A FORTY-MILE RIDE
The ranch was only a small log shack, of two rooms, with corral and
sheds and hay-land around it; it wasn't much of a place, but we were
glad to get there. Smoke was rising from the stove-pipe chimney. As we
drew up, one of the women looked out of the kitchen door, and the other
stood in a shed with a milk-pail in her hand. The woman in the doorway
was the mother; the other was the daughter. They were regular ranch
women, hard workers and quick to be kind in an emergency. This was an
emergency, for Major Henry was about worn out.
"Fetch him right in here," called the mother; and the daughter came
hurrying.
We carried him into a sleeping room, and laid him upon the bed there. He
had been all grit, up till now; but he quit and let down and lay there
with eyes closed, panting.
"What is it?" they asked anxiously.
"He's sick. We think it's appendicitis."
"Oh, goodness!" they exclaimed. "What can we give him?"
"Nothing. Where can we get a doctor?"
"The mines is the nearest place, if he's there. That's twenty miles."
"But a man we met said it was fifteen."
"You can't follow that trail. It's been washed out. You'll have to take
the other trail, around by the head of Cooper Creek."
"Can we get a saddle-horse here?"
"There are two in the corral; but I don't know as you can catch 'em.
They're used to being roped."
"We'll rope them."
The major groaned. He couldn't help it.
"It's all right, old boy," soothed Fitz. "We'll have the doctor in a
jiffy."
"Don't bother about me," gasped the major, without opening his eyes. "Go
on through."
"You hush," we all retorted. "We'll do both: have you fixed up and get
through, too."
The major fidgeted and complained weakly.
"One of us had better be catching the horses, hadn't we?" suggested Red
Fox Scout Ward. "Van and I'll go for the doctor."
"No, you won't," said I. "I'll go. Fitz ought to stay. I know trails
pretty well."
"Then either Van or I'll go with you. Two would be better than one."
"I'm going," declared Van Sant. "You stay here with Fitz, Hal."
That was settled. We didn't delay to dispute over the matter. There was
work and duty for all.
"You be learning the trail, then," directed Fitz. "I'll be catching the
horses."
"You'll find a rope on one of the saddles in the shed," called the
daughter.
Fitz made for it; that was quicker than unpacking Sally and getting our
own rope. Scout Ward went along to help. We tried to ease the major.
"You should have something to eat," exclaimed the women.
We said "no"; but they bustled about, hurrying up their own supper,
which was under way when we arrived. While they bustled they fired
questions at us; who we were, and where we had come from, and where we
were going, and all.
The major seemed kind of light-headed. He groaned and wriggled and
mumbled. The message was on his mind, and the Red Fox Scouts, and the
fear that neither would get through in time. He kept trying to pass the
message on to us; so finally I took it.
"All right. I've got it, major," I told him. "We'll carry it on. We can
make Green Valley easy, from here. We'll start as soon as we can.
To-morrow's Sunday, anyway. You go to sleep."
That half-satisfied him.
We found that we couldn't eat much. We drank some milk, and stuffed down
some bread and butter; and by that time Fitz and Scout Ward had the
horses led out. We heard the hoofs, and in came Ward, to tell us.
"Horses are ready," he announced.
Out we went. No time was to be lost. They even had saddled them--Fitz
working with his one hand! So all we must do was to climb on. The women
had told us the trail, and they had given us an old heavy coat apiece.
Nights are cold, in the mountains.
"You know how, do you?" queried Fitz of me.
"Yes."
"That gray horse is the easiest," called one of the women, from the
door.
"Let Jim take it, then," spoke Van.
But I had got ahead of him by grabbing the bay.
"Jim is used to riding," explained Fitz.
"So am I," answered Van.
"Not these saddles, Van," put in Ward. "They're different. The stirrups
of the gray are longer, a little. They'll fit you better than they'll
fit Jim."
Van had to keep the gray. It didn't matter to me which horse I rode, and
it might to him from the East; so I was glad if the gray was the easier.
We were ready.
"We'll take care of Tom till you bring the doctor," said Fitz.
"We'll bring him."
"So long. Be Scouts."
"So long."
A quick grip of the hand from Fitz and Ward, and we were off, out of the
light from the opened door where stood the two women, watching, and into
the dimness of the light. Now for a forty-mile night ride, over a
strange trail--twenty miles to the mines and twenty miles back. We would
do our part and we knew that Fitz and Ward would do theirs in keeping
the major safe.
That appeared a long ride. Twenty miles is a big stretch, at night, and
when you are so anxious.
We were to follow on the main trail for half a mile until we came to a
bridge. But before crossing the bridge there was a gate on the right,
and a hay road through a field. After we had crossed the field we would
pass out by another gate, and would take a trail that led up on top of
the mesa. Then it was nineteen miles across the mesa, to the mines. The
mines would have a light. They were running night and day.
We did not say much, at first. We went at fast walk and little trots, so
as not to wind the horses in the very beginning. We didn't dash away,
headlong, as you sometimes read about, or see in pictures. I knew
better. Scouts must understand how to treat a horse, as well as how to
treat themselves, on the march.
This was a dark night, because it was cloudy. There were no stars, and
the moon had not come up yet. So we must trust to the horses to keep the
trail. By looking close we could barely see it, in spots. Of course, the
darkness was not a deep black darkness. Except in a storm, the night of
the open always is thinnish, so you can see after your eyes are used to
it.
I had the lead. Up on the mesa we struck into a trot. A lope is easier
to ride, but the trot is the natural gait of a horse, and he can keep up
a trot longer than he can a lope. Horses prefer trotting to galloping.
Trot, trot, trot, we went.
"How you coming?" I asked, to encourage Van.
"All right," he grunted. "These stirrups are too long, though. I can't
get any purchase."
"Doesn't your instep touch, when you stand up in them?"
"If I straighten out my legs. I'm riding on my toes. That's the way I
was taught. I like to have my knees crooked so I can grip with them.
Don't you, yours?"
"Just to change off to, as a rest. But cowboys and other people who ride
all day stick their feet through the stirrup to the heel, and ride on
their instep. A crooked leg gives a fellow a cramp in the knee, after a
while. Out here we ride straight up and down, so we are almost standing
in the stirrups all the time. That's the cowboy way, and it's about the
cavalry way, too. Those men know."
"How do you grip, then?"
"With the thigh. Try it. But when you're trotting you'd better stand in
the stirrups and you can lean forward on the horn, for a rest."
Van grunted. He was experimenting.
"Should think it would make your back ache," he said.
"What?"
"To ride with such long stirrups."
"Uh uh," I answered. "Not when you sit up and balance in the saddle and
hold your spine straight. It always makes my back ache to hunch over. We
Elk Scouts try to ride with heel and shoulders in line. We can ride all
day."
"Humph!" grunted Van. "Let's lope."
"All right."
So we did lope, a little way. Then we walked another little way, and
then I pushed into the same old trot. That was hard on Van, but it was
what would cover the ground and get us through quickest to the doctor.
So we must keep at it.
Sometimes I stood in the stirrups and leaned on the horn; sometimes I
sat square and "took it."
We crossed the mesa, and first thing we knew, we were tilting down into a
gulch. The horses picked their way slowly; we let them. We didn't want
any tumbles or sprained legs. The bottom of the gulch held willows and
aspens and brush, and was dark, because shut in. We didn't trot. My old
horse just put his nose down close to the ground, and went along at an
amble, like a dog, smelling the trail. I let the lines hang and gave him
his head. Behind me followed Van and his gray. I could hear the gray
also sniffing. (Note 65.)
"Will we get through?" called Van, anxiously. "Think we're still on the
trail?"
"Sure," I answered.
Just then my horse snorted, and raised his head and snorted more, and
stood stock-still, trembling. I could feel that his ears were pricked.
He acted as if he was seeing something, in the trail.
"Gwan!" I said, digging him with my heels.
"What's the matter?" called Van.
His horse had stopped and was snorting.
"Don't know."
It was pitchy dark. I strained to see, but I couldn't. That is a creepy
thing, to have your horse act so, when you don't know why. Of course you
think bear and cougar. But we were not to be held up by any foolishness,
and I was not a bit afraid.
"Gwan!" I ordered again.
"Gwan!" repeated Van.
I heard a crackling in the brush, and my horse proceeded, sidling and
snorting past the spot. Van's gray followed, acting the same way. It
might have been a bear; we never knew.
On we went, winding through the black timber again. We were on the
trail, all right; for by looking at the tree-tops against the sky we
could just see them and could see that they were always opening out,
ahead. The trail on the ground was kind of reproduced on the sky.
It was a long way, through that dark gulch. But nothing hurt us and we
kept going.
The gulch widened; we rode through a park, and the horses turned sharply
and began to climb a hill--zigzagging back and forth. We couldn't see a
trail, and I got off and felt with my hands.
A trail was there.
We came out on top. Here it was lighter. The moon had risen, and some
light leaked through the clouds.
"Do you think we're on the right trail, still?" asked Van, dubiously.
"They didn't say anything about this other hill."
That was so. But they hadn't said anything about there being two trails,
either. They had said that when we struck the trail over the mesa, to
follow it to the mines.
"It must be the right trail," I said, back. "All we can do is to keep
following it."
Seemed to me that we had gone the twenty miles already. But of course we
hadn't.
"Maybe we've branched off, on to another trail," persisted Van. "The
horses turned, you remember. Maybe we ought to go back and find out."
"No, it's the right trail," I insisted, again. "There's only the one,
they said."
We must stick to that thought. We had been told by persons who knew. If
once we began to fuss and not believe, and experiment, then we both
would get muddled and we might lose ourselves completely. I remembered
what old Jerry the prospector once had said: "When you're on a trail,
and you've been told that it goes somewhere, keep it till you get there.
Nobody can describe a trail by inches."
We went on and on and on. It was down-hill and up-hill and across and
through; but we pegged along. Van was about discouraged; and it was a
horrible sensation, to suspect that after all we might have got upon a
wrong trail, and that we were not heading for the doctor but away from
him, while Fitz and Ward were doing their best to save Tom, thinking
that we would come back bringing the doctor.
We didn't talk much. Van was dubious, and I was afraid to discuss with
him, or I might be discouraged, too. I put all my attention to making
time at fast walk and at trot, and in hoping. Jiminy, how I did hope.
Every minute or two I was thinking that I saw a light ahead--the light
of the mines. But when it did appear, it appeared all of a sudden,
around a shoulder: a light, and several lights, clustered, in a hollow
before!
"There it is, Van!" I cried; and I was so glad that I choked up.
"Is that the mines?"
"Sure. Must be. Hurrah!"
"Hurrah!"
The sight changed everything. Now the night wasn't dark, the way hadn't
been so long after all, we weren't so tired, we had been silly to doubt
the trail; for we had arrived, and soon we would be talking with the
doctor.
The trail wound and wound, and suddenly, again, it entered in among
sheds, and the dumps of mines. At the first light I stopped. The door
was partly open. It was the hoisting house of a mine, and the engineer
was looking out, to see who we were.
"Is the doctor here?" I asked.
"Guess so. Want him?"
"Yes."
"He has a room over the store. Somebody hurt? Where you from?"
"Harden's ranch. Where is the store?"
"I'll show you. Here." He led the way. "Somebody hurt over there?"
"No. Sick."
We halted beside a platform of a dim building, and the engineer pounded
on the door.
"Oh, doc!" he called.
And when that doctor answered, through the window above, and we knew
that it was he, and that we had him at last, I wanted to laugh and
shout. But now we must get him back to the major.
"You're needed," explained the man. "Couple of kids." And he said to us:
"Go ahead and tell him. I'm due at the mine." And off he trudged. We
thanked him.
"What's the trouble?" asked the doctor.
"Appendicitis, we think. We're from the Harden ranch."
"Great Scott!" we heard the doctor mutter. Then he said. "All right,
I'll be down." And we waited.
He came out of a side door and around upon the porch. He was buttoning
his shirt.
"Who's got it? Not one of _you_?"
"No, another boy. He was sick on the trail and we took him to the ranch.
Then we rode over here."
"What makes you think your friend has appendicitis?"
We described how the major acted and what Fitz had found out by feeling,
and what we had done.
"Sounds suspicious," said the doctor, shortly. "You did the right thing,
anyway. Do you want to go back with me? I'll start right over. Expect
you're pretty tired."
"We'll go," we both exclaimed. We should say so! We wanted to be there,
on the spot.
"I'll just get my case, and saddle-up." And he disappeared.
He was a young doctor, smooth-faced; I guess he hadn't been out of
college very long; but he was prompt and ready. He came down in a moment
with a lantern, and put his case on the porch. He handed us a paper of
stuff.
"There's some lump sugar," he said. "Eat it. I always carry some about
with me, on long rides. It's fine for keeping up the strength."
He swung the lantern to get a look at us, then he went back toward the
stables, and saddled his horse. He was in the store a moment, too.
"I've got some cheese," he announced, when he came out again. "Cheese
and sugar don't sound good as a mixture, but they'll see us through. We
must keep our nerve, you know. All aboard?"
"All aboard," we answered.
That was another long ride, back; but it did not seem so long as the
ride in, because we knew that we were on the right trail. The doctor
talked and asked us all about our trip as Scouts, and told experiences
that he had had on trips, himself; and we tried to meet him at least
halfway. But all the time I was wondering about the major, and whether
we would reach him in time, and whether he would get well, and what was
happening now, there. But there was no use in saying this, or in asking
the doctor a lot of questions. He would know and he would do his best,
and so would we all.
Just at daylight we again entered the ranch yard. Fitz waved his one arm
from the ranch door. He came to meet us. His eyes were sticky and
swollen and his face pale and set, but he smiled just the same.
"Here's the doctor," we reported. "How is he?"
"Not so bad, as long as we keep the cold compress on. He's slept."
"Good," said the doctor. "We'll fix him up now, all right."
He swung off, with his case, and Fitz took him right in. Van and I sort
of tumbled off, and stumbled along after. Those forty miles at trot and
fast walk had put a crimp in our legs. But I tell you, we were thankful
that we had done it!
And here was our second Sunday.