HEMMED IN BY THE HERD.
There was little time to think, and hardly more for action. A more
perfect trap of its kind than that in which Rob was caught could not
have been devised by the utmost ingenuity.
Shouts of alarm went up from the cow-punchers, and from the little group
of Boy Scouts as they saw his danger. But not one of those horrified
onlookers could do more than sit powerless. All about them, like waves
shattered against a mighty rock, surged the broken stampede, with wild
cattle rushing hither and thither. They themselves were, in fact, by no
means out of danger.
With an angry bellow, the leader of the advancing left flank of cattle
lowered his head. His mighty horns glistened like sharpened sabres.
Straight at the boy he rushed, while his companions followed his
example.
An involuntary groan burst from the watchers. It seemed as if Rob's doom
was sealed. But suddenly something happened that they still talk about
in that part of the country.
Quick as thought the boy decided that there was only one course open to
him. Advance he could not. Retreat, on the other hand, seemed barred by
the gulch. Yet on the gulch side of the beleaguered boy lay the only
path.
Foolhardy as the attempt appeared, Rob decided that the risk must be
taken.
A shout burst from the lips of the powerless onlookers as they realized
what the boy meant to do.
Leap the gulch on his pony!
A run, or take-off, of some fifty feet lay between Rob and the dark
crack in the earth that was the gulch. Short as was the distance, from
what Rob knew of the active little beast he bestrode, he believed he
could do it. He raised his heavy quirt above the pony's trembling
flanks.
Crack!
The lash descended, cutting a broad wale on the buckskin's back. He gave
a squeal of rage and bounded forward.
"Yip-yip!" yelled Rob.
Out of the peril of the situation a spirit of recklessness seemed to
have descended upon him. He could have shouted aloud as he felt the
active bounds of the cayuse. One hurried glance at the awful gap before
him gave the boy a rough estimate of its width--ten feet or more. A
tremendous leap for a pony. But it must be done.
"Yip-yip," yelled Rob once more, as he dug his spurs in deep, and the
maddened pony gave one tremendous bound that brought it right to the
edge of the pit.
[Illustration: Then the brave buckskin gathered its limbs for the leap.]
For one sickening instant it paused, and Rob felt the chill fear of
death sweep over him. Then the brave buckskin gathered its limbs for the
leap. Like steel springs its tough muscles rebounded, and the yelling,
shrieking cow-punchers saw a buckskin body, surmounted by a cheering
boy, give a great leap upward and--alight safe on the farther side of
the chasm.
Cheer after cheer went up, while Rob waved his hat exultantly and yelled
back at his friends.
Nothing like that leap for life had ever been witnessed before.
The amazed cattle, cheated of their prey, wavered, and the leaders tried
in vain to check themselves. Desperately they dug their forefeet into
the edge of the gulch, but the treacherous lip of the chasm gave under
their weight, and with a roar and rattle, a cloud of dust and a
despairing bellow, four of them shot over the edge and vanished.
Rob could not repress a shudder as he patted his buckskin, and realized
that but for the little steed's noble effort he might have shared the
fate of the dumb brutes.
Before long the cow-punchers had the rest of the steers rounded up, and
ready to be driven back to the Far Pasture. Many were the threats
breathed against the Moquis as they did so. The cattle, as is the nature
of these half-wild brutes, having had their run out, seemed inclined to
collapse from fatigue. As long as unreasoning terror held sway among
them they had galloped tirelessly, but now their legs shook under them
and they quivered and drooped pitifully. But the cattlemen showed them
no mercy. With loud yells and popping of revolvers and cracking of
quirts, they rode round them, getting them together into a compact mass.
While all this was going on, Rob had ridden his buckskin along the edge
of the gulch. Some two miles below the place where his leap had been
made, he found a spot which seemed favorable for crossing. The pony slid
down one bank on its haunches and clambered up the other like a cat. As
the boy traversed the bottom of the Graveyard, he noticed a peculiarly
offensive odor. The smell which offended his nostrils, he found, sprang
from the carcasses of the cattle which had at various times fallen into
the gulch, above where he was crossing.
"Wonder why they don't put up a fence here," thought the boy.
He did not learn till afterward that that very thing had been done, but
every time a freshet occurred in the mountains a part of the gulch caved
away, carrying with it the fence and all. It had thus grown to be less
of an expense to the ranchmen to lose a few cattle every season than to
erect new fences constantly.
By the time Rob rejoined his friends, the cattle were standing ready for
the drive back to their pastures. A more forlorn looking lot of beasts
could not have been imagined.
"They know they done wrong," volunteered Blinky, gazing at the dejected
herd.
"Well done, my boy," exclaimed Mr. Harkness, as Rob rode up. "I never
saw a finer bit of horsemanship. But let us hope that such a resource
will never again be necessary."
"I hope so, too, Mr. Harkness," said Rob. "I tell you I was scared blue
for a minute or two. If it hadn't been for this gritty little cayuse
here, I'd never have done it."
"So I did you a good turn, after all, when I roped up that four-legged
bit of dynamite, thinking to play you a fine joke," said Blinky.
"You did," laughed Rob, "and I thank you for it."
"Say, Rob," put in Tubby plaintively, after the other boys had got
through congratulating Rob, and wringing his hand till, as he said, it
felt like a broken pump handle. "Say, Rob, don't ever do anything like
that again, will you?"
"Not likely to, Tubby--but why so earnest?"
"Well, you know I've got a weak heart, and----"
"A good digestion," laughed Mr. Harkness; "and speaking of digestions,
reminds me that we haven't had any dinner."
"As I was just about to observe," put in Tubby, in so comical a tone
that they all had to burst out laughing, at which the stout youth put on
an air of innocence and rode apart.
"But," went on Mr. Harkness, "the 'chuck-wagon' I sent out to the Far
Pasture last night should still be there. It isn't more than five miles.
If you boys think you can hold out we can ride over there, and we can
have a real chuck-wagon luncheon. How will that suit you?"
"Down to the ground," said Rob.
"From the ground up," chimed in Tubby, who had recovered from his
assumed fit of the sulks, at the mention of the immediate prospect of a
meal.
"It'll be great," was Merritt's contribution to the general chorus of
approval.
"Very well, then. Blinky, you ride on ahead and tell Soapy Sam to cook
us up a fine feed."
"With beans, sir?" asked Blinky in an interested tone.
"Of course. And if he has any T bone steaks, tell him we want those,
too."
"Say, did you hear the name of that cook?" asked Tubby, edging his pony
up to Merritt's, as the cow-puncher spurred off on his errand.
"Yes--Soapy Sam; what of it?"
"Oh, I thought it was Soupy Sam, that's all," muttered Tubby.
"Say, is that meant for a joke? If so, where is the chart that goes with
it?"
But Tubby had loped off to join the cow-punchers, who with yells and
loud outcries were getting the steers in motion.
Presently the cloud of dust moved forward. After traversing some rough
country a yell announced that the cabins and the chuck-wagon of the Far
Pasture were in sight. The cow-punchers immediately abandoned the tired
cattle, leaving them to feed on the range, and swept down on the camp
like a swarm of locusts.
Soapy Sam, his sleeves rolled up and a big apron about his waist,
flourished a spoon at them as they began chanting in a kind of
monotonous chorus:
"Chick-chock-we-want Chuck!
Chuck-chuck we want chuck!
Cook-ee! Cook-ee! Cook-ee!"
What's the luck?
As they chanted they rode round and round the cook, whose fires and pots
were all on the ground. In a huge iron kettle behind him, simmered that
staple of the cow-puncher, beans. The atmosphere was redolent with
those sweetest of aromas to the hungry man or boy, sizzling hot steaks
and strong coffee. Soapy Sam had fairly outdone himself since Blinky had
ridden in with news that the boss and some guests were on the way.
"Now you go way back and sit down, you ill-mannered steer-steering bunch
of cattle-teasers," bellowed Soapy Sam indignantly, at the singing
punchers. "If you don't, you won't get a thing to eat."
"Oh, cook-ee!" howled the cowboys.
"Oh, I mean it, not a mother's son of you," yelled Soapy Sam. "All you
fellows think about is eating and drinking, and then smoking and
swopping lies."
"How about work, cook-ee?" yelled some one.
"Work!" sputtered the cook with biting sarcasm. "Why, if work 'ud come
up to you and say 'Hello, Bill!' you'd say, 'Sir, I don't know you.'"
Further exchange of ranch pleasantries was put a stop to at this moment
by the arrival of Mr. Harkness and the boys, for the Simmons boys and
the other Boy Scouts had been included in his invitation. The cowboys
dispersed at once, riding over toward the huts, where they unsaddled
their ponies and turned them into a rough corral. Water from a spring
was dipped into tin basins, and a hasty toilet was made. By the time
this was finished, Soapy Sam announced dinner by beating loudly on the
bottom of a tin pan with a spoon.
"Grub!" yelled the cowboys.
"Come and get it," rejoined Sam in the time-honored formula.
Within ten minutes everybody was seated, and in the lap of each member
of the party was a tin plate, piled high with juicy steak, fried
potatoes, and a generous portion of beans of Soapy Sam's own peculiar
devising. Handy at each man's or boy's right was a steaming cup of
coffee. But milk there was none, as Tubby soon found out when he
plaintively asked for some of that fluid.
"Maybe there's a tin cow in the wagon," said Soapy Sam; "I'll see."
"A 'tin cow'," repeated Tubby wonderingly; "whatever is that?"
A perfect howl of merriment greeted the fat boy's query.
"I guess its first cousin to a can of condensed milk," smiled Mr.
Harkness. "But if you'll take my advice, you'll drink your coffee
straight, in the regular range way."
And so the meal went merrily forward, in the shadow of the frowning,
rugged peaks of the Santa Catapinas. In after days, the Boy Scouts were
destined to eat in many strange places and by many "strange camp fires,"
but they never forgot that chuck-wagon luncheon, eaten under the
cloudless Arizona sky on the open range.