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[Illustration: FRECKLES LEAPED UP, FRIGHTENED AND SNORTING.]
Ruth Fielding
At Silver Ranch
OR
SCHOOLGIRLS AMONG THE COWBOYS
BY
ALICE B. EMERSON
Author of "Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill,"
"Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall," Etc.
_ILLUSTRATED_
NEW YORK
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Books for Girls
BY ALICE B. EMERSON
RUTH FIELDING SERIES
12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.
RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL
Or, Jasper Parloe's Secret.
RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL
Or, Solving the Campus Mystery.
RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP
Or, Lost in the Backwoods.
RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT
Or, Nita, the Girl Castaway.
RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH
Or, Schoolgirls Among the Cowboys.
Copyright, 1918, by
Cupples & Leon Company
Ruth Fielding in the Red Cross
Printed in U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. "Old Trouble-Maker" 1
II. Bashful Ike 11
III. In Which Things Happen 18
IV. The Fire Fight 30
V. "Old Trouble-Maker" Turned Loose 40
VI. The Roping Contest 51
VII. Jane Ann Turns the Trick 57
VIII. What Was on the Records 66
IX. The Fox Is Reckless 75
X. Ruth Shows Her Mettle 83
XI. An Ursine Hold-Up 89
XII. The Man From Tintacker 97
XIII. The Party at the Schoolhouse 103
XIV. Bashful Ike Comes Out Strong 112
XV. "The Night Trick" 123
XVI. The Joke That Failed 136
XVII. The Stampede 143
XVIII. A Desperate Case 150
XIX. The Man at Tintacker 157
XX. The Wolf at the Door 164
XXI. A Plucky Fight 171
XXII. Service Courageous 178
XXIII. Bashful Ike Takes the Bit in His Teeth 185
XXIV. Coals of Fire 192
XXV. At the Old Red Mill Again 199
RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH
CHAPTER I--"OLD TROUBLE-MAKER"
Where the Silver Ranch trail branches from the state road leading down
into Bullhide, there stretch a rambling series of sheds, or "shacks,"
given up to the uses of a general store and provision emporium; beside
it is the schoolhouse. This place on the forked trails is called "The
Crossing," and it was the only place nearer than the town of Bullhide
where the scattered population of this part of Montana could get any
supplies.
One of Old Bill Hicks' herds was being grazed on that piece of rolling
country, lying in the foothills, right behind the Crossing, and two of
his cow punchers had ridden in for tobacco. Being within sight of rows
upon rows of tinned preserves (the greatest luxury extant to the cowboy
mind), and their credit being good with Lem Dickson, who kept the store,
the two cattle herders--while their cayuses stood with drooping heads,
their bridle-reins on the road before them--each secured a can of
peaches, and sitting cross-legged on the porch before the store, opened
the cans with their knives and luxuriated in the contents.
"Old man's nigh due, ain't he?" asked Lem, the storekeeper, lowering
himself into a comfortable armchair that he kept for his own particular
use on the porch.
"Gittin' to Bullhide this mawnin'," drawled one of the cowboys. "An'
he's got what he went for, too."
"Bill Hicks most usually does git what he goes after, don't he?"
retorted the storekeeper.
The other puncher chuckled. "This time Old Bill come near goin' out
after _rabbit_ an' only bringin' back the _hair_," he said. "Jane Ann is
just as much of a Hicks as Bill himself--you take it from me. She made
her bargain b'fore Old Bill got her headed back to the ranch, I reckon.
Thar's goin' to be more newfangled notions at Silver Ranch from now on
than you kin shake a stick at. You hear me!"
"Old Bill can stand scattering a little money around as well as any man
in this State," Lem said, ruminatively. "He's made it; he's saved it;
now he might's well l'arn to spend some of it."
"And he's begun. Jane Ann's begun for him, leastways," said one of the
cowboys. "D'ye know what Mulvey brought out on his wagon last Sat'day?"
"I knowed he looked like pitchers of 'movin' day' in New York City, or
Chicago, when he passed along yere," grunted the storekeeper. "Eight
head o' mules he was drivin'."
"He sure was," agreed the cow puncher. "There was all sorts of trucks
and gew-gaws. But the main thing was a pinanner."
"A piano?"
"That's what I said. And that half-Injun, Jib Pottoway, says he kin play
on the thing. But it ain't to be unboxed till the boss and Jane Ann
comes."
"And they'll be gittin' along yere some time to-day," said the other
cowboy, throwing his empty tin away. "And when they come, Lem, they're
sure goin' to surprise yuh."
"What with?"
"With what they sail by yere in," drawled the puncher.
"Huh? what's eatin' on you, Bud? Old Bill ain't bought an airship, has
he?"
"Mighty nigh as bad," chuckled the other. "He's bought Doosenberry's big
automobile, I understand, and Jane Ann's brought a bunch of folks with
her that she met down East, and they're just about goin' to tear the
vitals out o' Silver Ranch--now you hear me!"
"A steam wagon over these trails!" grunted the storekeeper. "Waal!"
"And wait till Old Bill sees a bunch of his steers go up in the air when
they sets eyes on the choo-choo wagon," chuckled Bud. "That'll about
finish the automobile business, I bet yuh!"
"Come on, Bud!" shouted his mate, already astride his pony.
The two cowboys were off and lashing their ponies to a sharp run in half
a minute. Scarcely had they disappeared behind a grove of scrub trees on
the wind-swept ridge beyond the store when the honk of an automobile
horn startled the slow-motioned storekeeper out of his chair.
A balloon of dust appeared far down the trail. Out of this there shot
the long hood of a heavy touring car, which came chugging up the rise
making almost as much noise as a steam roller. Lem Dickson shuffled to
the door of the store and stuck his head within.
"Sally!" he bawled. "Sally!"
"Yes, Paw," replied a sweet, if rather shrill, voice from the open
stairway that led to the upper chamber of the store-building.
"Here comes somebody I reckon you'll wanter see," bawled the old man.
There was a light step on the stair; but it halted on the last tread and
a lithe, red-haired, peachy complexioned girl looked into the big room.
"Well, now, Paw," she said, sharply. "You ain't got me down yere for
that bashful Ike Stedman, have you? For if he's come prognosticating
around yere again I declare I'll bounce a bucket off his head. He's the
biggest gump!"
"Come on yere, gal!" snapped her father. "I ain't said nothin' about
Ike. This yere's Bill Hicks an' all his crowd comin' up from Bullhide in
a blamed ol' steam waggin."
Sally ran out through the store and reached the piazza just as the
snorting automobile came near and slowed down. A lithe, handsome, dark
girl was at the wheel; beside her was a very pretty, plump girl with
rosy cheeks and the brightest eyes imaginable; the third person crowded
into the front seat was a youth who looked so much like the girl who was
running the machine that they might have changed clothes and nobody
would have been the wiser--save that Tom Cameron's hair was short and his
twin sister, Helen's, was long and curly. The girl between the twins was
Ruth Fielding.
In the big tonneau of the car was a great, tall, bony man with an
enormous "walrus" mustache and a very red face; beside him sat a rather
freckled girl with snapping black eyes, who wore very splendid clothes
as though she was not used to them. With this couple were a big, blond
boy and three girls--one of them so stout that she crowded her companions
on the seat into their individual corners, and packed them in there
somewhat after the nature of sardines in a can.
"Hello, Sally!" cried the girl in the very fine garments, stretching her
hand out to greet the storekeeper's daughter as the automobile came to a
stop.
"Hi, Lem!" bawled the man with the huge mustache. "Is Silver Ranch on
the map yet, or have them punchers o' mine torn the face of Nater all to
shreds an' only left me some o' the pieces?"
"I dunno 'bout that, Bill," drawled the fat storekeeper, shuffling down
the steps in his list slippers, and finally reached and shaking the hand
of Mr. William Hicks, owner of Silver Ranch. "But when some of your cows
set their eyes on this contraption they're goin' to kick holes in the
air--an' that's sartain!"
"The cows will have to get used to seeing this automobile, Lem Dickson,"
snapped the ranchman's niece, who had been speaking with Sally. "For
uncle's bought it and it beats riding a cayuse, I tell you!"
"By gollies!" grunted Bill Hicks, "it bucks wuss'n any critter I ever
was astride of." But he spoke softly, and nobody but the storekeeper
noticed what he said.
"Mean to say you've bought this old chuck-waggin from Doosenberry?"
demanded the storekeeper.
"Uh-huh," nodded Mr. Hicks.
"Wal, you're gittin' foolish-like in your old age, Bill," declared his
friend.
"No I ain't; I'm gittin' wise," retorted the ranchman, with a wide grin.
"How's that?"
"I'm l'arnin' how to git along with Jane Ann," declared Mr. Hicks, with
a delighted chortle, and pinching the freckled girl beside him.
"Ouch!" exclaimed his niece. "What's the matter, Uncle Bill?"
"He says he's bought this contraption to please you, Jane Ann," said the
storekeeper. "But what'll Old Trouble-Maker do when he sees it--heh?"
"Gee!" ejaculated the ranchman. "I never thought o' that steer."
"I reckon Old Trouble-Maker will have to stand for it," scoffed the
ranchman's niece, tossing her head. "Now, Sally, you ride out and see
us. These girls from down East are all right. And we're going to have
heaps of fun at Silver Ranch after this."
Helen Cameron touched a lever and the big car shot ahead again.
"She's a mighty white girl, that Sally Dickson," declared Jane Ann Hicks
(who hated her name and preferred to be called "Nita"). "She's taught
school here at the Crossing for one term, too. And she's sweet in spite
of her peppery temper----"
"What could you expect?" demanded the stout girl, smiling all over her
face as she looked back at the red-haired girl at the store. "She has a
more crimson topknot than the Fox here----"
There came a sudden scream from the front seat of the automobile. The
car, under Helen Cameron's skillful manipulation, had turned the bend in
the trail and the chapparel instantly hid the store and the houses at
the Crossing. Right ahead of them was a rolling prairie, several miles
in extent. And up the rise toward the trail was coming, in much dust, a
bunch of cattle, with two or three punchers riding behind and urging the
herd to better pasture.
"Oh! see all those steers," cried Ruth Fielding. "Do you own _all_ of
them, Mr. Hicks?"
"I reckon they got my brand on 'em, Miss," replied the ranchman. "But
that's only a leetle bunch--can't be more'n five hundred--coming up yere.
I reckon, Miss Helen, that we'd better pull up some yere. If them cows
sees us----"
"See there! see there!" cried the stout girl in the back seat.
As she spoke in such excitement, Helen switched off the power and braked
the car. Out of the chapparel burst, with a frantic bellow, a huge black
and white steer--wide horned, ferocious of aspect--quite evidently "on the
rampage." The noise of the passing car had brought him out of
concealment. He plunged into the trail not ten yards behind the slowing
car.
"Goodness me!" shouted the big boy who sat beside Bill Hicks and his
niece. "What kind of a beast is that? It's almost as big as an
elephant!"
"Oh!" cried the girl called "The Fox." "That surely isn't the kind of
cattle you have here, is it? He looks more like a buffalo. See! he's
coming after us!"
The black and white steer _did_ look as savage as any old buffalo bull
and, emitting a bellow, shook his head at the automobile and began to
cast the dust up along his flanks with his sharp hoofs. He was indeed of
a terrifying appearance.
"It's Old Trouble-Maker!" cried Jane Ann Hicks.
"He looks just as though his name fitted him," said Tom Cameron, who had
sprung up to look back at the steer.
At that moment the steer lowered his head and charged for the auto. The
girls shrieked, and Tom cried:
"Go ahead, Nell! let's leave that beast behind."
Before his sister could put on speed again, however, the big boy, who
was Bob Steele, sang out:
"If you go on you'll stampede that herd of cattle--won't she, Mr. Hicks?
Why, we're between two fires, that's what we are!"
"And they're both going to be hot," groaned Tom. "Why, that Old
Trouble-Maker will climb right into this car in half a minute!"