The Pony Rider Boys in Texas

by Patchin, Frank Gee

  Stacy, grasping desperately as he went down, had caught the tail of a swimming steer. He had been quickly drawn to the surface, and out through an opening between the treading animals, appeared the fat boy's head.

  Chunky was not swimming. He was allowing the steer to do that for him, clinging to its tail with all his strength. The lad's eyes were blinded for the moment by the water that was in them. He did not release his hold of the tail when they had reached the shore, but hung on desperately while the steer, dragging him along through the mire, scrambled up the bank.

  There was no telling how long Stacy might have hung to the animal's tail, had not Stallings grabbed him by the collar as he rose over the crest of the bank. Stallings shook him until the water-soaked clothes sent out a miniature rain storm and the boy had coughed himself back to his normal condition.

  "Well, you are a nice sort of cowboy," laughed the foreman. "When you are unable to do anything else to interest your friends, you try to drown yourself. Go, shake yourself!"

  Stacy rubbed the water from his eyes.

  "II fell in, didn't I?" he grinned.

  After having ferried the trail wagon over, everybody was ready for supper. No one seemed to mind the wetting he had gotten. Professor Zepplin made a joke of his own bedraggled condition, and the boys gave slight heed to theirs.

  The cattle were quickly bedded down and guards placed around them almost immediately, for the clouds were threatening. Stallings' watchful eyes told him that a bad night was before them. How bad, perhaps he did not even dream.

  Supper was ready a short time after the arrival of the wagon, and, laughing and joking, the boys gathered about the spread with a keen zest for the good things that had been placed before them.

  "Do you boys feel like going out on guard to-night?" asked the foreman while they were eating.

  "I do for one," answered Tad.

  "And I," chorused the rest of the lads.

  "I see your recent wetting has not dampened your spirits any," laughed Stallings.

  "Conditions make a lot of difference in the lives of all of us," announced the Professor. "Now, were these boys at home they'd all catch cold after what they have been through this afternoon. Their clothes, as it is, will not be dry much before sunrise."

  "And perhaps not even then," added the foreman, with an apprehensive glance at the sky.

  "What did you say, Mr. Stallings?"

  "I am thinking that it looks like rain."

  "What do we do when it rains?" asked Stacy Brown.

  "Same as any other time, kid," growled Big-foot Sanders.

  "I know; but what do you do?" persisted Chunky.

  "Young feller, we usually git wet," snapped Curley Adams, his mouth so full of potatoes that they could scarcely understand him.

  "He means where do we sleep?" spoke up Tad.

  "Oh, in the usual place," answered the foreman. "The only difference is that the bed is not quite so hard as at other times."

  "How's that, Mr. Stallings?" inquired Walter.

  "Because there's usually a puddle of water under you. I've woke up many a morning on the plains with only my head out of water. I'd a' been drowned if I hadn't had the saddle under my head for a pillow. However, it doesn't matter a great sight. After it has been raining a little while a fellow can't get any wetter, so what's the odds?"

  "That's what I say," added Ned Rector.

  Stacy Brown shook his head, disapproval plainly written on his face.

  "I don't agree with you. I have never been so wet that I couldn't be wetter."

  "How about when you came out of the river at the end of a cow's tail this afternoon? Think you could have been any more wet?" jeered Ned.

  "Sure thing. I might have drowned; then I'd been wet on the inside as well as the outside," answered the fat boy, wisely, his reply causing a ripple of merriment all around the party.

  "I guess the gopher scored that time, eh?" grinned Big-foot.

  That night Stacy was sent out on the second guard from ten-thirty to one o'clock. They had found him asleep under the chuck wagon, whence he was hauled out, feet first, by one of the returning guards.

  Tad had turned in early, as he was to be called shortly before one to go out with the third guard and to remain on duty till half-past three.

  For reasons of his own the foreman had given orders that all the ponies not on actual duty, that night, were to be staked down instead of being hobbled and turned out to graze.

  Tad heard the order given, and noting the foreman's questioning glances at the heavens, imagined that it had something to do with weather conditions.

  "Do you think Mr. Stallings is worried about the weather?" asked the lad of Big-foot Sanders, as he rode along beside the big cowman on the way to the bedding place of the herd.

  "I reckon he is," was the brief answer.

  "Then you think we are going to have a storm?"

  "Ever been through a Texas storm?" asked Big-foot by way of answering the boy's question.

  "No."

  "Well, you won't call it a storm after you have. There ain't no name in the dictionary that exactly fits that kind of a critter. A stampede is a Sunday in a country village as compared with one of them Texas howlers. You'll be wishing you had a place to hide, in about a minute after that kind of a ruction starts."

  "Are they so bad as that?"

  "Well, almost," answered the cowman. "I've heard tell," he continued, "that they've been known to blow the horns off a Mexican cow. Why, you couldn't check one of them things with a three inch rope and a snubbing post."

  Tad laughed at the quaintness of his companion's words. The sky near the horizon was a dull, leaden hue, though above their heads the stars twinkled reassuringly.

  "It doesn't look very threatening to me," decided Tad Butler, gazing intently toward the heavens.

  "Well, here's where we split," announced the cowboy, riding off to the left of the herd, Tad taking the right. Shortly after the lad heard the big cowman break out in song:

  "Two little niggers upstairs in bed,

  One turned ober to de oder an' said,

  How 'bout dat short'nin' bread,

  How 'bout dat short'nin' bread?"

  Tad pulled up his pony and listened until the song had been finished. It was the cowpuncher's way of telling the herd that he had arrived and was on hand to guard them against trouble.

  "Big-foot seems to have a new song to-night," mused Tad.

  Now the lad noticed that there was an oppressiveness about the air that had not been present before.

  A deep orange glow showed on the southern horizon for an instant, then settled back into the prairie, leaving the gloom about the young cowboy even more dense than it had been before.

  "Feels spooky," was Tad's comment.

  Not being able to sing to his own satisfaction, Tad shoved his hands deep into his trousers pockets and began whistling "Old Black Joe." It was the most appropriate tune he could think of.

  "Kind of fits the night," he explained to the pony, which was picking its way slowly about the great herd. Then he resumed his whistling.

  The guards passed each other without a word, some being too sleepy; others too fully occupied with their own thoughts.

  The night, by this time, had grown intensely still, even the insects and night birds having hushed their weird songs.

  A flash more brilliant than the first attracted the lad's attention.

  "Lightning," he muttered, glancing off to the south. "I guess Mr. Stallings was right about the storm." Yet, directly overhead the stars still sparkled. In the distance Tad saw the comforting flicker of the camp-fire, about which the cowmen were sleeping undisturbed by the oppressiveness of the night.

  "I guess the foreman knew what he was talking about when he said we were going to have a storm," repeated Tad. "I wonder how the cattle will behave if things get lively."

  As if in answer to his question there came a stir among the animals on the side nearest him.

  Tad
began whistling at once and the cows quieted down.

  "They must like my whistling. It's the first time anything ever did," thought the lad.

  Far over on the other side of the herd Big-foot crooned to his charges the song of the "Two little niggers upstairs in bed."

  "Sanders' stock must be walking in their sleep, too. I wonder"

  A brilliant flash lighted the entire heaven, causing Tad Butler to cut short the remark he was about to make.

  A deep rumble of thunder, that seemed to roll across the plain like some great wave, followed a few seconds later.

  The lad shivered slightly.

  He was not afraid. Yet he realized that he was lonely, and wished that some of the other guards might come along to keep him company.

  Glancing up, Tad made the discovery that the small spot of clear sky had disappeared. By now he was unable to see anything. He made no effort to direct the pony, leaving it to the animal's instinct to keep a proper distance from the herd and follow its formation.

  The thunder gradually became louder and the flashes of lightning more frequent. The herd was disturbed. He could hear the cattle scrambling to their feet. Now and then the sound of locking horns reached him as the beasts crowded their neighbors too closely in their efforts to move about.

  Tad tried to sing, but gave it up and resumed his whistling.

  "I'm glad Chunky is not out on this trick," thought the boy aloud. "I am afraid he would be riding back to camp as fast as his pony could carry him."

  No sooner had the words left his mouth than a flash, so brilliant that it blinded Tad for the moment, lighted up the prairie. A crash which, as it seemed to him, must have split the earth wide open, followed almost instantly.

  Another roar, different from that caused by the thunder, rose on the night air, accompanied by the suggestive rattle of meeting horns and the bellowing of frightened cattle.

  By this time Tad had circled around to the west side of the herd. The instant this strange, startling noise reached him he halted his pony and listened.

  Off to the north of him he saw the flash of a six-shooter. Another answered it from his rear. Then a succession of shots followed quickly one after the other.

  The lad began slowly to understand.

  He could hear the rush and thunder of thousands of hoofs.

  "The cattle are stampeding!" cried Tad.

  * * *

  CHAPTER IX

  CHASED BY A STAMPEDING HERD

  "Whoa-oo-ope! Whoa-oo-ope!"

  The long soothing cry echoed from guard to guard.

  It was the call of the cowman, in an effort to calm the frightened animals. Here and there a gun would flash as the guards shot in front of the stampeding herd, hoping thereby to turn the rush and set the animals going about more in a circle in order to keep them together until they could finally be quieted.

  It was all a mad chaos of noise and excitement to the lad who sat in his saddle hesitatingly, not knowing exactly what was expected of him under the circumstances.

  Off toward the camp a succession of flashes like fireflies told the cowpunchers on guard that their companions were racing to their assistance as fast as horseflesh could carry them.

  The storm had disturbed the herd from the instant of the first flash of lightning, and, as other flashes followed, the excitement of the animals increased until, at last, throwing off all restraint, they dashed blindly for the open prairie.

  Desperately as the guards struggled to turn the herd, their efforts had no more effect than if they had been seeking to beat back the waves of the sea.

  Tad was recalled to a realization of his position when, in a dazzling flash of lightning, he caught a momentary glimpse of Big-foot Sanders bearing down on him at a tremendous speed. Tad saw something else, tooa surging mass of panic-stricken cattle, heads hanging low, horns glistening and eyes protruding, sweeping toward him.

  "Ride! Ride!" shouted Big-foot.

  "Whwhere?" asked Tad in as strong a voice as he could command.

  "Keep out of their way. Work up to the point as soon as you can and try to point in the leaders. We've got to keep the herd from scattering. I'll stay in the center and lead them till the others get here. Bob will send along some of the fellows to help you as soon as possible."

  While delivering his orders Big-foot had turned his pony, and, with Tad, was riding swiftly in advance of the cattle, in the same direction that they were traveling. To have paused where they were would have meant being crushed and trampled beneath the hoofs of the now maddened animals.

  "Now, git!"

  Tad pulled his pony slightly to the right.

  "Use your gun!" shouted Big-foot. "Burn plenty of powder in front of their noses if they press you too closely!"

  He had forgotten that the lad did not carry a gun, nor did he realize that he was sending the boy into a situation of the direst peril.

  Tad, by this time, had a pretty fair idea of the danger of the task that had been assigned to him. But he was not the boy to flinch in an emergency.

  Pressing the rowels of his spurs against the flanks of the reaching pony and urging the little animal on with his voice, Tad swept obliquely along in front of the herd.

  Now and then a flash of lightning would show him a solid mass of cattle hurling themselves upon him. At such times the lad would swerve his mount to the left a little and shoot ahead for a few moments, in an attempt to get sufficient lead of them to enable him to reach the right or upper end of the line.

  In this way Tad Butler soon gained the outside of the leaders. By dropping back and working up the line, he pointed them in to the best of his ability.

  The lightning got into his eyes as he strained them wide open to take account of his surroundings. He would pass a hand over his face instinctively, as if to brush the flash away, groping for an instant for his bearings after he had done so.

  He remembered what Bob Stallings had said in speaking of a stampede.

  "Keep them straight and hold them together. That's all you can do. You can't stop them," the foreman had said.

  The lad was doing this now as best he could, yet he wondered that none of the cowmen had come to his assistance.

  Again and again did Tad Butler throw his pony against the great unreasoning wave on the right of the line, and again and again was he buffeted back, only to return to the battle with desperate courage.

  All at once the lad found himself almost surrounded by the beasts. A lightning flash had shown him this at the right time. Had it been a few seconds later Tad must have gone down under their irresistible rush.

  The pony, seeming to realize the danger fully as much as did its rider, bent every muscle in its little body to bear itself and rider to safety.

  Yet try as they would, they were unable to get back to the right point to take up the turning work again.

  The cattle had closed in about the lad in almost a crescent formation, Tad's position being about the center of it.

  "Whoa-oo-ope! Whoa-oo-ope!" shouted Tad, taking up the cry that he had heard the cowboys utter earlier in the stampede.

  His voice was lost in the roar of the storm and the thunder of the rushing herd.

  Tad realized that there was only one thing left for him to do. That was to keep straight ahead and ride. He would have to ride fast, too, if he were to keep clear of the long-legged Mexican cattle.

  They were descending a gradual slope that led down into a broad, sandy arroyo where still stood the rotting stumps of oak and cottonwood trees that once lined the ancient water course.

  By this time the main herd lay to the rear nearly two miles, the cattle having separated into several bands. However, the lad was unaware of this.

  Suddenly, in the darkness, rider and pony crashed into a dense mesquite thicket.

  There was not a second to hesitate, for they were already in. The leading cattle tore in after Tad with a crashing of brush and a rattle of hornssounds that sent a chill up and down his spine in spite of all the lad's sturdy
courage.

  The herd was closing in on him, leaving the boy no alternative but to go through the thicket himself, and to go fast at that.

  Tad formed his plan instantly. He made up his mind to ride it out and let his pony have its own way. Yet the boy never expected to come through the mesquite thicket without being swept from his pony and trampled under the feet of the savage steers.

  He gave the pony a free rein, clutched both cantle and pommel of the saddle and braced himself for the shock that he was sure would come. The cow pony tore through the growth at a fearful pace, while the boy's clothes hung in shreds where they had been raked by the mesquite thorns.

  All at once Tad felt himself going through the air with a different motion. He realized that he was falling. The pony had stumbled and with its rider was plunging headlong to the ground. The cattle were thundering down upon them.

  * * *

  CHAPTER X

  A MIRACULOUS ESCAPE

  "That settles me!" said the lad bitterly.

  The next instant he hit the ground with a force that partially stunned him. His pony, whose nose had ploughed the ground, was up like a flash. Realizing its danger, the little animal gave a snort and plunged into the mesquite, leaving its rider lying on the ground with a fair prospect of being crushed to death beneath, the hoofs of the stampeding steers.

  Tad recovered himself almost instantly. His first instinct was to run, in the hope of overtaking the fleeing pony.

  "That'll be sure death," he told himself.

  The cattle were almost upon him. If he were to do anything to save himself he would have to act quickly.

  It came to him suddenly that what the pony had fallen over might be made to act as a shield for himself. The boy sprang forward, groping in the dark amid the roaring of the storm and the thunder of the maddened herd. His hands touched a log. He found that it had so rotted away on one side as to make a partial shell. It was not enough to admit a human body, but it served as a sort of screen for him. Tad burrowed into it as far as he could get.

  "I hope there are no snakes in here," he thought, snuggling close.