The guests had followed Mr. Hicks and Jib out of the long window and had
heard the cow puncher's declaration. There was no light in the sky as
far as the girls could see--no light of a fire, at least--but there seemed
to be a tang of smoke; perhaps the smoke clung to the sweating horse and
its rider.
"You got it straight, Scrub Weston?" demanded Bill Hicks. "This ain't no
burn you're givin' us?"
"Great piping Peter!" yelled the cowboy on the trembling pony, "it'll be
a burn all right if you fellows don't git busy. I left Number Three
outfit fighting the fire the best they knew; we've had to let the cattle
drift. I tell ye, Boss, there's more trouble brewin' than you kin shake
a stick at."
"'Nuff said!" roared Hicks. "Get busy, Ike. You fellers saddle and light
out with Scrub. Rope you another hawse out o' the corral, Scrub; you've
blamed near killed that one."
"Oh! is it really a prairie fire?" asked Ruth, of Jane Ann. "Can't we
see it?"
"You bet we will," declared the ranchman's niece. "Leave it to me. I'll
get the horse-wrangler to hitch up a pair of ponies and we'll go over
there. Wish you girls could ride."
"Helen rides," said Ruth, quickly.
"But not our kind of horses, I reckon," returned Jane Ann, as she
started after the cowboys. "But Tom and Bob can have mounts. Come on,
boys!"
"We'll get into trouble, like enough, if we go to this fire," objected
Madge Steele.
"Come on!" said Heavy. "Don't let's show the white feather. These folks
will think we haven't any pluck at all. Eastern girls can be just as
courageous as Western girls, I believe."
But all the time Ruth was puzzling over something that the cowboy, Scrub
Weston, had said when he gave warning of the fire. He had mentioned
Tintacker and suggested that the fire had been set by somebody whom Ruth
supposed the cowboys must think was crazy--otherwise she could not
explain that expression, "Bughouse Johnny." These range riders were very
rough of speech, but certainly their language was expressive!
This Tintacker Mine in which she was so deeply interested--for Uncle
Jabez's sake--must be very near the ranch. Ruth desired to go to the mine
and learn if it was being worked; and she proposed to learn the whole
history of the claim and look up the recording of it, as well. Of
course, the young man who had gotten Uncle Jabez to invest in the silver
mine had shown him deeds and the like; but these papers might have been
forged. Ruth was determined to clear up the mystery of the Tintacker
Mine before she left Silver Ranch for the East again.
Just now, however, she as well as the other guests of Jane Ann Hicks was
excited by the fire on the range. They got jackets, and by the time all
the girls were ready Maria's husband had a pair of half-wild ponies
hitched to the buckboard. Bob elected to drive the ponies, and he and
the five girls got aboard the vehicle while the restive ponies were held
by the Mexican.
Tom and Jane Ann had each saddled a pony. Jane Ann rode astride like a
boy, and she was up on a horse that seemed to be just as crazy as he
could be. Her friends from the East feared all the time that Jane Ann
would be thrown.
"Let 'em go, Jose!" commanded the Silver Ranch girl. "You keep right
behind me, Mr. Steele--follow me and Mr. Tom. The trail ain't good, but I
reckon you won't tip over your crowd if you're careful."
The girls on the buckboard screamed at that; But it was too late to
expostulate--or back out from going on the trip. The half-wild ponies
were off and Bob had all he could do to hold them. Old Bill Hicks and
his punchers had swept away into the starlit night some minutes before
and were now out of both sight and hearing. As the party of young folk
got out of the coulie, riding over the ridge, they saw a dull glow far
down on the western horizon.
"The fire!" cried Ruth, pointing.
"That's what it is," responded Jane Ann, excitedly. "Come on!"
She raced ahead and Tom spurred his mount after her. Directly in their
wake lurched the buckboard, with the excited Bob snapping the
long-lashed whip over the ponies' backs. The vehicle pitched and jerked,
and traveled sometimes on as few as two wheels; the girls were jounced
about unmercifully, and The Fox and Helen squealed.
"I'm--be--ing--jolt--ed--to--a--jel--ly!" gasped Heavy. "I'll be--one
sol--id bruise."
But Bob did not propose to be left behind by Jane Ann and Tom Cameron,
and Madge showed her heartlessness by retorting on the stout girl:
"You'll be solid, all right, Jennie, never mind whether you are bruised
or not. You know that you're no 'airy, fairy Lillian.'"
But the rate at which they were traveling was not conducive to
conversation; and most of the time the girls clung on and secretly hoped
that Bob would not overturn the buckboard. The ponies seemed desirous of
running away all the time.
The rosy glow along the skyline increased; and now flames leaped--yellow
and scarlet--rising and falling, while the width of the streak of fire
increased at both ends. Luckily there was scarcely any wind. But the
fire certainly was spreading.
The ponies tore along under Bob's lash and Jane Ann and Tom did not
leave them far behind. Over the rolling prairie they fled and so rapidly
that Hicks and his aides from the ranch-house were not far in advance
when the visitors came within unrestricted view of the flames.
Jane Ann halted and held up her hand to Bob to pull in the ponies when
they topped a ridge which was the final barrier between them and the
bottom where the fire burned. For several miles the dry grass, scrub,
and groves of trees had been blackened by the fire. Light smoke clouds
drifted away from the line of flame, which crackled sharply and advanced
in a steady march toward the ridge on which the spectators were perched.
"My goodness me!" exclaimed Heavy. "You couldn't put _that_ fire out by
spilling a bucket of water on it, could you?"
The fire line was several miles long. The flames advanced slowly; but
here and there, where it caught in a bunch of scrub, the tongues of fire
mounted swiftly into the air for twenty feet, or more; and in these
pillars of fire lurked much danger, for when a blast of wind chanced to
swoop down on them, the flames jumped!
Toiling up the ridge, snorting and bellowing, tails in air and horns
tossing, drifted a herd of several thousand cattle, about ready to
stampede although the fire was not really chasing them. The danger lay
in the fact that the flames had gained such headway, and had spread so
widely, that the entire range might be burned over, leaving nothing for
the cattle to eat.
The rose-light of the flames showed the spectators all this--the black
smooch of the fire-scathed land behind the barrier of flame, the
flitting figures on horseback at the foot of the ridge, and the herd of
steers going over the rise toward the north--and the higher foothills.
"But what can they do?" gasped Ruth.
"They're back-firing," Tom said, holding in his pony. Tom was a good
horseman and it was evident that Jane Ann was astonished at his riding.
"But over yonder where they tried it, the flames jumped ahead through
the long grass and drove the men into their saddles again."
"See what those fellows are doing!" gasped Madge, standing up. "They're
roping those cattle--isn't that what you call it, _roping_?"
"And hog-tieing them," responded Jane Ann, eagerly. "That's Jib--and
Bashful Ike. There! that's an axe Ike's got. He's going to slice up that
steer."
"Oh, dear me! what for?" cried Helen.
"Why, the butchering act--right here and now?" demanded Heavy. "Aren't
thinking of having a barbecue, are they?"
"You watch," returned the Western girl, greatly excited. "There! they've
split that steer."
"I hope it's the big one that bunted the automobile," cried The Fox.
"Well, you can bet it ain't," snapped Jane Ann. "Old Trouble-Maker is
going to yield us some fun at brandin' time--now you see."
But they were all too much interested just then in what was going on
near at hand--and down at the fire line--to pay much attention to what
Jane Ann said about Old Trouble-Maker. Bashful Ike and Jib Pottoway had
split two steers "from stem to stern." Two other riders approached, and
the girls recognized one of them as Old Bill himself.
"Tough luck, boys," grumbled the ranchman. "Them critters is worth five
cents right yere on the hoof; but that fire's got to be smothered. Here,
Jib! hitch my rope to t'other end of your half of that critter."
In a minute the ranchman and the half-breed were racing down the slope,
their ponies on the jump, the half of the steer jumping behind them. At
the line of fire Hicks made his frightened horse leap the flames, they
jerked the half of the steer over so that the cloven side came in
contact with the flames, and then both men urged their ponies along the
fire line, right in the midst of the smoke and heat, dragging the
bleeding side of beef across the sputtering flames.
Ike and his mate started almost at once in the other direction, and both
teams quenched the fire in good shape. Behind them other cowboys drew
the halves of the second steer that had been divided, making sure of the
quenching of the conflagration in the main; but there were still spots
where the fire broke out again, and it was a couple of hours, and two
more fat steers had been sacrificed, before it was safe to leave the
fire line to the watchful care of only half a dozen, or so, of the range
riders.
It had been a bitter fight while it lasted. Tom and Bob, and Jane Ann
herself had joined in it--slapping out the immature fires where they had
sprung up in the grass from sparks which flew from the greater fires.
But the ridge had helped retard the blaze so that it could be
controlled, and from the summit the girls from the East had enjoyed the
spectacle.
Old Bill Hicks rode beside the buckboard when they started back for the
ranch-house, and was very angry over the setting of the fire. Cow
punchers are the most careful people in the world regarding fire-setting
in the open. If a cattleman lights his cigarette, or pipe, he not only
pinches out the match between his finger and thumb, but, if he is afoot,
he stamps the burned match into the earth when he drops it.
"That yere half-crazy tenderfoot oughter be put away somewhares, whar he
won't do no more harm to nobody," growled the ranchman.
"Do you expect he set it, Uncle?" demanded Jane Ann.
"So Scrub says. He seen him camping in the cottonwoods along Larruper
Crick this mawnin'. I reckon nobody but a confounded tenderfoot would
have set a fire when it's dry like this, noways."
Here Ruth put in a question that she had longed to ask ever since the
fire scare began: "Who _is_ this strange man you call the tenderfoot?"
"Dunno, Miss Ruth," said the cattleman. "He's been hanging 'round yere a
good bit since Spring. Or, he's been seen by my men a good bit. When
they've spoke to him he's seemed sort of doped, or silly. They can't
make him out. And he hangs around closest to Tintacker."
"You're interested in _that_, Ruth!" exclaimed Helen.
"What d'you know about Tintacker, Miss?" asked Old Bill, curiously.
"Tintacker is a silver mine, isn't it?" asked Ruth, in return.
"Tintacker used to be a right smart camp some years ago. Some likely
silver claims was staked out 'round there. But they petered out, and
ain't nobody raked over the old dumps, even, but some Chinamen, for ten
year."
"But was there a particular mine called 'Tintacker'?" asked Ruth.
"Sure there was. First claim staked out. And it was a good one--for a
while. But there ain't nothin' there now."
"You say this stranger hangs about there?" queried Tom, likewise
interested.
"He won't for long if my boys find him arter this," growled Hicks.
"They'll come purty close to running him out o' this neck o' woods--you
hear me!"
This conversation made Ruth even more intent upon solving the mystery of
the Tintacker Mine, and her desire to see this strange "tenderfoot" who
hung about the old mining claims increased. But she said nothing more at
that time regarding the matter.