Produced by Al Haines
THE BOY RANCHERS AMONG THE INDIANS
OR
Trailing The Yaquis
By
WILLARD F. BAKER
Author of "The Boy Ranchers," "The Boy Ranchers In Camp," "The Boy
Ranchers on The Trail," etc.
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
THE BOY RANCHERS AMONG THE INDIANS
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I COMPANY COMING
II THE TELEGRAM
III "GET READY, BOYS!"
IV ON THE TRAIL
V ROSEMARY AND FLOYD
VI PRISONERS
VII INTO THE MOUNTAINS
VIII SHOOTING STARS
IX A LONE INDIAN
X SHOTS FROM AMBUSH
XI THE SURPRISE
XII FORWARD AGAIN
XIII WEARY CAPTIVES
XIV SURROUNDED
XV WITH THE TROOPERS
XVI INDIAN "SIGN"
XVII AN ALARM
XVIII SEPARATED
XIX THE FIGHT
XX THE WHITE FLAG
XXI THE TRICK DISCOVERED
XXII ANXIOUS HOURS
XXIII THE LAST STAND
XXIV THE RUSE OF ROSEMARY
XXV "ALL'S WELL!"
THE BOY RANCHERS AMONG THE INDIANS
CHAPTER I
COMPANY COMING
High and clear the sweet, western wind brought over the rolling hills
the sound of singing. At least it was singing of a sort, for there was
a certain swing and rhythm accompanying the words. As the melody
floated toward them, three young cowboys, seated at ease in their
saddles, looked up and in the direction of the singer.
Thus the song.
"Oh, bury me out on th' lonesome prairie!
Put a stone under my haid!
Cover me up with a rope an' a saddle!
'Cause why? My true-love is daid * * * * * *"
It is impossible in cold print to indicate the mournful and
long-drawn-out accent on the word "dead," to rhyme with head.
"Here comes Slim!" exclaimed one of the youthful cow punchers to his
companions.
"As if we didn't know that, Dick!" laughed the slighter of two lads
who, from their close resemblance, could be nothing less than brothers.
"His voice doesn't improve with age; does it, Nort?" asked Bud Merkel,
smiling at his cousins, Norton and Richard Shannon.
"But he means well," declared Nort with a chuckle. "Oh, you Slim!" he
shouted, as a tall lanky individual, mounted on a pony of like
proportions, ambled into view, topping a slight rise of the trail.
"Oh, you Slim!"
The older cowboy--a man, to be exact--who had been about to break forth
into the second, or forty-second verse of his song (there being in all
seventy-two stanzas, so it doesn't much matter which one is
designated)--the older cowboy, I say, paused with his mouth open, and a
blank look on his face. Then he grinned--that is the only word for
it--and cried:
"Well, I'm a second cousin to a ham sandwich! Where'd you fellows come
from?"
"We haven't come--we're just going!" laughed Bud. "We're going over to
see Dad and the folks. How are they all?"
"Oh, they're sittin' pretty! Sittin' pretty!" affirmed Slim Degnan,
with a mingled smile and grin. "How'd you fellows come out with your
spring round-up?"
"Pretty fair," admitted Bud. "A few steers short of what we figured
on, but that's nothing."
"I should say not!" chuckled Slim. "Your paw was a heap sight worse
off'n that."
"Rustlers again?" asked Nort quickly, as he and his brother glanced at
one another. They had not forgotten the stirring times when they were
on the trail of the ruthless men who had raided Diamond X ranch, and
their own cattle range.
"No, nothin' like that," answered Slim easily. "Just natural
depravity, so to speak. Some of 'em ate loco weed and others jest got
too tired of livin' I reckon. But we come out pretty fair. Just got
th' last bunch shipped, an' I'm mighty glad of it."
"Same here!" spoke Dick. "That's why we came over here--on a sort of
vacation."
"I reckon some other folks is headin' this way on th' same sort of
ideas," remarked Slim Degnan, as he rolled a cigarette with one hand, a
trick for which the boys had no use, though they could but admire the
skill of the foreman.
"What do you mean?" asked Bud. "Is Dad going to take a vacation? If
he does--"
"Don't worry, son! Don't worry!" laughed Slim, as he ignited a match
by the simple process of scratching the head with his thumb nail.
"Cattle will have to fetch a heap sight more'n they do now when he
takes a few days off," declared the foreman. "What I meant was that
some tenderfeet individuals are headin'--"
Slim did not finish the sentence for he was nearly thrown from his
saddle (something most unusual with him) as his pony gave a sudden leap
to one side, following a peculiar noise in a bunch of grass on which
the animal almost stepped.
The noise was not unlike that made by a locust in a tree on a hot day,
but there was in the vibrations a more sinister sound. And well did
Slim's horse know what it indicated.
"A rattler!" yelled Bud, and close on the heels of his words followed
action.
He whipped out his .45, there was a sliver of flame, a sharp crack at
which the three steeds of the trio of youthful cowboys jumped slightly,
and there writhed on the trail a venomous rattle-snake, its head now a
shapeless mass where the bullet from Bud's gun had almost obliterated
it.
"Whew! A big one!" exclaimed Slim, who had quickly gotten his pony
under control again, and turned it back toward the scene of action. It
spoke well for his ability that he had not lost his cigarette, and was
puffing on it, though the sudden leap of his steed, to avoid a bite
that probably would have meant death, had jarred the words from his
mouth.
"First of the season," added Bud, slipping his gun back into the
holster.
"Are they more poisonous then than at other times?" asked Nort.
"Guess there isn't much difference, son," affirmed Slim. "I don't want
to be nipped by one at any time. Much obliged, Bud," he said, easily
enough, though there was a world of meaning in his voice. "I shore
plum would hate to have to shoot Pinto, and that's what I'd a done if
that serpent had set its fangs in his leg."
"Why'd he shoot him?" asked Dick, for he and his brother, though far
removed from the tenderfoot class, were not wise to all western ways
yet.
"There isn't much chance for a horse after it's been bit deep by a
rattler," Bud explained. "Of course I don't say every horse that's
bitten will die, but it's harder to doctor them than it is a man. And
Slim meant he wouldn't want to see Pinto suffer."
"You're right there, Bud!" drawled Slim Degnan. "They do say this
new-fangled treatment is better'n whisky for snake bites, but I don't
reckon I want to chance it."
"The permanganate of potash is almost a sure cure for the ordinary
snake bite, if you use it in time," declared Bud. "But I don't know
that it would work after a _fer de lance_ set his fangs into you.
Anyhow I'm glad we haven't anything worse than rattlers and copperheads
around here."
"They're bad enough!" affirmed Slim, as he gave a backward glance
toward the still writhing form of the big rattler, which was now past
all power of doing harm.
The incident seemed to cause the foreman to forget what he had been
about to say when his horse shied, and the boy ranchers, by which title
is indicated Bud, Nort and Dick, did not attach enough importance to it
to cause them to question their companion. Yet what Slim had been
about to say was destined to have a great influence on their lives in
the immediate future, and was to cause them to ride forward into
danger. But then danger was nothing new to them.
"Well, things are right peaceful since we got rid of Del Pinzo and his
gang of greasers," observed Slim, as he rode on with the boys down the
trail that led to Diamond X ranch, the property of Bud's father.
"But I'm always worrying for fear they'll come back, or we'll have some
sort of trouble with our cattle," observed Dick. "It doesn't seem
possible that over at our Happy Valley ranch we'll be let alone to do
as we please."
"Don't cross a bridge until you hear the rattling of the planks!"
paraphrased Nort to his brother. "We're all right so far."
"Yes, things are sittin' right pretty for the present," declared Slim.
"Well, here we are," he added, as a turn of the trail brought them
within sight of the corrals and other parts of Diamond X ranch. "And
there's your folks," he added, as a woman and girl, standing in the
yard of a red ranch house, began to wave their hands to the boys.
"I see Dad!" exclaimed End.
"Where?" asked Nort.
"Over by the pony corral, talking to Yellin' Kid. Looks like Kid just
came in with the mail."
"He started after it when I rode out to look for a couple of strays,"
said Slim. "Beckon he jest come back. You boys'll hear more
partic'lars now, I reckon."
"Particulars of what?" asked Nort. "Was that what you started to say
when Bud shot the rattler?"
Slim did not answer, the reason being that a moment later he was
surrounded by a knot of laughing, pushing, jostling and shouting
cowboys, who seemed to want the foreman to settle some disputed point.
Bud and his two cousin chums rode on and greeted Mr. Merkel and his
wife, who was "Ma" to every cowboy within fifty miles, and Nell, who
was Bud's pretty sister.
"Hello, Dad! Hello, Uncle Henry!" was the greeting. "Hello, Sis!"
"Got any pie, Nell?" added Bud.
"For Nort and Dick--yes," the girl answered. "But you won't want pie
when you hear--"
"Say, what's all this mysterious news?" broke out Bud. "First Slim
starts to tell us and then--"
"Rosemary and Floyd are coming!" merrily cried Nell.
"Rosemary and Floyd?" questioned Bud.
"Your cousins, or, to be more exact, your second cousins," explained
Mrs. Merkel. "We had a letter last week saying they might come on from
California, and now your father has just had a special delivery letter,
saying they're on their way. They'll be here any time."
"Company's coming! Company's coming!" joyously sang Nell, for she was
delighted with the news.
"Rosemary and Floyd," repeated Bud, "I don't seem--"
"You haven't seen them in some years," his mother said. "But I'm sure
you'll like them."
"Especially Rosemary," laughed Nort, and Nell stuck out her tongue at
him.
"Well, I'm glad they didn't come until after the spring round-up,"
spoke Mr. Merkel, looking at a letter he held. "We'll have more time,
now, to be with 'em and show 'em around. I wonder--"
But, as in the case of Slim, he did not finish what he started to say,
for there came an interruption, in its way almost as sinister as the
whirring of the rattle-snake's tail.
Toward the ranch buildings came the sound of rapidly galloping hoofs,
and as they all looked in the direction of the sound they saw, riding
in toward them, one of the cowboys.
"It's Old Billee Dobb!" exclaimed Yellin' Kid in a voice that was, as
usual, unnecessarily loud. "Looks like rustlers were after him!"
But none rode in pursuit of the veteran cowpuncher, though he was
spurring his steed to its utmost.
"They've broke out!" he yelled as soon as he was within hearing
distance. "They've broke out! Scatter my watermelon seeds, but
they've broke out!"
"What has?" demanded Mr. Merkel. "Our steers?"
"No! The Yaquis!"
"Indians!" snapped out Bud.
"That's them, son! They've broke out--left the reservation, and
they're headed this way! Oh, rattle-snakes! Get your guns ready! The
Yaquis have broke out!"
The boy ranchers looked at each other and it can not be denied that
there was a joyous light in their eyes. Nell shrank closer to her
father, and Mr. Merkel reached over and placed his hand in reassuring
fashion on his wife's ample shoulder.
"Indians!" murmured Dick. "I wonder--"
"Sure we can help fight 'em!" exclaimed Nort, rightly guessing that
this was his brother's question.