Ted and Stella rode on to Kit's camp to see how Follansbee was getting on, and found him doing nicely, but Stella laughed at the bandages Bud had put on the wounded cow-puncher, and insisted on redressing the wound.
Stella was a master hand at bandaging, because she was deft of hand and was naturally sympathetic.
When she had finished with Follansbee, and had sewed his bandages so that he could not rub or drag them off, he said he felt a hundred per cent better already.
Then they proceeded toward the mountains, where the third camp, under the direction of Ben Tremont, was situated.
It was almost the dying of the day when they left Ben's camp. He had not heard of the attack on Follansbee, and Ted made it an occasion to warn Ben against the attacks of the Whipple gang, as he was in the most exposed place, being so near the mountains.
When they turned their ponies' noses toward the south again it was to ride through a part of the herd.
Ted noticed that the cattle were feeding well and that there was plenty of good, rich, well-cured grass, and that it was free of snow in big enough patches to give the cattle ample room to graze.
As they were riding along Stella drew rein.
"What's the matter with that steer over there, Ted?" she asked, pointing to a steer that was dragging one of its hind legs.
Ted looked at the steer in question, which was moving slowly forward.
"See, there's another," cried Stella. "Why, I can see a dozen of them all limping in the same manner."
"That's strange," said Ted. "I wouldn't think anything of it if only one steer had gone lame, but I can't understand a dozen."
They rode slowly toward the lame steers.
"Great guns," exclaimed Ted, bending low in his saddle to examine the steers closely.
"What is it?" asked Stella excitedly.
"This is terrible," said Ted. "If this keeps up we might as well shoot all the cattle and let them lie out here on the prairie the prey to the wolves. We will never get them back to Moon Valley."
Stella looked at him with an expression of consternation on her face.
"These cows and steers have been hamstrung," said Ted, with a tone of suppressed rage in his voice. "Any man who would do a trick like that ought to be shot down in his tracks like a mad dog."
"Hamstrung! I don't understand."
"Some inhuman brute has ridden up behind these crippled animals, and with a sharp knife has cut the tendons or leaders behind the hoofs, or, rather, in the ankles, laming them and preventing them from being able to follow a drive. Where would we be in the spring if any large portion of our beasts were so maimed?"
"What a brutal thing to do!" exclaimed Stella, in indignation.
"Hello, what's that?"
Ted rose in his stirrups, standing and shading his eyes with his hand against the glare of the setting sun on the snow. With the other hand he was pointing off toward the east, where the cattle were milling uneasily.
"Something wrong over there," said Stella.
They rode slowly in that direction to see what was disturbing the cattle.
As they went, Ted was looking for other hamstrung beasts.
"By Jove! this is getting worse and more of it," he exclaimed. "See there! That steer has had the tendons of his leg cut to-day. The wound is fresh. It has hardly stopped bleeding. I wonder——"
But before he had finished the sentence he applied the quirt to his pony and was dashing through the herd, with Stella close behind.
He had seen something strange and out of the way in the milling herd, and while he thought he knew what it was he could hardly believe that it could be true.
As he rode he drew his revolver, and broke it to see that its chambers were filled.
Ted's face was pale and stern, and Stella saw at a glance that he was terribly angry, and had the look in it that she had observed there several times when he had seen animals being used with cruelty.
As he dashed into the milling herd he gave a cry of rage.
At the same moment a man sprang to an upright position in the midst of the cattle, and gave a cry of surprise.
Over his shoulders hung the fresh hide of a cow, with the skin of the head and the horns protruding above his head.
He gave one swift glance at Ted, then threw the hide to the ground and set out at a run through the plunging beasts.
Ted was hampered by the cattle getting in his way, and was not making much progress, but he was beating the horned beasts aside with his quirt.
It was possible even yet that the man who was running from him would escape, and this was what Ted was trying with all his might to prevent.
Ted knew why the man was among the cattle protected from them by his disguise of the cow's hide.
He had been hamstringing them by the wholesale.
In one day the inhuman brute could destroy for range use a whole herd.
In the meantime, the cattle were growing wilder and wilder from the pain caused by the hamstringer's knife, the wild career of the unmounted man among them, and Ted and Stella pressing through them from the rear with shouts and cracking quirts.
"Great Scott! They'll get him!" shouted Ted, reining in his pony.
The furious steers had turned their attention to the man on foot, and were surging about him with angry bellowings, charging upon him, and crowding him.
He was in a very perilous position, and it was only that the cattle were herded so close together that he had not gone down sooner.
But once the cattle got him down he would be gored and trampled to death. Nothing could save him.
Ted and Stella were trying to force their way to his side, but were unable to do so.
Notwithstanding the fact the fellow had been caught in the act of mutilating his cattle, Ted could not see him die without trying to save him.
Now they heard a cry of fear, and saw the man throw his arms up in the air.
The cattle were surging about him with wild and angry bovine cries, and with a great tossing of horns, and leaps into the air.
There were muffled yells of agony from beneath the tossing mass of horns.
"They've got him," muttered Ted. "They are wreaking their own revenge."
"Are they killing him, Ted?" asked Stella.
"They have got him down. The fool he was to go among them on foot. He should have known better."
Ted made another effort to get through the cattle, and at last succeeded in making a lane for himself.
"Stella," he shouted over his shoulder, "you stay where you are! This is nothing for you to see. Better let me attend to this."
Stella was aware that Ted always knew what he was talking about when he warned her away from anything, and she made her way out of the herd.
When Ted got to the spot where he had last seen the man, the cattle were still milling, but were getting calmer, and had no hesitancy in scattering when he rode among them slashing right and left with his quirt and firing his revolver over their heads.
When he had cleared an open space he rode back into it, and instantly recoiled from the sight presented to him.
On the ground lay the hamstringer, a mass of bloody clothes in which were torn flesh and broken bones. He was quite dead, and had been not only gored but had been trampled hundreds of times.
The vengeance of the maimed animals was complete.
* * *
CHAPTER VII.
A NIGHT RAID.
Ted bent over the mangled body of the hamstringer and turned him over. Then he leaped back with an exclamation of horror.
He had recognized the miscreant.
It was Sol Flatbush, the traitorous cow-puncher, member of the gang of cattle rustlers and gamblers headed by Shan Rhue, who had run off about five hundred head of cattle of the Circle S brand into the Wichita Mountains in Indian Territory.
But how had Sol Flatbush got into this part of the country? And where was he stopping? It was evident that the cow-puncher and desperado had hamstrung the cattle out of rev
enge for having been discovered and driven out of the broncho boys' camp.
Now that he was dead, however, Ted lost all his resentment, and was genuinely sorry for the poor chap because of the horrible means of his death.
Ted hardly knew what to do with him. It were better if his friends could take charge of his body and bury it, but where were his friends?
Suddenly a thought occurred to Ted. Perhaps Sol Flatbush, following his instincts and habits, had come north after he and Shan Rhue had been outwitted by the boys at the Hole in the Wall in the Wichita Mountains, and allied himself with the Whipple gang in the Sweet Grass Mountains.
If this were true, the simplest thing to do was to send the body of Flatbush to the gang. It would serve, Ted hoped, as a terrible warning to the other members of the gang not to meddle with the affairs of the broncho boys.
Not far away Ted saw a pony, saddled and grazing quietly.
Mounting his pony, he rode up to it. Tied to the cantle of the saddle was a pair of blankets.
This was the very thing! Ted carried the blankets to where the body of Flatbush lay. Spreading them out, he rolled the remains of Flatbush into them, and bound them securely with a rope.
With some difficulty he lifted the bundle to the back of the outlaw's pony, and bound it securely with a lariat.
Then he tied the pony's reins to the horn of the saddle, gave the beast a slash with his quirt, and it started, snorting and jumping, toward the distant mountains.
Thus was the body of Sol Flatbush sent to his friends.
"What was it?" asked Stella, when Ted, having finished his gruesome task, returned to her side.
"The chap who was mutilating the cattle is dead," he replied. "The bulls turned upon him and gored and trampled him to death."
"Horrible! Do you know who he was?"
"Yes, I recognized him."
"Is that a fact! Who was he?"
"An old enemy of yours."
"An enemy of mine! I didn't know I had one."
"Not really of your own, for no one who knows you could feel any animosity toward you, Stella. But you have enemies through me. Those who would seek to hurt me do so by making trouble for you, knowing that they can hurt me worse by injuring you than they could by torturing me personally."
"That's why you have so often warned me to be careful where I go alone."
"That is why. It is not fair that you should be put to discomfort or in danger of death merely because I make enemies by trying to force men to obey the laws."
"I understand. But who was the man who was killed?"
"Sol Flatbush."
"Sol Flatbush! How does it happen that he is in this country?"
"I'm sure I don't know, unless he and Shan Rhue, after escaping from the Wichita Mountains, came directly here, having previously been members of the notorious Whipple gang."
"Then I suppose we shall see Shan Rhue one of these days. Ted, I'm afraid of that fellow. When they had me in the Hole in the Wall I heard him make the most horrible threats against you."
"Threats don't hurt, Stella. The threatened man lives long. You know the old proverb: 'The man I most fear is he who says nothing, but smiles in your face while he is planning to stab you in the back.'"
They were turned toward the ranch house, and as darkness was falling swiftly, conversation was suspended as they put their ponies to their highest speed, galloping across the snow-covered range toward where they could see the lantern of the house shining like a beacon through the gloom.
For the safety of the boys and the cow-punchers traveling toward the ranch house in the dark, Ted had placed a large lantern on the top of the flagstaff which stood in the front yard, so that it could be seen for miles at night to guide wanderers.
This had been suggested by his experience the first night they had spent at the house.
Those of the boys who were not riding line were stopping at the house, and they were all in the big living room awaiting the coming of Ted and Stella.
When Stella was late in arriving at the house, Mrs. Graham began to grow anxious and worried, and this was communicated to the others.
But when they heard Ted's ringing yell outside, as he and Stella galloped up, there were shouts of gladness inside, and the big door was thrown open, allowing a broad path of light to fall across the prairie, as two cow-punchers came bounding down the steps to take the ponies to the corral.
After supper Ted told of the maiming of the cattle and the death of Sol Flatbush.
It was part of the life at the ranch that bad news of any sort was never told at the table during meals, and if any of the fellows had a grievance or was in trouble he tried to keep that fact out of his face and look as merry as he could while the others were eating. If he wanted to tell his troubles later, and any one was willing to listen, all right and good, but mealtime was glad time where the broncho boys and their friends sat down together.
While they were sitting before the great fireplace after supper, Clay Whipple was looking into the flames with a preoccupied air.
He had been silent all evening, an unusual thing for him, for usually he injected humorously dry comments into general conversations.
"What's the trouble, Clay?" asked Stella, who was always the first to notice when one of the boys was not his usual self.
"Oh, I don't know," said Clay uneasily.
"Reckon he's worryin' some on account o' this yere mountain bandit bein' ther same name as him," laughed a cow-puncher named "Pike" Bander.
"I reckon you're only joshin', Pike," said Clay quietly, but growing a shade paler.
"Why, shore, Clay. Yer didn't think I wuz in earnest?" Pike hastened to say.
Clay's Kentucky blood would not permit him to receive without resentment any reflections against the South or the people of his family, while he could stand any amount of personal joshing without growing in the least touchy or angry.
"Then what's the matter?" asked Ted, as Clay returned to his gloomy contemplation of the fire.
"I'm worried some, that's all," was the reply.
"Tell your troubles to the policeman, that's us."
"Well, I might as well out with it. Only I don't want to appear as if I was gettin' panicky over nothing."
"What is it, Clay? You are so provoking when I am just dying to hear about it," cried Stella with a laugh. "Out with it."
"Injuns!" said Clay explosively.
"Indians!"
Every one around the fire sat up with a jump.
Clay nodded his head slowly without taking his eyes from the fire.
There was silence for a few minutes, for every one was turning this new menace over in their minds.
The danger from Indians in this far-away Northern country was very real. It was not that the Indians would make any open or daring attacks, but that they were lawless and fearless of the authority of the United States, and despised the "buffalo soldiers" at the near-by army posts.
"Buffalo soldiers" is a name of contempt given by the Indians to the negro troops who had been stationed near the Blackfeet and Crow Indian agencies, on account of their curly, woolly hair, which, in the fantastic minds of the Indians, resembled the short, curly hair on the shoulders of the buffalo.
The negro troops were too near their own color to demand much respect from the Indians.
But the danger did not come so much from the reservation Indians, as from the fugitive Indians who had left the reservations and had become outlaws, allying themselves with the white bandits in the mountains, and living by thievery from the ranchmen and sheep-herders.
Some of these Indians had rallied around Running Bear, a young Blackfeet, son of a chief, a graduate of the Indian School at Carlisle, in Pennsylvania.
Running Bear was a young fellow of magnificent physique, for he had been a member of the famous Indian football team of Carlisle that had a year or two previously cleared all white teams from the gridiron.
Running Bear was well educated also, and a man of fine address and
manners, when he wished to be so. But he was unprincipled, and when he returned to the tribe lost no time in breaking all the laws imposed by the United States for the government and welfare of the Indians.
This brought him into conflict with the Indian agent, and certain penalties were imposed on him. This he would not stand, and soon persuaded other of the young men of the tribe to mutiny against the agent.
This led to further trouble, and after committing some unforgivable offense against the United States, Running Bear rallied his young men, and they fled the reservation and the ways and protection of the white men, and took to the mountains, where they lived by raiding the ranches in the neighborhood, and maintaining a sort of defensive partnership with Whipple's band of white outlaws.
After a silence, during which every one was turning these facts over in his mind, Ted turned to Clay, and said:
"What about the Indians, Clay?"
"I saw their tracks."
"Where?"
"In the coulee back of the house."
"Near the house!" exclaimed Ted. "That's getting pretty close to home. Did they see you?"
"I reckon they did. I took a shot at one of them, an' he left a red trail in the snow."
"That's bad, Clay. You shouldn't have shot at him."
"Shouldn't, eh? Well, you never saw a fellow from ole Kaintuck that would stand up an' let a man shoot at him without sending his compliments back—if he happened to be packin' his gun at the time."
"Did they shoot at you, then?"
"One of them did. It was like this: I was ridin' in from the west, where I had seen a small bunch of strays which I turned back to the main herd. As I was comin' up to the big coulee I saw something move against the snow. At first I thought it was a grouse, and was just going to take a shot at it when I looked again. Then, by jinks, I saw that it was the head of an Indian shoved up over the edge of the coulee.
"His back was turned to me, and he was watching the house. I pulled in my pony and kept my eye on him for several minutes.
"Then I saw Mrs. Graham come out of the house and stand for a moment on the back porch.
"The Indian rose up and brought a rifle to his shoulder. At that I let out a yell, and he turned to me like a flash, and pulled his trigger. But he was in too much of a hurry, an' the ball whistled over my head.
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