Ted Strongs Motor Car

by Taylor, Edward C

  "Ted, ther herd has shrunk."

  "You judge by the eye, I suppose."

  "Yes. That is the only way I have o' judgin'. We hev never had a count o' them since we drove them onto this range."

  "How many do you think we are shy?"

  "My eye tells me erbout five hundred."

  "Great guns! How could five hundred head get away from us? And right under our noses, too."

  "Easy enough. You must remember that since Stella has been gone we've paid no more attention to the herd than if we didn't own them."

  "That's true. As for myself, I confess that I've given them no attention. And I've kept you fellows so busy that we've left the cattle to take care of themselves, almost."

  "Well, it's time we woke up ter ther situation, er soon we won't hev no more cattle than a rabbit."

  "That's so. We'll run a count of them in the morning."

  "It's shore got me puzzled. I can't think whar they could hev gone."

  "Strayed, possibly."

  "P'r'aps. Ever hear o' there bein' any rustlers in this part o' ther country?"

  "No, I never have. But there are some pretty bad citizens in this section, who, if they never have rustled cattle, certainly are capable of it."

  "Alludin' to who?"

  "Well, there's Shan Rhue and his gang, for instance."

  "They're pretty bad actors, fer shore. But I ain't positive thet they're ther kind what would rustle. They're jest plain town thieves an' gamblers. They ain't cow-punchers. It gen'rally is fellers what has been in ther cow business at some time er another what rustles stock."

  "Oh, it doesn't take much of a man to steal cattle. A thieving gambler could do it as well as another."

  "But our brand and ear crop? They shore couldn't get away from them."

  "They're not so hard, Bud. A good man could run our stock out of this part of the country and alter the brand without any trouble."

  "Shore, ther brand is not so hard to alter."

  "Let's ride back to camp and look at the brand book, and see if any one has a similar brand to ours, or one that they could alter without trouble. But, remember, I'm not going to give myself any uneasiness in the matter, and I think we will find the herd all there. I can't see how so many cattle as you think could get away from us."

  "I do."

  "In what manner could they?"

  "Well, yer see, thar ain't ary o' us fellers been ridin' herd at night since Stella was taken away."

  "Yes; go on."

  "Ther fellers what hev been guardin' ther herd at night we picked up around here when we drove ther herd up from ther South."

  "True. They were all local cow-punchers. I realize that we have made a mistake. One of us ought to have had charge of every night watch since we have been on this range."

  "Shore. It's a cinch they wouldn't attempt to run 'em off in ther daytime."

  "That's the idea. It would be as easy as shooting fish in a rain barrel for a crooked night foreman to drift a few cattle away from the herd in the dark, to be picked up by fellows waiting on the outside, and driven into the hills until the brands and marks could be changed."

  They were at the camp now, and Ted got out the brand book and turned its leaves over in an attempt to find a brand similar to their own, the Circle S, which was a circle with the letter S in the center.

  In every Western State or Territory in which cattle-raising is a business the law makes it imperative that every ranchman who uses the open range shall select a brand for his cattle which is registered. This brand is his own, and every head of cattle found with his brand on it belongs to him.

  On the open range the cattle get mixed more or less, and in the spring there is a general round-up of the cattle, after the calves have been born and are following their mothers.

  The cow-punchers go into the vast herds and drive out the calves. Of course, the mother follows the calf, lowing piteously for it.

  When the cow is out with the calf, it can be plainly seen to whom she belongs by the brand on her. Her owner, or his men or representatives, promptly throw her and the calf into their own herd, and later put their brand on the calf.

  Calves which are motherless and are unbranded are known as mavericks, and belong to whoever finds them. The cowman who finds a maverick promptly puts his own brand on it and it belongs to him.

  The safety of the system is in choosing a brand that cannot be easily altered, and which will not be easily confounded with the brand of another.

  When the boys had chosen the brand Circle S for this herd in honor of Stella, they had spoken of this, and Bud had remarked that it would be easily altered by making an eight of the S, but they had found no Circle 8 in the brand book, and took the chance, especially as Stella now insisted upon having no other brand for the herd than Circle S, her "own brand," as she called it.

  Ted and Bud could find no brand in the Texas or Oklahoma brand books at all like theirs, and dismissed the matter from their minds.

  The next morning early all hands turned out for a count of the herd. The herd was split, and the broncho boys took turns at the count, as the bunches of cattle were split and driven slowly past them on the point.

  From the books, there should be two thousand three hundred cattle, or thereabouts, in the herd. A few cattle more or less would not have been surprising, for a great herd of cattle will, like a magnet, draw to it all the individual strays in the country roundabout.

  It was well in the afternoon before the count was finished, and the boys rode into camp to count up and compare with the books. Ted totaled the figures, while the boys hung eagerly over him to learn the result.

  "Well, what d'yer make it?" asked Bud, as Ted, with an expression of perplexity on his face, looked up from his work.

  "The count is seventeen hundred and fifty," answered Ted slowly.

  "Gee! And that's how many shy?"

  "Five hundred and fifty. Bud, you have a good eye."

  "Orter hev. I've been runnin' my eye over herds fer many a year. So, we've been done out o' more'n five hundred head, eh? Well, Stella comes fust, an' then ther man what thinks he kin rustle cattle from the broncho boys had better take a runnin' jump outer this man's country."

  CHAPTER XXXIII.

  LITTLE DICK IN TROUBLE.

  Little Dick Fosdick had been forgotten by Ted and the broncho boys in their anxiety over the absence of Stella.

  They had seen him around the camp, but as it was impossible for him to accompany them on their hard rides, he had been left to his own devices.

  He spent his days riding with one of the cowboys on the herd, and grieving in his own way for Stella.

  He was a sensible little chap, and seldom complained at his loneliness. His life alone had made him patient, and he took it out in thinking.

  He was now well able to take care of himself, although Stella insisted in "mothering" him when she was in camp.

  Little Dick, as most of the boys called him, felt himself quite a man, for he could now catch his own pony and saddle it whenever he wanted to ride, and no one paid any attention to him as he came and went.

  Ted had bought for him a little, wiry bay cayuse, and both he and Stella had taught him to ride, and Dick could now throw a rope with reasonable accuracy and speed.

  Ted had given him a small revolver, and they had had great fun learning to shoot at a target, which was usually a bleached skull of a cow that had died long since on the prairie, and its bones picked clean by the coyotes.

  Dick's revolver was only of thirty-two caliber, as befitted his strength, but the youngster had a good eye and the steady nerves of youth, and he soon got so that he could hit the skull with reasonable accuracy.

  "Putting the shot through the eye" was one of the jokes of these shooting tournaments, in which Stella, and sometimes Bud, joined.

  One day when they were shooting at a skull target, Bud missed—probably intentionally, for Bud was a crack shot.

  Dick jumped up and down in glee, for he had just kn
ocked a chip of bone from the skull himself.

  "Bud missed! Bud missed!" he shouted, in glee. "Bud, you're an old tenderfoot. Couldn't hit a skull as big as the head of a barrel a hundred feet away."

  "Didn't miss, neither," said Bud, in a tone of mock anger. "There's where you're fooled. That is what I call a good shot. See that left eye hole? Well, I aimed at that, and the bullet went through it. Ha! That's where the joke is on you." He grinned, and winked at Stella.

  A few minutes later Dick shot and missed the skull.

  "Yah!" shouted Bud. "Goody! You missed. You shoot like a hayseed. Couldn't hit a skull as big as the head of a barrel."

  "That's where you're left," said the boy. "See that right eye hole? That's what I aimed at."

  The laugh was on Bud.

  "All right, kiddie," he laughed. "You're on. We'd be in a dickens of a fix if that ole cow hadn't left two eye holes when she died."

  So it was that Dick had made great progress in the rudiments of a cow-puncher's life, and it exactly suited him, but, in the meanwhile, Stella was teaching him to read, and telling him the story of the rise and grandeur of his own country, and of the lands that lay beyond the seas.

  So it was that Dick was unconsciously getting a better education than if he had gone to school, for he had a mind for the absorption of all sorts of knowledge like a sponge, and once a thing was told him he never forgot it.

  The morning of the count he had started onto the range with the other boys, but as there would be great confusion, and perhaps danger of a stampede, Ted sent him back to camp.

  "Run on back, Dick," Ted said kindly. "I'm afraid that pony of yours isn't quick enough to get out of the way if these dogies should take it into their heads to act ugly."

  Dick never thought of rebelling when Ted spoke, for he knew that Ted was boss, and that he knew what was good for him.

  "All right, Ted," he said. "Would it be any harm if I took a ride away from the camp?"

  "Of course not, Dick," answered Ted kindly. He felt a little sore at himself for sending the boy away, but he knew that it was for the best. There would be plenty of time and many occasions for Dick to run into danger when he grew up.

  Dick went back to camp, which was deserted save for Bill McCall, the cook, who was asleep under the chuck wagon, and Mrs. Graham, who was lying down in her tent.

  Dick buckled on his belt and holster, and, mounting his pony Spraddle, set out for a long ride across the prairie.

  In the boot of his saddle rested his little Remington, a present from Stella. He was going to look for an antelope, and he thought how proud Ted would be if he brought one back with him.

  He knew how hard it was to get close enough to an antelope to shoot it, but he had just enough gameness to think that he could get one if he came within range of it.

  Anyhow, there were coyotes and jack rabbits.

  He rode across the prairie at a smart gallop, occasionally changing his course to chase a jack rabbit, which generally disappeared over a rise in the ground like a streak of gray dust, and was seen no more.

  At noon he stopped for a few minutes to eat the biscuit and piece of bacon which he had taken from the rear of the chuck wagon before setting forth. He found a spring not far away, and, having given Spraddle a good, deep drink, and filling his small canteen, which was tied to the cantle of his saddle, he set forth again.

  It was about two o'clock when he came in sight of the first real game of the day. On the top of the rise ahead of him he saw an animal about the size of a dog. As he rode toward it, it raised its head and gave a long, low, mournful howl.

  "Coyote," exclaimed Dick to himself breathlessly. "I'll get that fellow, and take him back to camp. Won't Ted be surprised when he sees it?"

  He took his Remington out of the boot, slipped in the necessary cartridges to fill the magazine, and rode forward slowly and cautiously.

  The coyote watched him sharply, occasionally raising its head to utter its mournful cry. When Dick thought he had got within shooting distance, he stopped Spraddle, took a good, long aim at the coyote, and fired.

  The ball kicked up the dust several feet in advance of the coyote, which, with another howl, this time one of derision, as it seemed to Dick, turned and trotted away.

  "That was a bum shot," muttered Dick. "I'm glad Ted or Stella did not see it. Better luck next time."

  The coyote ran a short distance, then stopped and looked over its shoulder to see if Dick was following, and, seeing that he was, took up its lope again.

  It had got some distance from Dick, when, on the top of another rise, it stopped again, and Dick heard once more its luring cry.

  It seemed to be an invitation to follow him. Dick had not paid any attention to the direction in which he was going, and had kept no track of time.

  That he was following game, and that he intended to get it if it took all day, was all he thought of. Soon the coyote stopped again, and looked at Dick in a tantalizing sort of way, and again Dick approached it cautiously.

  When he thought he was within range, he raised his Remington, and, taking a long, deliberate aim, fired. Again he missed. But he had the satisfaction of seeing that the ball had struck the earth several feet nearer the coyote than the first.

  The coyote realized it, too, for he did not wait for another invitation, but started on his way in a hurry, with Dick riding pell-mell after him.

  Dick for the first time realized that the day was going when he noticed the long shadow cast by himself and the pony on the prairie sod. He had not the slightest idea how far he had come, and there crept into his mind a sort of dread.

  He pulled Spraddle down to a walk, and looked about him. Behind him there was no trace of the cow camp, nothing but the everlasting rise and fall of the prairie.

  But ahead was the ragged line of the blue mountains. These he knew to be the Wichita Mountains, for, although he had never seen them before, he had heard the boys talking about them in camp.

  Then he saw the coyote on a hill a little ways ahead, looking at him in the most aggravating way. The coyote's lips were curled back from his teeth in a contemptuous sort of a smile, it seemed to Dick, and as he started forward again the coyote threw up its head and actually laughed at him.

  That settled it with Dick. No coyote that ever trotted the plains could laugh at him, but as this thought came to him he felt the dread of being lost on the prairie, or even having to stay alone in this waste all night.

  Dick had heard the boys talk of the danger of being alone at night, for there were wolves and other animals that would daunt a man, to say nothing of a small boy.

  He thought he would follow the coyote only long enough to get another shot at him, and then retrace his way back to the camp. By putting Spraddle through his paces he ought to be able to reach it before dark.

  So he set forth again in the wake of the coyote, which was becoming more and more aggravating every minute. Suddenly the coyote disappeared altogether. It had done this before when it had gone down into the trough between two of the great, rolling swales of the prairie, but always it had come into sight again in a few minutes.

  This time, however, it did not, and Dick wondered why.

  In a few minutes he understood why, for he found himself at the edge of a coulee which had been washed deep by the storms of many winters.

  Dick looked up and down the coulee for the wolf, and saw a form, gray and lithe, slinking among the bowlders with which it was filled. Dick forced Spraddle down the steep bank of the coulee, and was soon at the bottom.

  Hastily he set after the coyote, but suddenly stopped, for a man stepped from behind a shoulder of rock and clay and caught his bridle.

  Spraddle stopped so quickly that Dick was almost unseated. But he soon recovered himself, and stared in amazement at the man who had thus stopped him.

  He was an Indian.

  Dick had often seen Indians in the towns through which the broncho boys had passed, and occasionally they had come into the camps they ha
d established on the drive of the herd up from Texas.

  But this was the first time Dick had ever come in contact with an Indian when he was alone. For a moment his heart stopped beating, for he was afraid.

  "How?" grunted the Indian.

  It was all Dick could do to reply with a feeble, quavering "How?"

  Many times around the camp fire, with the boys all about, when Bud was telling one of his tales of Indians, Dick had thought what he would do if he ever came in contact with a real, live, sure-enough redskin, and always he had thought how brave he would be. But now that he had actually met one, he felt his nerve ooze away.

  However, the Indian was not aware of it, for Dick had a way of keeping his feelings to himself, and he seldom showed whether he was surprised or angry, although he never hesitated to let his friends know his pleasure at their kindness, or gratitude for what they did for him.

  He was looking at the Indian steadily, taking stock of him, and this is what he saw: A broad, dirty face, in which burned two small, narrow eyes. The cheek bones were prominent, and on each one was a spot of red paint. The long, black, coarse hair was braided with pieces of otter fur, and covered with an old cavalry cap, in which was stuck a crow's wing feather, and around his neck hung a small, round pocket mirror attached to a red string, by way of ornament.

  The Indian wore a dirty cotton shirt and a pair of brown overalls, and his feet were covered with green moccasins, decorated with small tubes of tin, which jingled every time he took a step.

  A belt and holster hung at his hip, and the handle of a Colt forty-four was within easy reach.

  "White papoose where go?" asked the Indian, showing a row of sharpened teeth.

  "Hunt coyote," replied Dick, in a voice that trembled.

  "Heap fool. No catch coyote," said the Indian, reaching over and lifting Dick's Remington from the saddle.

  He sighted it, turned it around in his hand, and then coolly slung it over his shoulder.

  "Here, give that to me," said Dick sturdily. With this act of theft all his courage came back to him. No dirty Indian should have the rifle Stella had given him.