem to be dizzy, and
to sit on the back of a lively pony for even an hour would upset me
like everything.”
“That’s a shame now, ain’t it, Frank?”
“Oh! I don’t mind it so very much. You’ll only be gone a couple or
three days at the most; and I’ll have Mrs. Ogden, Charley Woo, and
little Becky to keep me company. And then, if I’m feeling myself by
tomorrow, why I might take a notion to look you boys up by the air
route. Don’t worry about me, Andy.”
“I don’t mean to, because I expect to stay with you and see that you
get the right kind of care,” said Andy, with his positive face in
evidence.
“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” retorted Frank. “I’ll be in good
hands, and the chances are will be all right by noon. So you’re just
going along with Uncle and the rest.”
“I’d like to see anybody make me when I put my foot down,” Andy went
on to say. “The fact of the matter is, Frank, between you and me and
the lamp-post, when I found out what sort of a scorcher we were in
for today, I began to lose some of my own enthusiasm. Sure I’d have
gone along if you were all right, and taken my medicine as well as I
could; but this alkali dust don’t please me a whit; and on a red hot
day it’s a lot of a nuisance to have to keep on riding in a saddle
on such a slow thing as a cayuse.”
“Oh! you’re spoiled by this mile-a-minute gait of your air steed,
that’s plain,” chuckled Frank, “but your uncle will be disappointed
if you don’t go along, Andy.”
“He’ll have to be, then,” returned the other steadily, as though his
mind was made up, and nothing could change it. “I don’t pretend to
be able to keep up with Buckskin, Shorty and all that lot of hard
riders. They can wear me to a frazzle in the long run. My place,
where I shine, is with you in a biplane. There you don’t have to
work your way, but just sit and enjoy the grandest view any fellow
ever had spread out before him, while’s he spinning along at much
more than a mile-a-minute speed. The air route for mine, every
time.”
“Well, I see there’s no use trying to force you to go; but I’m sorry
that this has happened, Andy.”
“Shucks! don’t you bother your head about me,” his cousin said, with
a chuckle. “Fact is, I’m rather tickled at finding an excuse for
backing down without its looking that I’m showing the white feather.
That thought of three days in the saddle, with the heat and dust
gave me a bad feeling. And Frank, perhaps we might look the boys and
their chuck wagon up tomorrow in our biplane. That’s a heap sight
more to my fancy, let me tell you, now.”
“All right, Andy. But there’s your uncle outside, looking after
things. We’d better see him, and let him know, before he gets ponies
ready for us.”
Both boys went outside, and when Mr. Witherspoon heard about Frank’s
sickness he expressed the greatest concern. After hearing the
symptoms he agreed with Andy that it must have been the extreme heat
of the preceding day that had knocked his cousin out.
“Nothing serious at all,” announced the ranchman, “I’ve felt the
same way myself more than a few times, after unusual heat, and hard
riding. No use trying to keep in the saddle when you’ve got that
dizzy spell; just lie down, and Mrs. Ogden ’ll give you a dose of
the same medicine that always brings me around. Chances are you’ll
be feeling all right by noon, or before night, anyway.”
“We feel sorry not to be able to go along with you on the round-up,
Uncle,” remarked Andy.
“I’d put off starting until tomorrow, boys, only all preparations
have been made and it would interfere with our work more or less,”
the ranchman went on to say with a tinge of regret in his voice, as
though he were tempted to do this at any cost.
“We wouldn’t think of letting you do such a thing, sir!” exclaimed
Frank.
“And besides,” added his cousin, “if Frank is all right tomorrow,
you may see us sailing along to hunt you up, and with a map of the
whole ranch spread out before us.”
“You mean you’ll take a spin in your biplane, is that it, boys?” Mr.
Witherspoon went on, “Good! Nothing would please us better. I can
imagine the antics of the cattle when they see a great bird settling
down over them.”
“Oh! we’ll be careful, and try and not start a stampede, Uncle; if
we do come, after we’ve located where you’re working at the time,
we’ll drop down some distance away, and walk over; or you can send
mounts for us. But I don’t care to go without Frank, you see. And to
tell the honest truth, I’m a bit leery about riding through such a
scorching hot day as this promises to be.”
“Perhaps you’re wise, my boy,” said the ranchman, reflectively,
“it’s hard enough on us old shellbacks, used to breathing this
alkali dust from one end of the year to the other, and must be rough
on tenderfeet. Make yourselves at home; the best is none too good
for you. Charley Woo thinks you are a couple of little tin gods on
wheels, and he’ll do anything in the wide world for the wizards who
can mount up to the clouds, and play tag there with the winds.”
Frank, though looking badly, would not go in and lie down while the
outfit was getting in readiness to start. He wanted to see all that
went on, for the chance might never come to him again.
And Andy was busy snapping off several pictures of the scene, as the
bunch of active cow punchers galloped around on their ponies, making
the animals do all sorts of wonderful feats as they curvetted and
pranced, and snorted with the excitement.
“I’ve just got another film of a dozen exposures,” he complained to
Frank, after he had taken several views of the chuck wagon, and the
string of led ponies that had to be taken along for service when the
hard riding boys wore out their first mounts, “and with that I want
to get my pictures of the round-up; also one of the dinner hour,
when the entire crowd gathers around the chuck wagon.”
“But how is it that Charley Woo doesn’t go along this time; I
thought he always did the cooking for the crowd when they went off
like this?” Frank remarked.
“I asked Uncle about that, and he said that the boys had been
complaining somewhat lately about the Chinaman’s way of cooking. He
thought they were just spoiled by having things too good; and to
show them the difference he has arranged to let Shorty do the
cooking on this trip. He used to, long ago, before Charley came
along, and got the job.”
“Oh! that’s it; and the boys are in for a lesson, I can see. When
they get a dose of the old style of slinging hash together they’ll
never have another word to say about Charley. That’s the way things
go, sometimes; you never miss the water until the well runs dry.”
“Looks like they might be going to start right away, Frank. Here
come the boys on the jump, to say goodbye, and hope you’ll be
feeling better soon.”
“I hope they won’t think I’m faking this headache, just to get out
of riding on the round-up with them?” remarked Frank, uneasily.
“They know you better than that,” returned his cousin. “Any fellow
who has got the nerve to ride in an aeroplane would be equal to
anything, so Buckskin and every one else swears. Try as we can, you
know there isn’t one of them dares go up. What Buckskin told them
about his sensations has given the whole bunch cold feet so far as
wanting to try a ride among the clouds. The earth, alkali dust and
all, is good enough for them, they say. Hello! boys, hope you have a
grand good time. And if Frank’s feeling O. K., look for us along
some time tomorrow. I want to get some cracker-jack pictures of how
you round up the cattle, and brand the same, those that need the
Double X mark.”
Every puncher insisted on gripping the hand of each of the Bird
boys, while his restless pony danced, and snorted, and acted as
though just wild to start off like a comet.
Then came Uncle Jethro and the foreman, Waldo Kline, to also shake
hands, and say how sorry they felt at not having the visitors at the
ranch along; but the boys again repeated their intention of looking
in on the workers later on.
With a tremendous racket and waving of hats, the string started off,
and Andy could not resist aiming his kodak after them, for the scene
was an inspiring one, which he and Frank would never forget.
Further and further away drew the caravan, the mules hitched to the
chuck wagon being kept on the trot by old Shorty, who had once again
come into his own as cook for the outfit; yet wore a troubled look
on his face, as though he felt uneasy concerning the outcome. For
cow punchers are no respecters of persons when they feel that they
have good cause for complaint concerning the quality of the grub
with which they are being served; and Shorty had before then known
of cooks being actually tarred and feathered just because they
failed to come up to the expectations of the clamorous bunch of
reckless cow men. When they had vanished from sight far away over
the plain, in a cloud of dust, Frank went in to lie down again;
while Andy started to amuse himself developing some of the films he
had just exposed.
And as the morning advanced it proved even a hotter day than the
preceding one had been, so that Frank felt he had acted wisely in
declining to take chances on so hard a gallop, with his head in such
a whirl.
It was just before noon that Andy came into the room in somewhat of
a state of excitement.