In the dim dusk of late evening the trail boys suddenly came down to the
river bank. They were leading their mounts, for the way was so rough
they did not want to risk a misstep on the faithful creatures’ part in
the dark.
As Chet Havens expected, the stream they had followed so long—almost
from the valley where they had corralled the buffaloes—fell into the
wide but shallow river they had crossed several days before on the trail
of the thieves.
The horses’ sides were heaving and their heads hung almost to the
ground; but Chet, as leader of the expedition, was not willing to allow
them much rest.
“Just a mouthful of grass and a drink of water after it,” he said to his
chum. “We must wait for our supper until later.”
“All right as far as we are concerned, Chet,” said the other boy, more
seriously than was his wont. “But I don’t want you to forget one
important fact.”
“What’s that?”
“These horses have been grain fed until we brought them out on this
trip. We have ridden them mighty hard, Chet—mighty hard. They are
beginning to suffer now. Grass for a grain fed horse is like feeding a
man on breakfast food when he’s been used to a meat, Chet. The man will
quickly give out, and so will the horse.”
“I’m sorry,” said his chum. “You know more about it than I do, Dig, I
admit. But I feel that I just must push on up this river till I reach
that island. I want to get there before those scamps do. If there is any
such thing as finding the lost deeds, I want to be on the ground first.”
“Uh-huh! I’m on to your desire, Chet. But have a heart for the
horses—do!”
“You stay here and rest Poke, then,” said Chet. “I’ll have to punish
poor Hero. I’m sorry; but I must get on.”
“Well!” retorted Dig, “you don’t suppose I’d let you go alone, do you?”
“I believe I can handle those two fellows. Tony is only foolish,” Chet
said, with confidence—perhaps expressing a larger share than he really
possessed.
“Well, you can bet your bottom dollar!” exclaimed the slangy Dig, “that
you are not going to tackle them alone. I’m with you to the end of the
dock, old man—and we’ll jump off together.
“Say!” he added, “how far up the river do you think the island is?”
“I believe we must be all of twenty miles below the crossing to which we
trailed those fellows in the first place. But how far this side of that
crossing the island is, I don’t know. We’ll just have to go up stream
till we come to it.”
“Suppose there are several islands?” suggested Dig.
“Oh, don’t!” exclaimed Chet. “Don’t suggest more trouble. I’m just as
worried about those deeds as I can be.”
Chet gave the horses half an hour on the grass; then they cinched on the
saddles so the animals wouldn’t drink too much, and were soon splashing
up the shallow edge of the stream. At this time of the year, save in
certain holes, the stream ran very shoal indeed. The way was smoother on
the beach than on the prairie above.
“Besides,” Chet said, in a low tone, “we can’t be seen down here. Even
our hats aren’t above the edge of the bank. Anybody riding on the plain
would not know we were here, unless near enough to hear the horses
splashing along.”
“Those fellows have never got over here so soon on their miserable
cayuses—take it from me,” Dig urged.
Nevertheless, Chet’s mind was in a turmoil as they rode on. The sunset
faded; but the stars shone brilliantly over the plains that night—big,
and sparkling, just as they do at sea. The chums from Silver Run did not
lack for light.
It was nine o’clock when they spied the wooded island in the river which
Chet believed must be the site of the camp of which Steve and Tony had
spoken. The water grew suddenly deep, too, and the boys had to force
their tired horses out upon the sandy shore.
Chet remembered that Steve had spoken of having hard work swimming his
pony ashore from the island, and he believed this must be the place for
which they had been searching.
“We’ll halt here, boy,” he said to Dig. “There’s some greasewood up
there. You make the fire and I’ll hobble the nags. The water must be
very shallow on the other side of this island. Those thieves rode easily
out to it from the east bank of the river, and then had to swim their
ponies over here.”
“Sure!” agreed Dig.
“It was somewhere along here Steve thinks he dropped the packet of
papers he stole from me. Keep your eyes open.”
“You bet you!” exclaimed his chum, going to work at once to make a fire
under the shelter of the bank.
They had their welcome supper as soon as it could be cooked, and then
Dig took the first watch. He patrolled the camp on the bank overlooking
it, so that he might see all about upon the plain. Their enemies must
come from this direction.
The men, however, did not appear during Dig’s watch. The boys had
travelled very rapidly, and the sorry beasts ridden by Steve and Tony
could not have brought them very fast on the trail to the river.
Chet, however, spied them before dawn. The stars were just beginning to
pale when two hazy figures loomed out of a distant thicket, and the boy
made them out to be two mounted men. He soon heard them talking, too,
for the sound of voices carried far in the damp air.
The boy was excited; but he felt that he had the situation well in hand.
He awoke Dig, and ordered him to keep quiet until the men rode nearer.
Then the chums stepped out upon the bank boldly and hailed the
travellers.
“We’re here first, you fellows,” Chet said. “And we have located a claim
all up and down this creek. Don’t come any nearer, for if you do I shall
shoot your ponies—and I’m sure you don’t want to be left afoot out here
in the open.”
Both men burst into ejaculations of anger and disappointment. But Tony’s
anger seemed aimed at his companion.
“What did I tell ye?” he cried. “Didn’t I say these lil’ boys of Havens’
and Fordham’s was too smart for us? Now I’m goin’ ter hike out for the
trail an’ git to some man’s town—you hear me? You ain’t nothin’ but a
frost, Mr. Steve Brant—that’s what you be.”
As for the leading rascal, his hard words could not hurt the chums. He
retired with Tony, and they made camp far up stream—at least two
rifle-shots away. The boys, however, never lost sight of them.
As the light increased, Chet began to search the shore of the river. Had
there been a rain since they had come over it, the level of the water
would have risen and washed out the marks of the pony’s struggles where
Steve Brant had got him ashore. In this dry time, however, it was easy
for the boy to discover just the spot.
And, strange as it seemed, the packet of papers was right there, too.
Nothing had disturbed the papers. The packet lay under the bank half
hidden by a bunch of weeds, and all the papers were intact, as Chet very
soon made sure.
“Cricky! aren’t you the lucky boy?” cried Dig, when he saw them.
“I’m very grateful that I found them,” his chum said, soberly. “And let
me tell you that nobody’s going to pry them away from me again with
anything less than a crowbar. This losing of the deeds has been the most
worrisome thing that I hope will ever happen to me.”
“And we’ve had about as exciting a time as I suppose we ever shall
have,” added Dig, shaking his head.
Both boys, however, were somewhat mistaken in these prognostications, as
the sequel will show, for we hope to meet Chet and Dig again in another
volume, to be called, “The Trail Boys in the Gold Fields; Or, The Search
For the Lost Nugget.”
They saddled their horses soon after finding the packet and rode away
from the vicinity of the villains’ camp. Their mounts were refreshed
and, considering the condition of the men’s ponies, the boys were very
sure that they could keep ahead of Steve and Tony Traddles all the way
to Grub Stake.
Chet insisted on following the river down-stream till they struck the
Grub Stake trail, although Dig was eager to go back by the way of the
gulch in which they had corralled the buffaloes.
“We’ve fooled away enough time on this journey already,” Chet said
decisively. “Why, Dig! to-day is Sunday. We’ve been a week on the trail.
We must hurry.”
“Whew! I’d like to see if those creatures are safe.”
“They’re safe enough. Nobody will roll that tree away—not even our
friends back yonder. We’ll hurry on to town and see what arrangements we
can make for selling the whole herd.”
“By the last hoptoad that was chased out of Ireland!” ejaculated Dig,
vigorously. “If you do that, Chet Havens, you’ll be the very smartest
fellow I ever met!”
“I bet we can sell the buffaloes a whole lot more easily than you could
have sold that little old Stone Fence you started to bring along,”
laughed his chum.
And so it proved. The boys reached the regular trail to Grub Stake
without mishap, and on Monday evening rode into the mountain mining town
and put up at the best hotel. After more than a week on the trail they
were glad to get a bath and crawl in between sheets again.
Tuesday morning Chet went to the express office, identified himself,
made arrangements for the payment of his father’s money to the owner of
a certain share in the Crayton claim, and then hunted up Mr. John
Morrisy.
The chums found him to be a very pleasant old man, if illiterate. After
their business with him was transacted, Mr. Morrisy, who had heard the
story of the boys’ adventures, found the very man for them who was
willing to invest in a herd of buffaloes.
This man agreed to pay the boys a hundred dollars in cash on the ground
where the buffaloes were corralled. Of course, the beasts were worth a
great deal more; but the boys were not prepared to transport them to any
market. There was a public-spirited citizen farther east who was willing
to pay well for live buffaloes and this man at Grub Stake was acting as
his agent.
He gathered together a party of old cattlemen and various paraphernalia,
and all set out with the boys for the valley in which the herd was
confined. On the way out of Grub Stake they met Tony Traddles and Steve
Brant, coming in.
Tony, when he heard what the expedition meant, asked the boss for a job
and got it, for he was a husky looking fellow and said he was anxious to
work. He parted company with Steve Brant with no apparent regret on
either side.
Brant himself, the chums learned, was a man who went about the mining
country picking up claims cheap and reselling them to eastern
capitalists. He had been suspected of “salting” some of these claims,
and he might have intended to salt the Crayton claim when he was at work
there.
However, neither the boys nor Mr. Havens were ever troubled by the
fellow again. The signing of the deed by Mr. John Morrisy settled that.
The old claim was controlled by Mr. Havens; and if ever anything of
value should come from the mine, it would belong to him.
The party of bison hunters found the big old bull and his seven comrades
just as the boys had left them. The men praised Chet and Dig highly for
their work in corralling the beasts. And when the head of the expedition
saw the size of the big buffalo, he added a ten dollar bill to the
agreed price he paid the happy boys.
Chet and Dig could not wait to see the bison snared; they had been too
long from home now. So they pushed for the train and cantered a long
day’s travel toward Silver Run before they pulled up.
Then, riding down into a sandy bottom they suddenly heard some creature
bawling. Dig looked all about, noting the landmarks, and suddenly
exclaimed:
“By _all_ the hoptoads that were chased out of Ireland! It’s Stone
Fence!”
He dismounted instantly and found the calf in the thicket nearby.
Whether it was glad to see the boys or not it suffered itself to be
roped and this time it led very peaceably. In spite of anything Chet
could say, Dig was determined to take the maverick home with him.
That is how it came about that the two friends rode into the outskirts
of Silver Run with a little red yearling trailing behind them and
“blatting its head off,” as Dig expressed it. Everybody made comments
upon it; but that did not disturb Digby Fordham.
“I feel just like a brother towards this dogy,” he confessed. “Come on,
Stone Fence! Lift your heels!”
At Hardpan the boys came upon a curious sight. There was an exciting
game of baseball going on in the empty lot. A nine of pure-blood
Indians, captained by Amoshee, the lame Cheyenne, was matched against a
scrub team of the neighbourhood boys, and, as Dig inelegantly put it,
“the redskins were licking the socks off the white boys.”
“I bet Amoshee is going after the scalps of the high school nine—and
serve ’em right!” Chet said. “Those Indians can play some; can’t they?”
Finally the trail boys arrived at home, and were welcomed by their
parents and friends. They had had more than a week of adventures on the
trail, had accomplished an important errand satisfactorily, and,
secretly, were hoping for other adventures during their vacation.
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's The Trail Boys of the Plains, by Jay Winthrop Allen