The best laid plans are not always successfully, or satisfactorily,
carried out. There was, as both boys knew, a big doubt as to whether
they could drive the buffaloes in the way they desired; but, at least,
there was a good chance that they would kill another of the big animals.
“Take a bull, Dig,” advised Chet, as they rode up the brook. “Don’t kill
the cows or calves. If we should enclose any of the herd in our corral,
besides the big fellow, I believe we’d have a mighty valuable catch.”
“Say! that would be great,” agreed Dig. “Mebbe we could sell ’em for as
much as a hundred dollars.”
“And that’s better than selling a little old maverick for five
dollars—eh?” laughed his chum.
The boys trotted their eager mounts up the valley and finally came to
the last screen of bushes that stood between them and the buffalo herd.
The animals were feeding down the valley, but the wind was not blowing
directly in their faces. It was from the southwest; therefore, the odour
of the young hunters would not be carried to the beasts.
Chet and Dig again saw the feeding ponies belonging to the two men who
had caused them so much trouble. “And maybe we’ll put them in a hole
before we get through,” muttered Dig vindictively.
The boys could be sure that the men were close by, when the ponies were
so plainly visible. Neither of them would start back for that island
camp on the distant river, afoot.
So the boys gave their full attention to the buffaloes. Their rifles
were in trim and everything was ready for the charge. Chet had selected
an opening in the thicket; he knew the value of a good start in
attacking such nimble animals as the buffaloes had already proven
themselves to be.
“Ready, Dig?” Chet asked.
“Let her go!” replied his friend, and at the same moment both horses
dashed forward.
They appeared upon the plain at full speed. They were aimed at about the
centre of the scattered herd. Could they have trusted the two men, they
might have helped with the chase and bunched the whole herd. Instead, it
split, and a part of the buffaloes went up the valley, while the others
fled directly from the two boys, toward the stream.
The heavy rifles cracked almost simultaneously, Chet’s shot brought a
vigorous young bull to his knees; but Dig missed his quarry. He came up
and put a ball into Chet’s kill, however, while Chet himself put the
third bullet through the wounded beast’s vitals.
“Come on! come on!” yelled Chet, excitedly, starting Hero on the jump
after the part of the herd that was scrambling through the brook.
Dig was after him at once. The boys spread out and their horses took the
water-jump splendidly. The mounts were as wildly excited as their
masters.
The big bull that had inspired Chet and Dig with such enthusiasm was in
the lead. This was a piece of luck that delighted the young trailers.
“We’ve got him! we’ve got him!” cried Digby.
“Don’t holler—till—you’re out—of the—woods!” panted Chet. “Goodness!
that big beast looks as though he could go right through a brick wall.
Suppose he turns on us?”
“Then you’ll see this boy take to his heels,” returned Dig, with
conviction.
They did not follow the buffaloes too closely; and they kept on the
water side of them, yet near enough so that the frightened animals did
not fancy turning to run back along the foot of the southern wall of the
valley.
The monster buffalo, head down and whip-like tail twirling, thundered
straight on. The thicket of thorny trees was ahead. He couldn’t get
through that, and he knew it.
Towards the brook, where was easy escape, was likewise a figure on
horseback, waving both hands. That was Dig. The big buffalo did not want
to go that way.
He wheeled and there, right in front of him, was the welcome opening of
the grassy gulch. In a moment he galloped into it. After him galloped
seven of the herd—all that had followed him in the stampede.
“Hurrah! We’ve got ’em!” shrieked Dig, spurring Poke up the hill.
“Keep right before the mouth of that pocket—but outside,” cried Chet,
throwing himself from the saddle, with the axe in his hand. “Keep Poke
moving. Don’t let the beasts catch you afoot. If they charge back on us,
try to scare them into the gulch again.”
“Hot chance I’d have to do that,” muttered Dig.
But he held his ground while Chet struck steel to timber with much
vigour. Cutting down a tree of this size was no easy task, and well the
boy knew it; but he was determined to shut the buffaloes into the pocket
in the hill. Once the big tree was felled across the mouth of the gulch
he was very sure the herd would be secure.
Chet was no poor woodsman. He could swing an axe as well as a full-grown
man, for his father owned a wood-lot near the Silent Sue mine, and Chet
for two years had cut and sledded down to the Havens house the winter’s
wood.
But to hammer at this big tree trunk with a short-handled hatchet was a
more difficult task.
Dig had to laugh at him, despite the anxiety they both felt about the
buffaloes. “Cricky, Chet! why don’t you use your pocketknife?” he
demanded. “You’d get it down just as quick.”
“Can you suggest any better way?” asked Chet, stopping for breath.
“You might set fire to it,” grinned his chum.
“You keep still, or I’ll make you come here and spell me,” said Chet.
“My goodness! but my hand is getting sore.”
“You’ll have some pretty blisters before you get through with that
stunt,” said Dig.
And he was truly a prophet! Chet was more than an hour cutting down the
tree, but he had used good judgment in placing it and when it fell the
mouth of the gulch was so closed that no buffalo could get out. But Chet
was lame, bruised, and blistered.
“I declare you had the worst half of the job,” Dig said. “But just
think, old man! we’ve captured eight buffaloes, including the king of
them all.”
“We have them cornered—yes. Now we’ve got to find somebody either to
buy them just as they stand in there, or to help us get them out and to
a market.”
“Whew! That’s so. We’ve only begun the job, eh?”
“That’s right, Dig,” Chet replied, nodding his head seriously.
“At any rate,” the other boy said, “it’s an ideal corral we have ’em in.
There is that trickle of water, and plenty of grass and green bushes.
‘All the comforts of home.’ What buffalo wouldn’t be content in such
quarters?”
The boys climbed up the hillside, after tethering their horses, and
crept along over the rocks above the pocket until they could see the
herd. Strangely enough the big buffalo and his seven companions were
feeding quietly and whisking flies at the upper end of the gorge, their
panic entirely departed.
“Say! did you ever see a more peaceful scene?” chuckled Digby. “They
look as tame as barnyard cattle, don’t they?”
“That’s all right,” replied Chet, “but I’d hate to go down there and try
to milk one of those bossies.”
The beasts were corralled. Chet wasted little time in congratulating his
chum and himself. Luck and foresight had brought about the capture; but
it would take something more to make it of any value to the chums. Both
the boys realised that.
“We have to get to Grub Stake and interest somebody in our haul,” Dig
said. “That’s the ticket for us.”
“And we have something else to do first,” Chet replied, as they got back
to the horses. “We’ve left those two rascals, Steve and Tony, too long
by themselves. I bet they’ve hiked out after those lost deeds already.”
“What? without their meat?”
“Come on! I reckon the condition of that buffalo we shot will surprise
you,” said Chet.
And it did. Dig sputtered like an overfilled teakettle when they reached
the place where they had dropped the young bull.
No animal had been drawn to the kill, although several timid coyotes
sneaked out of sight behind the nearest thicket. But the robe was
ruined. The body had been slashed right into, without any pains being
taken to butcher it properly. The better parts of the carcass had been
taken, and the mess that had been made of the remainder sickened the two
boys. They cut off a few shoulder steaks, and got away from the spot as
soon as possible.
“They got their meat and have hiked out for that island in the river,”
Chet said, sternly. “That’s all they wanted, of course. Steve saw his
chance to start now instead of to-night, and he took it.”
“We can follow their trail, Chet,” exclaimed Dig. “The nasty things!
They ruined that buffalo.”
“We’ll do better than follow their trail,” Chet said quickly.
“How’s that?”
“I believe I can find that island they spoke of myself. We’ll see if we
cannot beat them to it, Dig. Certainly we have the advantage of the best
mounts, if we don’t know the country as well as Steve does.”
They recovered their outfit, built a fire, and cooked dinner while their
horses rested; then they set out toward the east without paying any
attention to the route followed by their two enemies, nor much to the
course they had taken in coming to this sheltered valley.
Chet had his compass and he laid as direct a course as he knew for the
shallow river in question.
The six remaining members of the buffalo herd were out of sight as the
boys rode up the valley. Where they had gone to was a mystery.
“But you can bet Tony and that other fellow are not following them,”
remarked Dig, in disgust.
“Quite right,” responded Chet. “Those scamps have got all they wanted.”
“I hope the time will come when we can ‘call quits’ with ’em,” said Dig.
“Hear! hear! Satisfaction is what we’re after—and those deeds.”
The boys crossed the divide and as they went down the slope, they struck
another watercourse which, beginning as a small rill, increased in width
and volume of water very rapidly. They were in sight of this stream
through the rough country spreading eastward until past mid-afternoon.
By that time they had ridden many miles and were saddle-weary. The
horses, too, showed the effect of hard work.
“We’d ought to breathe them awhile,” Dig urged, for he was very careful
of horseflesh.
“Not yet. I’m sorry for them,” Chet said, “but we’ve got to keep moving
just as long as daylight holds, at least. You know, we don’t know this
country after dark, and that Steve evidently does.”
“But we must be travelling almost two miles to their one,” Dig said.
“Granted. But they may be going more directly to that island than we,”
Chet told him. “Though I believe this stream we’re following empties
into the very river we’re in search of.”
“We never saw this creek before.”
“No. It’s a good deal farther south than the way we came with those
rascals.”
“Well! I reckon you know, Chet.”
“I know the points of the compass,” returned his friend. “The sun
doesn’t fool us.”
“Of course—we’re going toward Silver Run again, not toward Grub Stake.”
“Quite right. And goodness!” added Chet, “we are spending a lot more
time in this trip than I expected to. I wonder what father will say?”
“Say! It’s been a lot different from what I expected. Whew! but we have
worked, Chet.”
“Aren’t you just right?” and Chet looked sadly at his blistered palms.
They rode hard and were weary and hungry long before sundown. The chums
did not talk much—they seemed to be talked out. The uncertainty of the
errand they rode on, and what they had already gone through, made both
boys sober. There had been excitement enough, certainly, on this
journey. They had been in peril and had taken part in sturdy
adventure—enough in the past few days to satisfy most boys for a year.
“We were looking for a little fun on the trail,” Chet said reflectively.
“But, my goodness, Dig! we certainly have got more than we bargained
for.”
“Yes, and it isn’t ended,” responded his chum, shaking his head. “Wait
till we meet up with that Steve and Tony again—if we do!”
“That doesn’t bother me so much as the chances, for and against, of our
meeting up with those lost deeds. That’s what’s troubling yours truly,”
said Chet.