A NIGHT RAID.
Ted bent over the mangled body of the hamstringer and turned him over.
Then he leaped back with an exclamation of horror.
He had recognized the miscreant.
It was Sol Flatbush, the traitorous cow-puncher, member of the gang of
cattle rustlers and gamblers headed by Shan Rhue, who had run off about
five hundred head of cattle of the Circle S brand into the Wichita
Mountains in Indian Territory.
But how had Sol Flatbush got into this part of the country? And where
was he stopping? It was evident that the cow-puncher and desperado had
hamstrung the cattle out of revenge for having been discovered and
driven out of the broncho boys' camp.
Now that he was dead, however, Ted lost all his resentment, and was
genuinely sorry for the poor chap because of the horrible means of his
death.
Ted hardly knew what to do with him. It were better if his friends could
take charge of his body and bury it, but where were his friends?
Suddenly a thought occurred to Ted. Perhaps Sol Flatbush, following his
instincts and habits, had come north after he and Shan Rhue had been
outwitted by the boys at the Hole in the Wall in the Wichita Mountains,
and allied himself with the Whipple gang in the Sweet Grass Mountains.
If this were true, the simplest thing to do was to send the body of
Flatbush to the gang. It would serve, Ted hoped, as a terrible warning
to the other members of the gang not to meddle with the affairs of the
broncho boys.
Not far away Ted saw a pony, saddled and grazing quietly.
Mounting his pony, he rode up to it. Tied to the cantle of the saddle
was a pair of blankets.
This was the very thing! Ted carried the blankets to where the body of
Flatbush lay. Spreading them out, he rolled the remains of Flatbush into
them, and bound them securely with a rope.
With some difficulty he lifted the bundle to the back of the outlaw's
pony, and bound it securely with a lariat.
Then he tied the pony's reins to the horn of the saddle, gave the beast
a slash with his quirt, and it started, snorting and jumping, toward the
distant mountains.
Thus was the body of Sol Flatbush sent to his friends.
"What was it?" asked Stella, when Ted, having finished his gruesome
task, returned to her side.
"The chap who was mutilating the cattle is dead," he replied. "The bulls
turned upon him and gored and trampled him to death."
"Horrible! Do you know who he was?"
"Yes, I recognized him."
"Is that a fact! Who was he?"
"An old enemy of yours."
"An enemy of mine! I didn't know I had one."
"Not really of your own, for no one who knows you could feel any
animosity toward you, Stella. But you have enemies through me. Those who
would seek to hurt me do so by making trouble for you, knowing that they
can hurt me worse by injuring you than they could by torturing me
personally."
"That's why you have so often warned me to be careful where I go alone."
"That is why. It is not fair that you should be put to discomfort or in
danger of death merely because I make enemies by trying to force men to
obey the laws."
"I understand. But who was the man who was killed?"
"Sol Flatbush."
"Sol Flatbush! How does it happen that he is in this country?"
"I'm sure I don't know, unless he and Shan Rhue, after escaping from the
Wichita Mountains, came directly here, having previously been members of
the notorious Whipple gang."
"Then I suppose we shall see Shan Rhue one of these days. Ted, I'm
afraid of that fellow. When they had me in the Hole in the Wall I heard
him make the most horrible threats against you."
"Threats don't hurt, Stella. The threatened man lives long. You know the
old proverb: 'The man I most fear is he who says nothing, but smiles in
your face while he is planning to stab you in the back.'"
They were turned toward the ranch house, and as darkness was falling
swiftly, conversation was suspended as they put their ponies to their
highest speed, galloping across the snow-covered range toward where they
could see the lantern of the house shining like a beacon through the
gloom.
For the safety of the boys and the cow-punchers traveling toward the
ranch house in the dark, Ted had placed a large lantern on the top of
the flagstaff which stood in the front yard, so that it could be seen
for miles at night to guide wanderers.
This had been suggested by his experience the first night they had spent
at the house.
Those of the boys who were not riding line were stopping at the house,
and they were all in the big living room awaiting the coming of Ted and
Stella.
When Stella was late in arriving at the house, Mrs. Graham began to grow
anxious and worried, and this was communicated to the others.
But when they heard Ted's ringing yell outside, as he and Stella
galloped up, there were shouts of gladness inside, and the big door was
thrown open, allowing a broad path of light to fall across the prairie,
as two cow-punchers came bounding down the steps to take the ponies to
the corral.
After supper Ted told of the maiming of the cattle and the death of Sol
Flatbush.
It was part of the life at the ranch that bad news of any sort was never
told at the table during meals, and if any of the fellows had a
grievance or was in trouble he tried to keep that fact out of his face
and look as merry as he could while the others were eating. If he wanted
to tell his troubles later, and any one was willing to listen, all right
and good, but mealtime was glad time where the broncho boys and their
friends sat down together.
While they were sitting before the great fireplace after supper, Clay
Whipple was looking into the flames with a preoccupied air.
He had been silent all evening, an unusual thing for him, for usually he
injected humorously dry comments into general conversations.
"What's the trouble, Clay?" asked Stella, who was always the first to
notice when one of the boys was not his usual self.
"Oh, I don't know," said Clay uneasily.
"Reckon he's worryin' some on account o' this yere mountain bandit bein'
ther same name as him," laughed a cow-puncher named "Pike" Bander.
"I reckon you're only joshin', Pike," said Clay quietly, but growing a
shade paler.
"Why, shore, Clay. Yer didn't think I wuz in earnest?" Pike hastened to
say.
Clay's Kentucky blood would not permit him to receive without resentment
any reflections against the South or the people of his family, while he
could stand any amount of personal joshing without growing in the least
touchy or angry.
"Then what's the matter?" asked Ted, as Clay returned to his gloomy
contemplation of the fire.
"I'm worried some, that's all," was the reply.
"Tell your troubles to the policeman, that's us."
"Well, I might as well out with it. Only I don't want to appear as if I
was gettin' panicky over nothing."
"What is it, Clay? You are so provoking when I am just dying to hear
about it," cried Stella with a laugh. "Out with it."
"Injuns!" said Clay explosively.
"Indians!"
Every one around the fire sat up with a jump.
Clay nodded his head slowly without taking his eyes from the fire.
There was silence for a few minutes, for every one was turning this new
menace over in their minds.
The danger from Indians in this far-away Northern country was very real.
It was not that the Indians would make any open or daring attacks, but
that they were lawless and fearless of the authority of the United
States, and despised the "buffalo soldiers" at the near-by army posts.
"Buffalo soldiers" is a name of contempt given by the Indians to the
negro troops who had been stationed near the Blackfeet and Crow Indian
agencies, on account of their curly, woolly hair, which, in the
fantastic minds of the Indians, resembled the short, curly hair on the
shoulders of the buffalo.
The negro troops were too near their own color to demand much respect
from the Indians.
But the danger did not come so much from the reservation Indians, as
from the fugitive Indians who had left the reservations and had become
outlaws, allying themselves with the white bandits in the mountains, and
living by thievery from the ranchmen and sheep-herders.
Some of these Indians had rallied around Running Bear, a young
Blackfeet, son of a chief, a graduate of the Indian School at Carlisle,
in Pennsylvania.
Running Bear was a young fellow of magnificent physique, for he had been
a member of the famous Indian football team of Carlisle that had a year
or two previously cleared all white teams from the gridiron.
Running Bear was well educated also, and a man of fine address and
manners, when he wished to be so. But he was unprincipled, and when he
returned to the tribe lost no time in breaking all the laws imposed by
the United States for the government and welfare of the Indians.
This brought him into conflict with the Indian agent, and certain
penalties were imposed on him. This he would not stand, and soon
persuaded other of the young men of the tribe to mutiny against the
agent.
This led to further trouble, and after committing some unforgivable
offense against the United States, Running Bear rallied his young men,
and they fled the reservation and the ways and protection of the white
men, and took to the mountains, where they lived by raiding the ranches
in the neighborhood, and maintaining a sort of defensive partnership
with Whipple's band of white outlaws.
After a silence, during which every one was turning these facts over in
his mind, Ted turned to Clay, and said:
"What about the Indians, Clay?"
"I saw their tracks."
"Where?"
"In the coulee back of the house."
"Near the house!" exclaimed Ted. "That's getting pretty close to home.
Did they see you?"
"I reckon they did. I took a shot at one of them, an' he left a red
trail in the snow."
"That's bad, Clay. You shouldn't have shot at him."
"Shouldn't, eh? Well, you never saw a fellow from ole Kaintuck that
would stand up an' let a man shoot at him without sending his
compliments back--if he happened to be packin' his gun at the time."
"Did they shoot at you, then?"
"One of them did. It was like this: I was ridin' in from the west, where
I had seen a small bunch of strays which I turned back to the main herd.
As I was comin' up to the big coulee I saw something move against the
snow. At first I thought it was a grouse, and was just going to take a
shot at it when I looked again. Then, by jinks, I saw that it was the
head of an Indian shoved up over the edge of the coulee.
"His back was turned to me, and he was watching the house. I pulled in
my pony and kept my eye on him for several minutes.
"Then I saw Mrs. Graham come out of the house and stand for a moment on
the back porch.
"The Indian rose up and brought a rifle to his shoulder. At that I let
out a yell, and he turned to me like a flash, and pulled his trigger.
But he was in too much of a hurry, an' the ball whistled over my head.
"I had my gun out, an' blazed away. The Indian yawped as if he had been
hit, and disappeared. I got to the coulee as fast as I could, but he had
disappeared."
"Was he the only one?" asked Ted.
"I reckon not, for there were any number of moccasin tracks in the
coulee, and the footprints of white men or Indians who wore boots. There
was a splotch of blood where the Indian had been, and a red trail
leading to where there had been ponies. Then I came on to the house."
Ted was thinking deeply. At last he raised his head.
"This has been a day full of things that may mean a great deal to us,"
he said. "Follansbee has been shot by a member of the Whipple gang, Sol
Flatbush was killed after mutilating our cattle, more Whipple gang; and
an Indian prowler has been shot, some more of the Whipple gang. Boys,
the war is on, and it depends on us whether it is going to last all
winter and cause us to lose all our cattle, or whether we are going to
be able to stamp it out right now. Which shall it be?"
"I reckon we'd better get busy. It'll be easier ter do the job now than
fuss along with it all winter," said Pike Bander, who was an old
Northern cow-puncher, and had had lots of experience with the Indians in
Montana, the Dakotas, and Wyoming.
"I think you're right, Pike," said Ted. "And now off to bed with you.
There'll be something doing to-morrow."
In half an hour the house was dark, and every one was asleep.
The moon which had been shining brightly during the early part of the
night had become obscured by a heavy bank of snow clouds, which had been
driven over the mountains by a north wind, and it had grown much darker
outside.
In his sleep Ted seemed to hear the well-known voice of Sultan,
whinnying shrilly. It was a dream, and Ted tossed uneasily. But again
and again he heard Sultan's voice. It had a note of alarm in it, and Ted
knew that Sultan seldom gave an alarm of this sort unless something
serious was the matter. Ted's dream was of Indians, and the call of
Sultan was very natural, for the little black stallion hated Indians,
and whenever one came within smelling distance of him he grew uneasy and
fretful, and always gave voice to his fear.
The dream had such a disquieting influence on Ted that it woke him, and
he sat up in bed grinning to himself in the dark to find that, after
all, it was only a dream, and that he was safe in bed.
But what was that?
He was awake now, and he distinctly heard Sultan. Then he had heard his
pet give a warning, even in his dream.
Leaping from bed, Ted groped around the room, getting into his clothes,
without lighting the lamp.
Grasping his rifle from the corner, and buckling on his belt and
holster, he left the room.
As he passed Clay's room he entered and shook the sleeping Kentuckian,
who was on the floor with a bound. Ted told him of the continued voicing
of an alarm by Sultan, and Clay hurriedly dressed.
They passed into the living room, and Ted went to the windows on one
side, while Clay went to the other side.
Hidden by the curtains, they stood looking out on the snow-covered
plain.
"Hist!" It was Clay trying to attract Ted's attention.
Ted went swiftly to his side.
"What's that down by the corral?" whispered Clay.
Ted looked sharply.
"It's the Indians," said Ted. "They're trying to steal our horses.
Sultan knows what he's about. Come on, we'll have to rush them."
Ted heard a rustling noise behind him and turned.
It was Stella, fully dressed, and with her rifle resting in the hollow
of her arm.
"I heard Sultan, too," she said. "We'll have to hurry if we're going to
save the horses."
"You go back to bed," said Ted. "Yi-yi-yipee!"
His voice rang out in the old Moon Valley yell.
It was like a fire bell to a fireman, and brought the boys out of their
beds like a shot, and they scrambled into their clothes and were in the
living room with their arms in a jiffy.
In the corral a great commotion was taking place, to judge from the
noise that came to them.
At the word of command they rushed through the door, and raced for the
corral, turning loose the long yell.
They heard guttural shouts in the distance, and a band of ponies came
through the gateway of the corral, scattering over the prairie.
Behind them rushed a band of Indians, who, seeing that there was no
further occasion for silence, gave forth whoops of defiance.
Then Ted saw Sultan gallop out, and on his back was an Indian.
This was more than Ted could stand, and his rifle flew to his shoulder.
There was a flash and a crash, and the Indian fell to the ground, over
which he writhed in agony.
Ted whistled, and Sultan trotted to his side.
The ponies had scattered, and the corral was empty.