AT THE RANCH
The ranch-house was a solid, time-stained structure, its thick stone
walls pierced at intervals by loopholes, for Circle T had been built at
a period when bands of Indians on the war-path endangered the lives and
property of the settlers.
Mr. Follett, a pleasant-looking gentleman whose brown beard and hair
were streaked with gray, stood on the wide porch talking to the boys,
his face wreathed in smiles, as the buckboard rolled up.
Almost before the wheels had ceased revolving, he hurried over to shake
hands with the latest arrivals.
“I can’t tell you how pleased I am, boys,” he said, heartily. “And all
your roughing-it experiences, Dave, haven’t thinned you a bit. Ah--and
this is Willie Sloan! Bob has been talking to me about you, son. And
Sam Randall, too! My goodness, how natural it seems to have all you
lads here again.”
A slender youth suddenly darted from behind a pillar of the porch.
“Tim Lovell!” exclaimed Dave.
“Tim!” echoed Sam, heartily.
And then there was more hand-shaking and exclamations; and by the time
calmness had been restored Jed Warren and the buckboard had disappeared
behind the sheds in the rear of the ranch-house.
Willie Sloan looked about him with interest, but did not seem
enthusiastic at the prospect of remaining several weeks at the ranch.
[Illustration: “WHAT CAN A CHAP DO OUT HERE?”]
“Ginger! What can a chap do out here?” he grumbled, speaking to Bob.
“Don’t like it?--Why, say, what in the dickens is there to like about
it? Ride bronchos, eh? Not much! I’d like to punch Cran for getting me
out here; yes, I should. Only wish I was back in Tacoma.”
“Cheer up,” sniffed Tommy. “Don’t begin to blubber.”
“I’ll whale somebody of your length in a few minutes,” returned
Willie, his grin suddenly returning. “Speaking to me, sir?” he added,
raising his voice.
“Yes; won’t you boys come inside? After such a long ride, you must be
tired,” remarked Mr. Follett. “We’ll have an early supper.”
“And uncommonly glad I am, too,” murmured Dave Brandon. “Say, fellows,
don’t the mountains look fine?”
“How can a streak o’ blue look fine?” grunted Willie, as his eyes
turned toward the jagged peaks of the distant range. “Stop dreaming,
David B.”
The first floor of the ranch-house contained two apartments, the larger
used as a dining-room. There was a great deal in it, too, which should
have aroused the interest of any wide-awake lad--objects of the chase,
mounted in lifelike attitudes, besides Indian relics and firearms,
arranged artistically about the walls; but Willie merely yawned.
“My, but don’t I wish I hadn’t come,” he mumbled in a scarcely audible
voice. “Ride bronchos? Oh, ginger!”
Up-stairs, the boys found three cool, inviting rooms already prepared
for their reception. They soon washed, and changed their traveling
clothes for the more comfortable khaki suits which they had brought
with them.
“Christopher! If I’d known I was going to look like a Boy Scout, I’d
have raised kick,” grinned Willie, when they had assembled down-stairs
again. “Say, what’s-your-name!”
Tim turned, as a sharp elbow dug against his ribs.
“Well?” he asked.
“It’s about Mr. Clifton,” said Willie, in a loud whisper. “Look out for
yourself. I caught him at it!”
“Caught him at what?”
“Readin’ a book on first aid to the injured. An’ he’s got a whole lot
o’ others ’bout anatomy. If you ever get tossed from your mustang,
maybe he’ll want to do some stunts with you.”
“Tommy’s going to be a doctor,” grinned Tim.
“Help!” murmured Willie.
“And Bob’s all for the law.”
“He’ll be all in when it comes to the exams,” snickered Willie. “Bet he
fails worse----”
“And Dave is----”
But whatever information Tim seemed about to impart regarding the stout
boy’s future was abruptly interrupted by the noisy entrance of three
cow-punchers. Big, brawny men they were, too. And the moment their eyes
rested on the boys they voiced a loud, hearty welcome.
“Sam Skillet, Wyoming Tom and Straight-backed Pete Sanderson!” cried
Bob, as the crowd rushed forward to shake their hands.
The first thing which forcibly struck Willie Sloan was that Sam Skillet
possessed a voice of the most extraordinary power; and the second, that
Wyoming Tom, the half-breed, was the perfect picture of an outlaw.
Willie stared hard at them with unabashed curiosity, and hesitatingly
placed his small white hand into the huge brown paws which the
cow-punchers, each in turn, held toward him.
“Yes, them fellers over to Lone Pine hev been a-goin’ up in their
air-ship most every day, Bob.” Skillet’s great voice rang through the
room. “An’ if it ain’t the wonderfulest thing ye may call me a maverick
to onct.”
“Maverick! What’s a maverick?” asked Willie.
“I’ll tell you,” answered Cranny. “A good many years ago, a man named
Maverick went out to Texas to run a ranch. He was such a soft-hearted
chap that he’d never brand a steer or slice its ears, an’ the way
dishonest stockmen swiped them was simply awful. Out here, they
sometimes call an easy mark a maverick.”
“Wal, as I were about to say, them air-ships flies jist like birds,”
went on Sam Skillet; “but ye’d never ketch me a-goin’ up in one, pard;
no--not fur a thousand head o’ the finest bullocks in Wyoming.”
“Nor me, nuther,” grunted the half-breed, decidedly.
“Only hope I get a chance at it,” laughed Bob.
Pete Sanderson regarded him with a peculiar expression.
“Ye’ve got a heap o’ pluck, young un,” he said. “But ye’d best take my
advice, an’ leave them thar things alone. It ain’t nateral fur a man
ter fly--weren’t never intended.”
“Only when the sheriff gets hot on his trail,” grinned Cranny.
“Why don’t they punch cows with aeroplanes, Mr. Clifton?” inquired
Willie.
Tommy frowned fiercely, but made no reply, whereupon Willie, delighted,
flopped himself down on the nearest chair.
That evening every one had something to say about the astonishing
increase in Tommy’s height and the lad’s diffidence increased in ratio
to the number of times such remarks were made.
Willie, too, added to his discomfort by addressing him as Doctor
Clifton, necessitating upon Tommy’s part a recital of his
newly-awakened ambition to some day become a member of the medical
profession.
A Mexican, José Miguel Valdez, waited upon the table, while the boys
had occasional glimpses of the cook, Jake Montgomery Talbot Hart,
generally known as Sambo.
It seemed very pleasant to have every comfort and convenience in the
big room of the ranch-house, and yet be situated right in the midst of
a vast stretch of rolling prairie. The men told interesting stories of
life on the range, and of former warfares between cattlemen and sheep
raisers.
Willie began to liven up a bit, his half-impertinent remarks sometimes
causing a ripple of mirth.
Naturally, much of the conversation turned upon the great boom at
Border City, and its creators, Major Warfield Carroll and the aviators.
“I declare to goodness, I’m going over to Lone Pine mighty soon,”
announced Cranny, enthusiastically.
“Wal, look out for yerself,” warned Pete Sanderson. “I tell ye
’tweren’t never intended fur no man ter fly.”
“Oh, shucks!” laughed Cranny.
“Yes, Bob; we drive our stock now to Border City,” Mr. Follett was
saying, “and so do many of the other ranchmen. Great improvements have
been made since your last visit. Miles and miles of telephone wires are
now strung out over the prairie, and many small sub-stations built.
There are places where my foreman”--his hand indicated Sam Skillet--“or
any of the cow-punchers can call me up whenever occasion demands it.”
“That’s great,” said Bob.
“Then, of course, we have a wire to Border City.”
“Ever talk to Major Carroll over the ’phone?” asked Cranny.
“Many times.”
“Would you mind if I called him up? I’d like to tell him there’s a
bunch o’ live-wire chaps out here, and all o’ them hopin’ to get a
chance to examine that dirigible balloon o’ his.”
“Certainly you may,” said the ranchman, good-naturedly. “You’ll find
the ’phone over there in that corner.”
“I’ll do the best I can for you, fellows,” chirped Cranny.
“Let Mr. Clifton ’phone,” suggested Willie. “Carroll’ll think it’s a
man.”
Cranny’s vigorous “Hello!” presently sounded. But, to his
disappointment, he found that the voice at the other end of the wire
belonged to one of Major Carroll’s mechanicians.
“The boss isn’t here,” he heard. “A crowd of boys want to see the
balloon? Yes, I’ll tell him. At Circle T Ranch, are you? Call us up
some time to-morrow. Good-bye!”
“Why not have a word or two with your friends at Lone Pine?” suggested
Mr. Follett.
“A jolly good idea,” cried Cranny, enthusiastically.
Mr. Follett showed Cranny how to get the proper wire, and the big lad
was presently roaring:
“Hello; this is Cranny Beaumont!--C-r-a-n-n-y! Do you get me? Ha, ha!
That you, Mr. Ogden? Yes; Bob Somers and the whole crowd are here. Been
expecting us, hey? Thanks awfully. Oh, fine and dandy. When?--Just wait
a second.”
Cranny swung quickly around.
“Fellows,” he sang out, “Mr. Ogden wants us to run over to Lone Pine
day after to-morrow; how about it? He says they are going to try out a
new air-ship that day. Whoop!”
“Why, of course we will,” said Bob.
“Yes, Mr. Ogden; the bunch is comin’,” shouted Cranny, over the wire.
“How long? A few weeks, perhaps. What--I? Oh, I’m out here on business.”
“Listen to that!” chirruped Willie. “On business! What an awful one.
Much business he’ll attend to.”
“Here, Bob, Mr. Ogden wants to speak to you.”
Bob took Cranny’s place at the ’phone, and held quite an extended
conversation with Mr. Benjamin Ogden, the inventor, father of Robert
and Ferdinand. And the younger men, too, sent their voices over the
slender wire which stretched across the great prairie.
“Wal, arter all, pards, ye’re a-goin’ ter do it, hey?” growled Pete
Sanderson, shaking his head disapprovingly. “’Tain’t nateral ter fly:
’tweren’t intended nohow.”
Sam Skillet, whose huge frame blocked the doorway, agreed.
“No; I ’low as it ain’t,” he added. “But when them thar youngsters set
their minds on doin’ anythin’, Pete, outlaw bronc’s couldn’t stop ’em.”
And Cranny, with a loud laugh, “opined” that he was right.
“I shall expect you boys to exercise the greatest care,” said Mr.
Follett.
“Oh, don’t worry about us,” spoke up Bob. “We’ll be careful.”
“An’, besides, they’ll have Doc Clifton along,” squeaked Willie. “Do I
want to go to Lone Pine? Oh, I may as well.”
“You can’t ride a broncho, William,” snorted Tommy.
“And I don’t want to,” snapped Willie.
“Anyway, I’ll bet we have some dandy fun,” declared Cranny, in
enthusiastic tones.