THE STAMPEDE
Bob Somers was the first to spring to his feet.
“Good gracious! What’s the matter?” he yelled.
“What--what--what----” began Larry Burnham, frantically throwing aside
his enfolding blanket.
“Who’s that shooting?” cried Tom.
Thunderbolt alone made no comment, but sprang toward the darkness,
while the others, with wide, staring eyes, sought to penetrate its
mysteries. And as they stood there, with every feeling of sleepiness
entirely gone, the same awe-inspiring cries and cracking of a pistol
began again.
“Fall flat on your faces! Get back of a tree!” yelled Larry, in terror.
“It must be cattle rustlers or smugglers.”
He was about to follow his own advice when the heavy crashing in the
woods, which at no time had ceased, broke forth with renewed violence.
Several huge, indistinct forms were seen making toward the fire. Larry,
for an instant too startled to move, uttered a piercing yell.
“Save yourselves!” he called out frantically.
Then, breaking the spell which had seemed to hold him fast, he made a
wild dash for safety.
“The cattle are stampeding, fellows!” shouted Bob Somers.
There was no time, in that moment of confusion and alarm, for any
concerted action. Each lad was compelled to depend entirely upon
himself.
As a herd of terrified longhorns bore directly down upon them the
alarmed campers flew in all directions. The sound of pounding hoofs,
carrying to their senses the imminence of the peril, made them put
forth every exertion to get beyond the animals’ path.
“Great Scott!” breathed Bob Somers.
He had crossed the glade and become entangled in a thick mass of
underbrush on the opposite side.
Several of the fleeing longhorns were almost upon him. Desperately he
shot a glance over his shoulder, to see the ponderous bodies faintly
brought into view by the firelight.
A hoarse bellow seemed to sound almost in his very ears. He heard
several of his companions utter wild yells; but he himself, even in the
excitement of the moment, remained silent, using every faculty at his
command to escape the danger.
Now it was impossible to see a yard in advance. He was in the woods,
groping, blindly pushing through, stumbling and tripping; now bringing
up against a tree; then impeded by the brush. And at every step of the
way he appeared to be directly in the track of the stampeding cattle.
Bob Somers’ heart was beating fast. Every moment he expected to feel
the impact of a frightened steer, and every moment he realized the
hopelessness of getting outside the zone of the animals’ flight.
Suddenly a low-hanging branch swept him off his feet. Sprawling on the
ground he felt a thrill like an electric shock. Then, with a supreme
effort, he dragged himself behind the trunk, stood erect, and pressed
his form hard--painfully hard--against it.
The heavy hoof-beats were crashing by on either side. Trembling with
excitement, and breathing hard, he passed a few tense moments, in the
midst of which the fierce yells and pistol shots sounded for a third
time.
Almost surprised to find himself unharmed, the Rambler listened, first
with added fear--then thankfulness, as they abruptly ended, and the
last steer floundered by.
For a moment he remained motionless. Now that danger was over the
adventure left a curious feeling of unreality. The camp-fire had
entirely disappeared; the darkness was so intense as to make it
impossible to determine in which direction he had come. Both hands and
face were smarting. Then, as a reminder of the violent impact of the
branch, his shoulder ached dully.
Bob Somers’ thoughts, however, were too busy to pay any attention to
these annoyances. Were his companions safe? What had become of the
cattle rustlers who had apparently started the stampede?
Putting his hands to his mouth he uttered a cry which sounded shrilly
through the woods.
In a second a response came, then another, until five had sounded from
widely separated points.
“Hooray! What a relief!” cried Bob. He felt like uttering shouts of
joy. “Hello, Dave, hello!” he called. “Where are you?”
“I don’t know where I am, but I’m here,” came back his friend’s
familiar voice.
“Has anybody been hurt?” came a demand, in quavering tones.
It was Larry Burnham; and his tremolo was loud enough to bring forth a
number of negative responses.
“Gee, isn’t that great!” cried Bob. “I had dreadful visions of Tom’s
supply of medical stuffs giving out before the whole crowd could be
treated. Whew! A mighty close shave, eh?”
“I’m lost!” yelled Dave, cheerily; “I’m floundering! Where’s
Thunderbolt?”
A peculiar call, like a war-whoop, suddenly trilled through the
darkness.
“Me by the fire,” yelled Thunderbolt. “You come.”
Guided by a frequent repetition of his shouts, the lads were soon able
to steer themselves in the proper direction.
Bob Somers was the first to reach the fire, whose embers had been
scattered by the cattle. Thunderbolt, busily replenishing it, looked up.
“Anybody hurt?” he demanded, anxiously.
“None of us; not a bit,” laughed Bob. “Here come the fellows now.”
Dusky forms were pushing their way toward them as fast as circumstances
would allow. And it was a highly mystified and still excited crowd
which, a moment later, were gathered together once more.
“Goodness gracious, Bob!” began Tom. “Talk about narrow escapes! Maybe
I’m not glad everybody’s safe and sound. Honest--one of those hulking
big brutes grazed me. Come anywhere near you, Dave?”
“Just a few yards away,” answered the stout boy. “I kept on running as
hard as I could until something tripped me, and I fell flat on my face.
Fortunately the cattle missed me.”
Thunderbolt remained impassive--silent, during a series of thrilling
recitals. Larry Burnham told of having been struck a heavy, glancing
blow by one of the animals. From the expression on his face it was very
evident the experience had greatly terrified him.
“Who do you suppose could have fired those pistol shots and made such
awful yells?” cried Tom. “It sounded like a dozen men, at least, eh,
fellows?”
“Cattle rustlers, of course,” snapped Larry, his voice still unsteady.
“Now maybe you won’t believe what Teddy Banes told us!”
Bob Somers stared at the depths of the fire thoughtfully.
“Cattle rustlers usually follow up the steers, don’t they?” he asked.
“Yet it’s mighty certain no horsemen came through that woods.”
“One of the strangest mysteries we ever ran into!” said Dick.
“What nearly ran into me was no mystery,” commented Larry, decidedly.
“But why are we standing around doing nothing?” cried Sam. “Let’s
reconnoiter.”
“Of course,” agreed Tom. “Come ahead, fellows; hustle for torches.”
“Much queer,” interrupted Thunderbolt. “Never me see anything like it.
I run into woods; I see flash of pistol many times. Then I make big
jump. Four--five cow come straight. I say: ‘Thunderbolt, you gone!’ I
make another jump. I say: ‘You killed, Thunderbolt!’ Ugh! Him pass me
this close.”
The young Indian, holding his hands up, indicated a space of about a
foot.
“What’s your idea, Thunderbolt?” asked Dave.
“Me not know. Much queer. Cattle rustlers no drive steers in woods.
Never I see anything like it.”
“Or I either,” said Bob. “The only thing we’re certain of is that some
one was hanging around this camp.”
“Makes a fellow feel kind of shivery to think of it, too,” admitted
Larry.
“And that either he or they started a stampede.”
“And just made a botch of it,” suggested Tom Clifton. “They wanted to
drive the plagued brutes one way, and, instead, they beat it right for
our camp. Then the rustlers, afraid of being seen, gave us a mighty
wide berth, but caught up with ’em outside the woods.”
“Not bad deduction, Tom,” commented Sam Randall, who had gathered
together a collection of pine-knots for torches.
“It hardly seems worth while to make a search now,” remarked Dave.
“I’ll bet by this time those chaps are a mighty long distance off.”
Larry Burnham devoutly wished himself back in his Wisconsin home.
After all, the half-breed had uttered no idle warning. Here they
were, miles and miles from any settlement, at the mercy of the
first band of marauders who should choose to attack them. It was a
very unpleasant thought. When he looked beyond the rosy glow of the
firelight into the thick, awesome blackness, which might be concealing
some of the dangerous characters his mind pictured, his nerves tingled
unpleasantly. Little sounds before scarcely noticed assumed a deep
significance. To his imagination, fired by the unexpected event, it
seemed as though footsteps were not far away.
“Come on, Larry,” sang out Tom. “Don’t let’s all keep together,
fellows. I’m going this way.”
Tom was already holding aloft a blazing pine-knot. And, to Larry’s
amazement, without waiting for any one to join him, he started off in
the direction from whence the sounds had come.
“He’s certainly got a lot of nerve,” mused the blond lad. Then, turning
toward Dave, he added, “I’ll go with you.”
And presently seven pine-knots were sending weird shoots of light into
the depths of the woods. Trees sprang into view, and flashed out; great
masses of underbrush caught the glow, held it for an instant, then
dropped from sight.
Thunderbolt, eager as a coyote, with Sam Randall at his side,
frequently stooped over to examine the ground. Bushes and grass had
been trampled almost flat by the cattle. Down by the dark, silent water
of the creek the Indian’s eye scanned a muddy strip of shore for signs
of men or horses.
He saw plenty of signs, but even he, with all his cunning and sagacity,
was unable to determine whether any of them had been made by strangers
or not.
“We can’t find a single clue,” remarked Sam, disappointedly.
“Men all gone now,” said Thunderbolt. “Much queer. I no understand.
Maybe cattle rustlers; maybe not.”
“It’s as deep a mystery as the Jed Warren affair,” murmured Sam.
Following the bank they explored every foot of the way. But no
discoveries of any kind rewarded their eager search.
“We find nothings,” said Thunderbolt, disconsolately.
“Perhaps when daylight comes it may be easier,” commented Sam.
“Certainly no use in keeping this up any longer.”
As the two slowly returned toward the camp they could see torches
moving erratically about, and hear the various searchers occasionally
calling to one another. Dave and Larry were discovered seated before
the fire.
“Oh, ho!” yawned Dave, “didn’t find a thing, eh? Well, neither did
we--didn’t expect to, either.”
“I reckon we won’t do any more sleeping to-night,” suggested Larry.
“If any one is willing to take my turn on guard,” laughed Dave, “I’ll
guarantee to be in the land of unrealities within ten minutes. Really,
I’m uncommonly tired.”
Loud tramping in the underbrush soon announced the return of the others.
“No luck at all!” exclaimed Bob, cheerfully.
“It beats me all hollow,” said Dick Travers. “Guess Tom must have
struck it about right.”
“It’s another mystery for you chaps to solve, Clifton,” said Larry,
managing to grin for the first time since his scare.
Tom tossed the remains of his torch into the fire.
“Yes, it is,” he answered, grimly. “And, by Jove, if we leave the
Northwest Territories without doing it I’ll be ashamed of the crowd.”