THE LONG TOM RANCH.
Ted and Stella raised such a shout that Carl pulled his horses up just
in time to keep them from trying to climb upon the veranda.
With the aid of his searchlight Ted had found the door and entered the
house, followed by Stella.
In the big, front living room they found a lamp, which they lighted and
looked around.
The house had been left ready for occupancy, and in the great, wide
fireplace logs were piled high ready to be burned.
In a moment Ted had a fire leaping high up the chimney, then hastened
out to the carriage.
Carl had scrambled down from the seat of the carriage, and was so cold
and numb that he couldn't walk, while Mrs. Graham had to be carried into
the house by Ted and placed before the fire to thaw out.
Soon the room was comfortable, and Ted, who had set out on a tour of
inspection, found that the kitchen was well stored with food.
He started a fire, and soon had coffee and bacon cooking.
Outside the storm continued to rage through the night, but all within
was tight and warm, and Stella and her aunt retired to their comfortable
bedrooms. But Ted sat up through the night.
He had considered starting back through the storm to the herd, but
thought better of it, for Bud was perfectly capable of doing all that
could be done with the cattle until daylight came to their rescue.
While daylight was struggling up through the leaden eastern sky the wind
died down as suddenly as it had risen, and the snow ceased falling.
Ted had fallen into a doze in a chair in front of the fire, but a stray
sunbeam coming through a window fell upon his closed eyelids, and he
awoke with a start. For a minute he could not think where he was. Then
the cheery voice of Stella fell upon his ears. Somewhere in the distance
she was singing, and he sprang to his feet and looked about him.
It came to him that he was at the Long Tom, and he remembered having
left the Circle S herd out in the blizzard.
This stirred him to action, and he went back to the kitchen with the
intention of lighting the fire and getting breakfast.
He stopped in the doorway in astonishment. Stella, with her sleeves
rolled to the elbows, was busily engaged at the stove, singing as she
worked.
"Good morning," said Ted. "You beat me to it. Why didn't you wake me up
and put me to work?"
"Hello!" said Stella cheerily. "You looked so tired sitting in that
chair that I thought I'd let you sleep. At any rate, cooking breakfast
is no work for a boy in a house. Get ready. Breakfast will be on the
table in a minute. What do you think I found in the shed behind the
house? A mountain sheep already dressed, and hung up for us. The fellow
who left this house for us certainly was a good one. He knew we'd come
in hungry, and left everything ready for us."
"That was just like Fred Sturgis. He's one of the best fellows in the
world. He's the owner of the ranch. Young New York fellow. Wanted to
spend the winter in the East. That's how I was able to get the ranch.
But I'll bet he'll be back here before the snow melts. You couldn't keep
him off the range for any length of time."
"He certainly has good taste. The house is almost as nice as the Moon
Valley house, but nothing is quite as nice as that."
Mrs. Graham and Carl were roused, and they were soon sitting down to
chops from a mountain sheep and corn bread which Stella had made; and
they all voted that winter life in Montana promised to be a very jolly
thing.
When Ted went outdoors the whole world was simply a glittering waste
where the sun shone on, and was reflected back from the vast field of
snow.
Sultan was in the sheltered corral, and as Ted threw the saddle on his
back he reared and jumped about like a playful kitten.
"Quit your cavorting about, you rascal," said Ted, as Sultan wheeled
away from the saddle with a playful snort, at the same time reaching
around and trying to nip Ted's shoulder with his teeth.
"My, but you're feeling gay this morning," said Ted. "Here, hold still,
won't you? How do you suppose I'm ever going to get this saddle on you
if you don't stand still?"
But the cold weather and the bright sunshine had filled Sultan with
ginger, and he was as full of play as a small boy when he wakes up some
early winter morning and sees the ground covered with the first snow,
and remembers the sled that has lain in the woodshed all summer.
But at last the saddle was on, and then Ted had his hands full getting
into it.
"Gee, but you're skittish this morning," said Ted, giving Sultan a
vigorous slap on the haunch. "But just you wait a few minutes until I
get on you. I'll take some of that out of you."
But when he tried to find the stirrup with his toe, Sultan wheeled away
from him with a little kick that was as dainty as that of a professional
dancer.
But at last Ted made a leap and landed safely upon Sultan's back, and
gave him a slap with the loose end of his rein. The little horse gave a
leap like a kangaroo, and dashed through the gateway of the corral and
across the white prairie, running like a quarter horse.
The herd was nowhere in sight, but in the far distance Ted saw a thin
blue stream of smoke rising in the still, frosty air.
He knew it to be the camp fire of McCall, and that breakfast was going
forward at the cow camp in the snow.
Heading Sultan toward it, Ted rushed on through the stimulating air of a
Northern winter, and soon came in sight of the chuck wagon, and several
of the boys standing around a fire.
As he dashed forward he raised the long yell, which was gleefully
answered, and soon he was at the camp.
This was where he and Stella had started from the night before.
Turning his eyes back in the direction he had come, Ted could see the
smoke rising from the chimney of the ranch house, although the house
itself was hidden behind a swell in the surface of the prairie.
Had he only known it, he might have driven the herd right up to the
ranch house during the night. As it was, he saw now that he and Stella,
with the carriage, had ridden for almost two hours in the night,
traveling in a circle, and by the merest chance had stumbled upon the
ranch house.
"Hello, fellows!" he shouted as he rode up. "Where are the dogies?"
"Oh, to blazes and gone!" exclaimed big Ben, who was trying to thaw out
his boots at the fire.
"Where?" asked Ted anxiously.
"Away off yonder." Ben pointed disconsolately toward the south.
"Are they all right?"
"All right, nothing. They're up to their bellies in snow in a coulee,
and won't stir. They're the sickest-looking lot of beef critters you
ever saw. We've been working with them ever since daylight, then Bud
sent us along to thaw out and get some chuck into us, and hurry back so
that the other fellows could get limbered up some. Find the house?"
"Yes, accidentally stumbled on to it. Bully place, and the womenfolks
are comfortably settled."
"Looks like it," grunted Ben, pointing to the north.
Ted looked in that direction and saw a spotted pony leaping toward them,
and above it a dash of scarlet. It was Stella, riding like the wind on
Magpie.
"Have any trouble with the critters in the night?" asked Ted.
"Did we? Well, I should howl. After you got under way they began to
drift before the wind. We fought them all night, and if we'd let them go
they'd been plumb into Colorado by this time. I don't want any more such
nights in mine."
"That was only a starter, my friend. That was a picnic compared to what
you may have to go up against before the daisies bloom again."
"Chuck!" yelled McCall, beating on the bottom of a griddle with a big
iron spoon.
The fellows left the fire in a hurry and, squatting in the snow with a
tin cup full of steaming coffee and a plate heaped with fried bacon and
griddle cakes, were soon too busy to remember their weariness.
Stella had ridden up, her cheeks glowing, and her eyes sparkling with
the frost and the exercise.
"Why didn't you wait for me?" she cried to Ted. "You're a mean thing.
Thought you'd leave me behind, but here I am." She made a little face at
Ted.
"I thought you'd rather stay indoors to-day on account of the cold,"
stammered Ted.
"Well, change your line of thought. There's going to be nothing to keep
me indoors in this country, and don't you forget it. If I've got to stay
indoors, I'll go South."
As soon as the boys had finished breakfast they were ready for another
day's work.
"Come on, fellows," shouted Ted. "Let's hurry to where the critters are,
and send the other boys back. Mac, cook up another breakfast for them."
They were in the saddle in a jiffy, and scurrying toward the south as
fast as their ponies could carry them.
Ted found the herd bogged in a shallow coulee that was filled to the top
with snow, in which they stood up to their bellies, lowing from fright,
hunger, and thirst.
They were packed in a solid mass, and could not get out on the other
side because the wall of the coulee was too steep for them to clamber
up, as they might have done had it not been for the deep snow with which
it was drifted full.
As a matter of fact, though, the coulee had saved the herd from drifting
many miles in the night.
But how to get them out was the question that perplexed Bud, and with
the arrival of Ted he thankfully turned the task over to him.
"Hike for the chuck wagon, boys," shouted Ted, as he came up.
"Well, I should smile to ejaculate," said Bud, "we're as hollow an' cold
as a rifle bar'l. I'll turn this leetle summer matinée over ter you, my
friend, not wishin' you any harm."
"Go ahead and enjoy yourselves," said Ted. "But as soon as you have
filled up and warmed up come back. As soon as we get the bunch out of
this hole it will be a snap to get them near the ranch house. If we'd
only known it, we could have made it in half an hour more last night."
When Bud had ridden away Ted took stock of the situation, and found that
he had a difficult problem to solve.
Under ordinary circumstances it would have been easy to snake the cattle
out of the coulee by roping them around the horns and dragging them out
with the ponies, but it was utterly impossible to do that with a couple
of thousand of them.
While he was looking things over he became aware that Stella had ridden
away. He looked anxiously after her, for he knew her propensity for
getting into trouble when she rode alone. Soon she dropped out of sight
behind a swell in the prairie with a flash in the sunlight of her
scarlet jacket.
Ted was still studying the situation, riding up and down the edge of the
coulee, trying to figure out some plan of rescue, and noting the cattle
that were down, and which were rapidly being trampled to death by the
other beasts, or being smothered by the snow.
The prospect was not a pleasing one to the young cow boss, for he saw
the profits of the venture fading away hourly.
Suddenly a faint, shrill yell reached his ears, and he wheeled his pony
in the direction from which it came.
Stella's scarlet jacket was coming toward him in a whirlwind of flying
snow, and he rushed toward her.
What could have happened to her? He looked in vain for whatever was
pursuing her, and saw that she was not being followed, but was swinging
her arm above her head with a triumphant gesture.
He slowed his pony down, and soon she dashed to his side.
"You fellows are certainly a bright lot of cow-punchers," she exclaimed.
"What's the matter now?" asked Ted gloomily.
"Didn't any of you think of scouting down the coulee?"
"I confess I didn't."
"You ought to be laid off the job for a week."
"Why?"
"You can get those cattle out of that hole in an hour."
"We can! How do you know?"
"The coulee runs out about a mile to the west, and straight to the
north, up a wide swale, lies the ranch house in full view."
"Stella, you're all right. But the cattle are bogged, and they can't
move even down the coulee."
"I believe they can."
"How?"
"When the other boys come back from breakfast all of you jump into the
coulee and tramp the snow down as much as you can ahead of the leaders.
Then start them up."
"Bully for you, Stella; you're a better cow-puncher than any of us."
"No, I'm not, but because I don't know as much about it I go at it in a
woman's way, which is a roundabout way, and nearly always foolish to
look at, but sometimes does the work."
This suggestion had the effect of taking a great load from Ted's
shoulders, for if he did not succeed in getting the herd out before
night they would freeze solid in their molds of snow, and then he would
never get half of them out alive.
Presently Bud and the other boys came winging back from breakfast, and
Ted told them of the plan for releasing the cattle, at the same time
praising Stella and giving her all the credit for the idea.
"Peevish peppers, but I'm a tenderfoot," grunted Bud. "Why in Sam Hill
didn't I think o' that myself? I reckon I'm gettin' too old fer ther cow
business. I ought ter be milkin' cows at some dairy farm."
The boys followed Stella's suggestion, and, leaping into the coulee,
wheeled their ponies about until they had a well-beaten road for several
hundred feet toward the west.
Then, cutting out a bunch of about fifty steers, led by a wise old
fellow, the herd leader, whom they called Baldy on account of the spot
of white hair between his horns, drove them along the path. After
getting the bunch going well, the boys drove them with yells and the
lashing of quirts into the deep snow ahead, and would not let them stop.
Another bunch was driven up, and soon there was a smooth road along the
bottom of the coulee to the open ground, over which the cattle passed to
safety.
Stella's good common sense had saved the herd.