Alice B. Emerson

“ Hicks and Jib out of the long window and had heard the cow puncher’s declaration. There was no light in the sky as far as the girls could see—no light of a fire, at least—but there seemed to be a tang of smoke; perhaps the smoke clung to the sweating horse and its rider.
“You got it straight, Scrub Weston?” demanded Bill Hicks. “This ain’t no burn you’re givin’ us?”
“Great piping Peter!” yelled the cowboy on the trembling pony, “it’ll be a burn all right if you fellows don’t git busy. ”

“ These cow ponies never walk—unless they are dead tired; about Freckles’ easiest motion was a canter that carried Ruth over the prairie so swiftly that her loosened hair flowed behind her in the wind, and for a time she could not speak—until she became adjusted to the pony’s motion. But she liked riding astride much better than on a side-saddle, and she soon lost her fear. Ike had given her some good advice about the holding of her reins so that a sharp pull on Freckles’ curb would instantly bring the pony down to a dead stop. ”

“ Jane Ann screamed some order to Ruth, but the latter could not hear what it was. Yet she imitated the Western girl’s efforts immediately. No such tame attempts at controlling the cattle as singing to them was now in order. The small number of herdsmen left at this point could only force their ponies into the herd and break up the formation—driving the mad brutes back with their quirts, and finally, after a most desperate fight, holding perhaps a third of the great herd from running wildly into the stream. ”

“ Ruth waited for her companion to suggest their course of action. The man she had come to see—the mysterious individual whom she believed had taken her uncle’s money to buy up the property known as the Tintacker Claim—was in a raging fever in that old shack near the site of the mine. She had heard his delirious babblings while Jib was in the hut. It never entered her mind that Jib would contemplate leaving the unfortunate creature unattended.
“You can’t talk to him, Miss. He don’t know nothing,” declared the Indian. ”

“ The trail became narrow here and it rose steeply, too. The roaring river tumbled over the rocks on the left hand, while on the right the sheer cliff rose higher and higher. And while the ponies climbed the rather steep ascent Jib Pottoway spurred his horse ahead to see if the path was all clear to the place where the cañon became a veritable tunnel under the “natural bridge.”
“Go slow, Tom Cameron!” shouted the ranchman’s niece from the second carriage. “There are bad places when we get to the upper level—very narrow places. And the river is a hundred feet below us there.” ”

“ Ruth said to her chum. “The mountains are grand. That cañon we visited was wonderful. The great, rolling plains dwarf anything in the line of landscape that we ever saw back East. But this caps all the sights we have seen yet.”
“I’m almost afraid of the cattle, Ruthie,” declared Helen. “So many tossing horns! So many great, nervous, moving bodies! Suppose they should start this way—run us down and stamp us into the earth? Oh! they could do it easily.”
“I don’t feel that fear of them,” returned the girl from the Red Mill. “I mean to ride all around the herd to-night with Nita. ”

“ And up the rise toward the trail was coming, in much dust, a bunch of cattle, with two or three punchers riding behind and urging the herd to better pasture.
“Oh! see all those steers,” cried Ruth Fielding. “Do you own all of them, Mr. Hicks?”
“I reckon they got my brand on ’em, Miss,” replied the ranchman. “But that’s only a leetle bunch—can’t be more’n five hundred—coming up yere. I reckon, Miss Helen, that we’d better pull up some yere. If them cows sees us——”
“See there! see there!” cried the stout girl in the back seat. ”

“ None of her girl friends made any comment upon this statement in Mary’s hearing; but Madge declared, as the car chugged away from the ranch-house:
“I’ll never again go anywhere with that girl unless she has a change of heart! She is just as mean as she can be.”
“She’s the limit!” said Heavy, despondently. “And I used to think she wasn’t a bad sort.”
“And once upon a time,” said Helen Cameron, gravely, “I followed her leadership to the neglect of Ruth. I really thought The Fox was the very smartest girl I had ever met.” ”

“ Out of the chapparel burst, with a frantic bellow, a huge 9 black and white steer—wide horned, ferocious of aspect—quite evidently “on the rampage.” The noise of the passing car had brought him out of concealment. He plunged into the trail not ten yards behind the slowing car.
“Goodness me!” shouted the big boy who sat beside Bill Hicks and his niece. “What kind of a beast is that? It’s almost as big as an elephant!”
“Oh!” cried the girl called “The Fox.” “That surely isn’t the kind of cattle you have here, is it? He looks more like a buffalo. See! he’s coming after us!” ”

“ Although not so cowardly as a coyote, the wolf seldom attacks human beings unless they are helpless or the beast is driven to desperation by hunger. And gaunt as this fellow was, there was plenty of small game for him in the chapparel.
Thus, Ruth was in a quandary. But she saw plainly that she must withdraw or the wolf would attack. She left the bucket of water where it stood and withdrew back of the nearest hut. Once out of the wolf’s sight, but still holding the revolver ready, she looked hastily about. Her pony, hobbled by Jib, had not wandered far. ”

“ Ruth and Helen assumed the lead after a very few minutes; they were even better climbers than the Western girl. But the way was steep and rugged and it wasn’t long before their chatter ceased and they saved their breath for the work in hand. Madge and Jane Ann came along after the chums quite pluckily; but The Fox began clamoring for rest before they had climbed half the distance to the top of the cliff. ”

“ The routine work of the ranch, however, interested them more. Not only Tom and Bob, but their sisters and the other girls, found the free, out-of-door life of the range and corral a never-failing source of delight.
Ruth herself was becoming a remarkably good horsewoman. Freckles carried her many miles over the range and Jane Ann Hicks was scarcely more bold on pony-back than was the girl from the Red Mill.
As for the cowboys of the Silver outfit, they admitted that the visitors were “some human,” even from a Western standpoint. ”

“ A lithe, handsome, dark girl was at the wheel; beside her was a very pretty, plump girl with rosy cheeks and the brightest eyes imaginable; the third person crowded into the front seat was a youth who looked so much like the girl who was running the machine that they might have changed clothes and nobody would have been the wiser—save that Tom Cameron’s hair was short and his twin sister, Helen’s, was long and curly. The girl between the twins was Ruth Fielding.
In the big tonneau of the car was a great, tall, bony man with an enormous “walrus” mustache and a very red face ”

“ Nature, as well as the beasts, seemed to wait in expectation of some startling change. Ruth could not fail to be strongly impressed by this inexplicable feeling.
“Something’s going to happen, Nita. I feel it,” she declared.
“Hark! what’s that?” demanded her companion, whose ears were the sharper.
A mutter of sound in the distance made Ruth suggest: “Thunder?”
“No, no!” exclaimed Jane Ann.
Swiftly the sound approached. The patter of ponies’ hoofs—a crowd of horses were evidently charging out of a nearby coulie into the open plain.
“Wild horses!” gasped Jane Ann. ”

“ My soul! if you practiced on every girl you met for the next hundred years you’d never learn how to ask her to marry you proper. I’d better take you, Ike, and save the rest of the female tribe a whole lot of trouble.”
“D’ye mean it, Sally?” cried the bewildered and delighted foreman of Silver Ranch.
“I sure do.”
“Ye-yi-yip!” yelled Ike, and the next moment the big touring car wabbled all over the trail and came near to dumping the loving pair into the gully. ”

“ Helen could not remain inactive and see a bear chase her chum over the rocks; therefore she picked up a good-sized stone and threw it at the beast. They say—at least, boys say!—that a girl can’t throw straight. But Helen hit the bear!
The stone must have hurt, for the beast let out a sudden growl that was in quite a different tone from the sounds he had made before. He turned sharply and bit at the place on his flank where the stone had hit him, and then, in a perfectly unreasonable manner, the bear turned sharp around and scampered after Ruth harder than ever. ”

“ And Bill Hicks himself began to “fill into the picture” now that he was back in Montana. The young folks had seen many men like him since leaving Denver.
“Why, he’s just an old dear!” whispered Ruth to Helen, as the latter steered the car over the rough trail. “And just as kind and considerate as he can be. It’s natural chivalry these Western men show to women, isn’t it?”
“He’s nice,” agreed Helen. “But he never ought to have named his niece ‘Jane Ann.’ That was a mean trick to play on a defenseless baby.” ”

“ And they enjoyed every mile of the journey through the foothills. There was something new and strange (to the Easterners) to see almost every mile, and Jane Ann, or Jib, was right there to answer questions and explain the wonders.
At first they saw miles upon miles of range, over which fed the Silver Ranch herds. Heretofore Ruth and her friends had not realized the size of 78 the ranch itself and what it meant to own fifty thousand cattle.
“Why!” exclaimed Heavy, with some awe. “Your uncle, Nita, is richer than Job—and the Bible says he was the greatest of all the men of the East! ”

“ They cheered her to the echo, and after them came the party of Jane Ann’s friends from the East to add their congratulations. But as Ruth and the others rode up Heavy of course had to meet with an accident. Hard luck always seemed to ride the stout girl like a nightmare!
The pony on which she rode became excited because of the crowd of kicking, squealing cow ponies, and Heavy’s seat was not secure. When the pony began to cavort and plunge poor Heavy was shaken right over the pommel of her saddle. ”

“ The men folk hung about the door as yet, or looked in at the open windows.
“Did that big gump, Ike Stedman, come over with you-all, Miss Fielding?” Sally Dickson asked Ruth, aside. “Or did he know enough to stay away?”
“I don’t believe Mr. Hicks could have kept him on the ranch to-night,” replied Ruth, smiling. “He has promised to dance with me at least once. Ike is an awfully nice man, I think—and so kind! He’s taught us all to ride and is never out of sorts, or too busy to help us out. We ‘tenderfoots’ are always getting ‘bogged,’ you know. And Ike is right there to help us. ”

“ You are too good to me! Everybody is too good to me! Look at the Camerons! and Jennie Stone! and all the rest. And Mary Cox just hugged me tight when we came away and said she loved me—that I had saved her brother’s life. And Mr. Bill Hicks—and 204 Jimsey and the other boys. And Bashful Ike and Sally made me promise that if ever I could get out West again I should spend a long time at their home——
“Oh, dear, me Aunt Alvirah,” finished the girl of the Red Mill, with a tearful but happy sigh, “this world is a very beautiful place after all, and the people in it are just lovely!” ”

“ He had never seen people spend money before he came East, and he had not understood Jane Ann’s longing for the delicate and beautiful things in life. He saw, too, that a girl could not be properly brought up on a cattle ranch, with nothing but cow punchers and Indians and Mexican women about, and Mr. Hicks had determined to give his niece “a right-down good time,” as he expressed it.
It was to give Jane Ann pleasure, and because of the kindness of Ruth and her friends to his niece, that Mr. Bill Hicks had arranged this trip West for the entire party, on a visit to Silver Ranch. ”

“ Jane Ann said, frankly.
“I must say you’re polite to your guests,” exclaimed Mary Cox, viciously.
“And I must say you’re anything but polite to me,” responded the ranch girl, not at all abashed. “You’re pretty near the limit, you are. Somebody ought to give you a good shaking.”
Ruth and Helen had gotten so far ahead because they had not wasted their breath. Now they were waiting for the other three who came puffing to the shelf on which the chums rested, all three wearing frowns on their faces.
“For pity’s sake!” gasped Helen; “what’s the matter with you all?” ”

“ Old Bill Hicks rode beside the buckboard when they started back for the ranch-house, and was very angry over the setting of the fire. Cow punchers are the most careful people in the world regarding fire-setting in the open. If a cattleman lights his cigarette, or pipe, he not only pinches out the match between his finger and thumb, but, if he is afoot, he stamps the burned match into the earth when he drops it. ”

“ I expect Uncle Bill has got more ponies than Job had mules.”
“And the men who looked after Job’s cattle were a whole lot different from those fellows,” cried Helen, from the forward buckboard, pointing to a couple of well-mounted punchers spurring after a score of strays that had broken away from the main herd. “Dear me, how recklessly they ride!”
“But I guess that all cowboys have been reckless and brave,” said Ruth, quickly. “Somehow, herding cattle on the open plains and hills seems to make for rugged character and courage. ”