After getting to bed at midnight it could not be expected that the young
people at Silver Ranch would be astir early on the morning following the
fire scare. But Ruth, who was used to being up with the sun at the Red
Mill--and sometimes a little before the orb of day--slipped out of the big
room in which the six girls were domiciled when she heard the first stir
about the corrals.
When she came out upon the veranda that encircled the ranch-house,
wreaths of mist hung knee-high in the coulee--mist which, as soon as the
sun peeked over the hills, would be dissipated. The ponies were snorting
and stamping at their breakfasts--great armfuls of alfalfa hay which the
horse wranglers had pitched over the fence. Maria, the Mexican woman,
came up from the cowshed with two brimming pails of milk, for the Silver
Ranch boasted a few milch cows at the home place, and there had been
sweet butter on the table at supper the night before--something which is
usually very scarce on a cattle ranch.
Ruth ran down to the corral and saw, on the bench outside the bunkhouse
door, the row of buckets in which the boys had their morning plunge. The
sleeping arrangements at Silver Ranch being rather primitive, Tom and
Bob had elected to join the cowboys in the big bunkhouse, and they had
risen as early as the punchers and made their own toilet in the buckets,
too. The sheet-iron chimney of the chuckhouse kitchen was smoking, and
frying bacon and potatoes flavored the keen air for yards around.
Bashful Ike, the foreman, met the Eastern girl at the corner of the
corral fence. He was a pleasant, smiling man; but the blood rose to the
very roots of his hair and he got into an immediate perspiration if a
girl looked at him. When Ruth bade him good-morning Ike's cheeks began
to flame and he grew instantly tongue-tied! Beyond nodding a greeting
and making a funny noise in his throat he gave no notice that he was
like other human beings and could talk. But Ruth had an idea in her mind
and Bashful Ike could help her carry it through better than anybody
else.
"Mr. Ike," she said, softly, "do you know about this man they say
probably set the fire last night?"
Ike gulped down something that seemed to be choking him and mumbled that
he supposed he had seen the fellow "about once."
"Do you think he is crazy, Mr. Ike?" asked the Eastern girl.
"I--I swanny! I couldn't be sure as to that, Miss," stammered the foreman
of Silver Ranch. "The boys say he acts plumb locoed."
"'Locoed' means crazy?" she persisted.
"Why, Miss, clear 'way down south from us, 'long about the Mexican
border, thar's a weed grows called loco, and if critters eats it, they
say it crazies 'em--for a while, anyway. So, Miss," concluded Ike,
stumbling less in his speech now, "if a man or a critter acts batty
like, we say he's locoed."
"I understand. But if this man they suspect of setting the fire is crazy
he isn't responsible for what he does, is he?"
"Well, Miss, mebbe not. But we can't have no onresponsible feller
hangin' around yere scatterin' fire--no, sir!--ma'am, I mean," Ike hastily
added, his face flaming up like an Italian sunset again.
"No; I suppose not. But I understand the man stays around that old camp
at Tintacker, more than anywhere else?"
"That's so, I reckon," agreed Ike. "The boys don't see him often."
"Can't you make the boys just scare him into keeping off the range,
instead of doing him real harm? They seemed very angry about the fire."
"I dunno, Miss. Old Bill's some hot under the collar himself--and he
might well be. Last night's circus cost him a pretty penny."
"Did you ever see this man they say is crazy?" demanded Ruth.
"I told you I did oncet."
"What sort of a looking man is he?"
"He ain't no more'n a kid, Miss. That's it; he's jest a tenderfoot kid."
"A boy, you mean?" queried Ruth, anxiously.
"Not much older than that yere whitehead ye brought with yuh," said Ike,
beginning to grin now that he had become a bit more familiar with the
Eastern girl, and pointing at Bob Steele. "And he ain't no bigger than
him."
"You wouldn't let your boys injure a young fellow like that, would you?"
cried Ruth. "It wouldn't be right."
"I dunno how I'm goin' to stop 'em from mussin' him up a whole lot if
they chances acrost him," said Ike, slowly. "He'd ought to be shut up,
so he had."
"Granted. But he ought not to be abused. Another thing, Ike--I'll tell
you a secret."
"Uh-huh?" grunted the surprised foreman.
"I want to see that young man awfully!" said Ruth. "I want to talk with
him----"
"Sufferin' snipes!" gasped Ike, becoming so greatly interested that he
forgot it was a girl he was talking with. "What you wanter see that
looney critter for?"
"Because I'm greatly interested in the Tintacker Mine, and they say this
young fellow usually sticks to that locality," replied Ruth, smiling on
the big cow puncher. "Don't you think I can learn to ride well enough to
travel that far before we return to the East?"
"To ride to Tintacker, Miss?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Why, suah, Miss!" cried Ike, cordially. "I'll pick you-all out a nice
pony what's well broke, and I bet you'll ride him lots farther than
that. I'll rope him now--I know jest the sort of a hawse you'd oughter
ride----"
"No; you go eat your breakfast with the other boys," laughed Ruth,
preparing to go back to the ranch-house. "Jane Ann says we're all to
have ponies to ride and she maybe will be disappointed if I don't let
her pick out mine for me," added Ruth, with her usual regard for the
feelings of her mates. "But I am going to depend on you, Mr. Ike, to
teach me to ride."
"And when you want to ride over to Tintacker tuh interview that yere
maverick, yo' let me know, Miss," said Bashful Ike. "I'll see that yuh
git thar with proper escort, and all that," and he grinned sheepishly.
Tom and Bob breakfasted with the punchers, but after the regular meal at
the ranch-house the two boys hastened to join their girl friends. First
they must all go to the corral and pick out their riding ponies. Helen,
Madge and The Fox could ride fairly well; but Jane Ann had warned them
that Eastern riding would not do on the ranch. Such a thing as a
side-saddle was unknown, so the girls had all supplied themselves with
divided skirts so that they could ride astride like the Western girl.
Besides, a cow pony would not stand for the long skirt of a riding habit
flapping along his flank.
Now, Ruth had ridden a few times on Helen's pony, and away back when she
was a little girl she had ridden bareback on an old horse belonging to
the blacksmith at Darrowtown. So she was not afraid to try the nervous
little flea-bitten gray that Ike Stedman roped and saddled and bridled
for her. Jane Ann declared it to be a favorite pony of her own, and
although the little fellow did not want to stand while his saddle was
being cinched, and stamped his cunning little feet on the ground a good
bit, Ike assured the girl of the Red Mill that "Freckles," as they
called him, was "one mighty gentle hawse!"
There was no use in the girls from the East showing fear; Ruth was too
plucky to do that, anyway. She was not really afraid of the pony; but
when she was in the saddle it did seem as though Freckles danced more
than was necessary.
These cow ponies never walk--unless they are dead tired; about Freckles'
easiest motion was a canter that carried Ruth over the prairie so
swiftly that her loosened hair flowed behind her in the wind, and for a
time she could not speak--until she became adjusted to the pony's motion.
But she liked riding astride much better than on a side-saddle, and she
soon lost her fear. Ike had given her some good advice about the holding
of her reins so that a sharp pull on Freckles' curb would instantly
bring the pony down to a dead stop. The bashful one had screwed tiny
spurs into the heels of her high boots and given her a light quirt, or
whip.
The other girls--all but Heavy--were, as we have seen, more used to riding
than the girl of the Red Mill; but with the stout girl the whole party
had a great deal of fun. Of course, Jennie Stone expected to cause
hilarity among her friends; she "poked fun" at herself all the time, so
could not object if the others laughed.
"I'll never in this world be able to get into a saddle without a kitchen
chair to step upon," Jennie groaned, as she saw the other girls choosing
their ponies. "Mercy! if I got on that little Freckles, he'd squat right
down--I know he would! You'll have to find something bigger than these
rabbits for _me_ to ride on."
At that she heard the girls giggling behind her and turned to face a
great, droop-headed, long-eared roan mule, with hip bones that you could
hang your hat on--a most forlorn looking bundle of bones that had
evidently never recovered the climatic change from the river bottoms of
Missouri to the uplands of Montana. Tom Cameron held the mule with a
trace-chain around his neck and he offered the end of the chain to Heavy
with a perfectly serious face.
"I believe you'd better saddle this chap, Jennie," said Tom. "You see
how he's built--the framework is great. I know he can hold you up all
right. Just look at how he's built."
"Looks like the steel framework of a skyscraper," declared Heavy,
solemnly. "Don't you suppose I might fall in between the ribs if I
climbed up on that thing? I thought you were a better friend to me than
that, Tom Cameron. You'd deliberately let me risk my life by being
tangled up in that moth-eaten bag o' bones if it collapsed under me. No!
I'll risk one of these rabbits. I'll have less distance to fall if I
roll."
But the little cow ponies were tougher than the stout girl supposed. Ike
weighed in the neighborhood of a hundred and eighty pounds--solid bone
and muscle--and the cayuse that he bestrode when at work was no bigger
than Ruth's Freckles. They hoisted Heavy into the saddle, and Tom
offered to lash her there if she didn't feel perfectly secure.
"You needn't mind, Tommy," returned the stout girl. "If, in the course
of human events, it becomes necessary for me to disembark from this
saddle, I'll probably want to get down quick. There's no use in
hampering me. I take my life in my hand--with these reins--and--ugh! ugh!
ugh!" she finished as, on her picking up the lines, her restive pony
instantly broke into the liveliest kind of a trot.
But after all, Heavy succeeded in riding pretty well; while Ruth, after
an hour, was not afraid to let her pony take a pretty swift gait with
her. Jane Ann, however, showed remarkable skill and made the Eastern
girls fairly envious. She had ridden, of course, ever since she was big
enough to hold bridle reins, and there were few of the punchers who
could handle a horse better than the ranchman's niece.
But the visitors from the East did not understand this fact fully until
a few days later, when the first bunch of Spring calves and yearlings
were driven into a not far distant corral to be branded. Branding is one
of the big shows on a cattle ranch, and Ruth and her chums did not
intend to miss the sight; besides, some of the boys had corraled Old
Trouble-Maker near by and promised some fancy work with the big black
and white steer.
"We'll show you some roping now," said Jane Ann, with enthusiasm. "Just
cutting a little old cow out of that band in the corral and throwing it
ain't nothing. Wait till we turn Old Trouble-Maker loose."
The whole party rode over to the branding camp, and there was the black
and white steer as wild as ever. While the branding was going on the big
steer bellowed and stamped and tried to break the fence down. The smell
of the burning flesh, and the bellowing of the calves and yearlings as
their ears were slit, stirred the old fellow up.
"Something's due to happen when that feller gits turned out," declared
Jib Pottoway. "You goin' to try to rope that contrary critter, Jane
Ann?"
"It'll be a free-for-all race; Ike says so," cried Jane Ann. "You wait!
You boys think you're so smart. I'll rope that steer myself--maybe."
The punchers laughed at this boast; but they all liked Jane Ann and had
it been possible to make her boast come true they would have seen to it
that she won. But Old Trouble-Maker, as Jib said, "wasn't a lady's cow."
It was agreed that only a free-for-all dash for the old fellow would
do--and out on the open range, at that. Old Trouble-Maker was to be
turned out of the corral, given a five-rod start, and then the bunch who
wanted to have a tussle with the steer would start for him. Just to make
it interesting Old Bill Hicks had put up a twenty dollar gold piece, to
be the property of the winner of the contest--that is, to the one who
succeeded in throwing and "hog-tieing" Old Trouble-Maker.
It was along in the cool of the afternoon when the bars of the small
corral were let down and the steer was prodded out into the open. The
old fellow seemed to know that there was fun in store for him. At first
he pawed the ground and seemed inclined to charge the line of punchers,
and even shook his head at the group of mounted spectators, who were
bunched farther back on the hillside. Bashful Ike stopped _that_ idea,
however, for, as master of ceremonies, he rode in suddenly and used his
quirt on the big steer. With a bellow Old Trouble-Maker swung around and
started for the skyline. Ike trotted on behind him till the steer passed
the five-rod mark. Then pulling the big pistol that swung at his hip the
foreman shot a fusilade into the ground which started the steer off at a
gallop, tail up and head down, and spurred the punchers into instant
action, as well.
"Ye-yip!" yelled Bashful Ike. "Now let's see what you 'ombres air good
for with a rope. Go to it!"