Be it said of the group of thoughtless cowboys (of whom were the wildest
spirits of Number Two camp) that their first demonstration as they
dashed out of the coulie upon the two girls was their only one. Their
imitation of an Indian attack was nipped in the bud by the bursting of
the electric storm. There was no time for the continuance of the
performance arranged particularly to startle Jane Ann and Ruth Fielding.
Ruth forgot the patter of the approaching ponies. She had instantly
struck into her song--high and clear--at her comrade's advice; and she
drew Freckles closer to the herd. The bellowing and pushing of the
cattle betrayed their position in any case; but the intermittent flashes
of lightning clearly revealed the whole scene to the agitated girls.
They were indeed frightened--the ranch girl as well as Ruth herself. The
fact that this immense herd, crowding and bellowing together, might at
any moment break into a mad stampede, was only too plain.
Caught in the mass of maddened cattle, the girls might easily be
unseated and trampled to death. Ruth knew this as well as did the
Western girl. But if the sound of the human voice would help to keep the
creatures within bounds, the girl from the Red Mill determined to sing
on and ride closer in line with the milling herd.
She missed Jane Ann after a moment; but another flash of lightning
revealed her friend weaving her pony in and out through the pressing
cattle, using the quirt with free hand on the struggling steers and
breaking them up into small groups.
The cowboys who had dashed out of the coulie saw the possibility of
disaster instantly; and they, too, rode in among the bellowing steers.
With so many heavy creatures pressing toward a common center, many would
soon be crushed to death if the formation was not broken up. Each streak
of lightning which played athwart the clouds added to the fear of the
beasts. Several of the punchers rode close along the edge of the herd,
driving in the strays. Now it began to rain, and as the very clouds
seemed to open and empty the water upon the thirsty land, the swish of
it, and the moaning of the wind that arose, added greatly to the
confusion.
How it _did_ rain for a few minutes! Ruth felt as though she were riding
her pony beneath some huge water-spout. She was thankful for the
slicker, off which the water cataracted. The pony splashed knee-deep
through runlets freshly started in the old buffalo paths. Here and there
a large pond of water gleamed when the lightning lit up their
surroundings.
And when the rain stopped as abruptly as it had begun, the cattle began
to steam and were more troublesome than before. The lightning flashes
and thunder continued, and when a second downpour of rain began it came
so viciously, and with so great a wind, that the girls could scarcely
ride against it.
Suddenly a shout came down the wind. It was taken up and repeated by
voice after voice. The camp at the far end of the herd had been aroused
ere this, of course, and every man who could ride was in the saddle. But
it was at the camp-end of the herd, after all, that the first break
came.
"They're off!" yelled Darcy, riding furiously past Ruth and Jane Ann
toward where the louder disturbance had arisen.
"And toward the river!" shouted another of the cowboys.
The thunder of hoofs in the distance suddenly rose to a deafening sound.
The great herd had broken away and were tearing toward the Rolling River
at a pace which nothing could halt. Several of the cowboys were carried
forward on the fore-front of the wave of maddened cattle; but they all
managed to escape before the leaders reached the high bank of the
stream.
Jane Ann screamed some order to Ruth, but the latter could not hear what
it was. Yet she imitated the Western girl's efforts immediately. No such
tame attempts at controlling the cattle as singing to them was now in
order. The small number of herdsmen left at this point could only force
their ponies into the herd and break up the formation--driving the mad
brutes back with their quirts, and finally, after a most desperate
fight, holding perhaps a third of the great herd from running wildly
into the stream.
This had been a time of some drought and the river was running low. The
banks were not only steep upon this side, but they were twenty feet and
more high. When the first of the maddened beeves reached the verge of
the bank they went headlong down the descent, and some landed at the
edge of the water with broken limbs and so were trampled to death. But
the plunging over of hundreds upon hundreds of steers at the same point,
together with the washing of the falling rain, quickly cut down these
banks until they became little more than steep quagmires in which the
beasts wallowed more slowly to the river's edge.
This heavy going did more than aught else to retard the stampede; but
many of the first-comers got over the shallow river and climbed upon the
plain beyond. All night long the cowboys were gathering up the herd upon
the eastern shore of the river; those that had crossed must be left
until day dawned.
And a very unpleasant night it was, although the stampede itself had
been of short duration. A troop of cattle had dashed through the camp
and flattened out the tent that had sheltered the lady visitors.
Fortunately the said visitors had taken refuge in the supply wagon
before the cattle had broken loose.
But, led by The Fox, there was much disturbance in the supply wagon for
the time being. Fortunately a water-tight tarpaulin had kept the girls
comparatively dry; but Mary Cox loudly expressed her wish that they had
not come out to the camp, and the other girls were inclined to be a
little fractious as well.
When Jane Ann and Ruth rode in, however, after the trouble was all over,
and the rain had ceased, a new fire was built and coffee made, and the
situation took on a more cheerful phase. Ruth was quite excited over it
all, but glad that she had taken a hand in the herding of the cattle
that had not broken away.
"And if you stay to help the boys gather the steers that got across the
river, to-morrow, I am going to help, too," she declared.
"Tom and Bob will help," Helen said. "I wish I was as brave as you are,
Ruth; but I really am afraid of these horned beasts."
"I never was cut out for even a milkmaid, myself," added Heavy. "When a
cow bellows it makes me feel queer up and down my spine just as it does
when I go to a menagerie and hear the lions roar."
"They won't bite you," sniffed Jane Ann.
"But they can hook you. And my! the noise they made when they went
through this camp! You never heard the like," said the stout girl,
shaking her head. "No. I'm willing to start back for the ranch-house in
the morning."
"Me, too," agreed Madge.
So it was agreed that the four timid girls should return to Silver Ranch
with Ricarde after breakfast; but Ruth and Jane Ann, with Tom Cameron
and Bob Steele, well mounted on fresh ponies, joined the gang of cow
punchers who forded the river at daybreak to bring in the strays.
The frightened cattle were spread over miles of the farther plain and it
was a two days' task to gather them all in. Indeed, on the second
evening the party of four young folk were encamped with Jib Pottoway and
three of the other punchers, quite twenty miles from the river and in a
valley that cut deeply into the mountain chain which sheltered the range
from the north and west.
"It is over this way that the trail runs to Tintacker, doesn't it, Jib?"
Ruth asked the Indian, privately.
"Yes, Miss. Such trail as there is can be reached in half an hour from
this camp."
"Oh! I do so want to see that man who killed the bear, Jib," urged the
girl from the Red Mill.
"Well, it might be done, if he's over this way now," returned Jib,
thoughtfully. "He is an odd stick--that's sure. Don't know whether he'd
let himself be come up with. But----"
"Will you ride with me to the mines?" demanded Ruth, eagerly.
"I expect I could," admitted the Indian.
"I would be awfully obliged to you."
"I don't know what Mr. Hicks would say. But the cattle are in hand
again--and there's less than a hundred here for the bunch to drive back.
They can get along without me, I reckon."
"And surely without me!" laughed Ruth.
And so it was arranged. The Indian and Ruth were off up the valley
betimes the next morning, while the rest of the party started for the
river, driving the last of the stray beeves ahead of them.