The maverick was not a happy addition to the camping party—not at
first, at least. Dig tied him to a tree, giving him the length of the
lariat to tangle himself up in; and he did just that.
Three times during supper Dig had to get up and unwind the rope to save
the creature from choking himself to death. His plaintive “bla-att”
might bring night-prowling beasts from the distant hills.
In fact, Chet could not easily figure out how the yearling had escaped
becoming the prey of some flesh-eating brute ere this, save that the
season was in his favour.
The bears had plenty of berries and other forest fruit. In the winter or
in the early spring after his hibernation, Bruin would have stalked this
maverick as cleverly as any wolf.
The latter creatures were not plentiful in the hills now, and the
coyotes were so cowardly they would not pull a bull calf down unless it
was a cripple—especially when there was plenty of smaller game.
The mountain lion is always hungry; but he does not often come out of
the hills save when a herd of cattle is being wintered in some
well-watered valley like this in which the chums from Silver Run were
encamped. Then the cougar will slink down and lurk on the outskirts of
the herd to catch a cow and calf away from the protection of their
mates.
“Your maverick struck a fat time in this valley, Dig,” Chet said. “It’s
escaped all beasts of prey save man. What are you going to do with it?
It’s rather old for veal; but I expect he’d be fair eating—would give
us all the steaks we’d need between here and Grub Stake.”
“I reckon not!” exclaimed Digby Fordham. “We’re not going to butcher
him.”
“What then?”
“I tell you I’m going to lead him to Grub Stake.”
“Cracky! you’ll surely bite off an awful mouthful to chew,” laughed
Chet. “It is a hundred and sixty or seventy miles to Grub Stake, and
that maverick will pull back every foot of the way.”
“I don’t care,” said Dig obstinately. “I can sell him if I get him to
Grub Stake.”
“Waugh!” said Chet, laughing. “Who do you suppose would want this
little, scrawny red-and-white dogy?”
“Don’t call him names, Chet. Poor little fellow,” said Dig. “Wonder if
he’d like a leg of this grouse to pick?”
“Or a cup of coffee?” suggested his chum.
But Dig was very much interested in his new possession. He was up two or
three times in the night to see if he were tangled in the rope.
“The maverick ought to be ‘gentled’ very quickly,” Chet said; “he is
receiving enough attention.”
The boys did not try to keep watch. They looked for no danger, and the
horses feeding near the camp would give notice of the approach of any
wild animal.
There was no disturbance and the chums finally slept soundly beneath
their blankets till morning. Indeed, the bawling of the yearling for
water after sunrise was what awoke them.
“Say!” yawned Chet, rising and stretching. “We’re a fine pair of
travellers—I don’t think! We won’t get started as early this morning as
we did yesterday. Let’s hurry breakfast.”
“No, no!” objected Digby. “Hurry anything but the meals.”
Nevertheless, Chet allowed only bacon, flapjacks and coffee to be
prepared, although Digby had brought fishing tackle and begged for
enough time to try for the catfish in the river.
“I just know there are catfish as long as your arm down under that
bank,” he declared. “They’d go fine, Chet. Why eat bacon when you might
have a nice catfish flapping in the pan?”
Chet, however, had made up his mind that they ought to make fairly good
time on the trail until they should pass the second line of foothills.
Then they would reach the broader plains, on which it was reported the
herd of buffaloes had been seen. If the expedition to Grub Stake was to
be delayed at all, he hoped it would be delayed only by the huge buffalo
and its mates, of which the men about the Silent Sue shaft had spoken.
“We don’t want to be fooling around here with a mess of catfish,” he
said to Dig, “when we may be able, later, to get a shot at something
worth while.”
“Oh, Chet!” exclaimed Digby, “you’ve got that buffalo on the brain and
nothing else is going to suit you. Bet you we lug these heavy rifles
clear to Grub Stake and don’t get a shot.”
“Never mind; you’ve captured a deer, Dig,” said his chum soothingly.
“And you say you are going to lead it with you.”
“So I am!” snapped Dig. “I can be pigheaded just as well as you can.”
But something almost immediately happened to cheer Dig up and avert any
quarrel between the chums. It was something that held them at the camp
by the river for a while, too.
As it fell out, breakfast was finished and the pots and pans washed.
Their blanket-rolls were repacked and all was ready for saddling, when a
torrent of pounding hoofs reached their ears.
“Stampede!” yelled Chet, starting for the edge of the grove.
“What of—buffaloes?” demanded his friend, following in a more leisurely
fashion.
Chet first came to the edge of the grove, where he could see back along
the trail by which they had come from Silver Run. There was a cloud of
dust which shrouded a number of horsemen; but how many were coming, and
who they were, the boy could not at first imagine.
Then, out of the cloud, as it slowed up, appeared a band of frowsy
ponies, most of them piebald. They were ridden by Indians—and rather
savage looking ones at that.
Chet Havens had never seen so many redmen before, save at a show. They
were stripped to the waist and wore only fringed leggings and moccasins.
There were feathers in their topknots; yet Chet, seeing them closer,
knew that those feathers were not worn because they were “braves” and
had killed their enemies in battle.
These were only Indian youths out on a frolic or a hunt, none of them
being much older than Dig and himself. But how they did ride! They had
only a cloth over their ponies’ backs and each rode with a single rein
to guide his half wild brute.
Each young redskin carried a rifle and they all tossed them up as high
as they could reach when they saw the two white boys appear from the
riverside. Then, at a signal from their leader, they flung themselves to
the far side of their mounts, and circled out from the trail, passing
the amazed Chet and Dig, only one hand and a foot of each Indian
showing, their ponies still tearing along at a great pace. In wartime
the Indians performed this trick, shooting at their enemies under the
ponies’ necks.
Dig had brought his gun, and when he heard the “E-i! e-i! e-i!” of the
Indian yell he was a little scared.
“What kind of a game is this?” he wanted to know of Chet. “By the last
hoptoad that was chased out of Ireland! those yelling galoots look as
though they meant business.”
“Shucks, boy!” said Chet, “you know there are no more wild Indians.”
“Huh! if those fellows are not wild, what are they? And whew! how they
can ride!”
“That’s John Peep in the lead,” Chet said. “Though what he’s doing away
over here I can’t imagine.”
“Huh! I’ll get even some way!” threatened Digby. “Scaring a fellow out
of half a year’s growth!”
The cavalcade came back, the sweat-streaked faces of the riders
grinning. Dig said to his chum:
“A great mess of ‘dog soldiers.’ Whew! you can’t cure an Indian of his
old tricks. I bet right now they’d like to scalp us.”
“Don’t see how they’d ever perform the operation on you,” laughed Chet,
“with that prizefighter’s cut you have.”
Chet noticed that all of the young fellows that Dig called “dog
soldiers” were fine looking boys. In the old days the young braves that
could not be controlled by the chiefs, but who desired to go to war and
make names for themselves, were called “dog soldiers.”
“Hello, John!” shouted Chet. “What are you doing over here? Last time we
saw you, you were playing baseball. You must have hustled some to catch
us.”
The Cheyenne dropped off his pony’s back and the animal went to cropping
the grass at once, and hungrily. Chet decided that the party had been
travelling for some hours and that the ponies had had no chance for
grazing, but had been watered when the band crossed the river.
John glanced at Chet in rather an odd manner; but true to his national
trait he did not answer the question directly.
“We go on hunt,” John Peep said. “Mebbe stay week; mebbe longer. These
boys all my friends,” and he waved his hand at the young riders who
waited to be asked to dismount. “Not all Cheyenne.
Sioux—Pawnee—Ogallala. All go to Government school at Benway. Vacation
now, like us. We make breakfast with you.”
The customs of the trail must prevail. The white boys had finished their
meal, but nobody ever denied the hospitable rite on the plains. The
first party at a camping place was bound to ask the new-comers to join
them. But here were ten or twelve hearty appetites suddenly to be
appeased.
“All right,” grunted Dig. “I could do something to another breakfast. We
only had an apology for one, as I told you, Chet.”
Chet sighed; but he felt, too, that John Peep had not come down this
trail without cause. He wondered if, perhaps, the young Indians had
heard of the buffaloes and were on their way to hunt for them.
“Don’t say anything about the big buffalo, Dig,” he whispered to his
chum, as they hurried back through the grove. “I hope they don’t know
anything about it. And what they don’t know won’t hurt them.”
“All right, boy! I won’t tell them any fairy tales,” said Dig.
Chet stirred up the fire, and mixed some prepared pancake flour, and put
on the coffee pot. Some of the Indians joined Digby in catching fish.
They had much more primitive tackle than the white boy; but the catfish
bit so hungrily that it scarcely mattered whether the bait was let down
to them on “store tackle” or on a thorn from a whitethorn bush.
“Say!” exclaimed Dig, “somebody besides us was hungry for breakfast.
These cats are ravenous. Whew! look at that one!”