The Pony Rider Boys in Texas

by Patchin, Frank Gee

  Yet between the two he preferred to take his chances with snakes, at that moment, rather than with the crazy steers.

  The leaders of the steers cleared the log, just grazing it with their hind feet as they went over, sending a shower of dust and decayed wood over Tad.

  The cattle immediately following the leaders did not fare so well. A number of them, leaping over the log at the same instant, fell headlong as the pony had done before them. However, the steers were less fortunate. Before they were able to scramble to their feet, others following had tumbled over on top of them, and Tad Butler found himself wedged in behind a barricade of bellowing cattle, whose flying hoofs made him hastily burrow deeper into the decayed log.

  This obstruction soon caused the main body to swerve. Their solid front had been broken at last, yet they continued on as wildly as before, bellowing and horning one another in their mad flight.

  The rain, which had held back during the brilliant electrical display, now came down in drenching torrents, packing down the sand of the plain which the wind, before, had picked up and tossed into the air in dense clouds.

  Tad was soaked to the skin almost instantly. But he did not mind this. His thought, now, was to get out of his perilous position and follow the herd.

  The cattle that had fallen so near him, were now one by one extricating themselves from their predicament, each one giving vent to a bellow as it did so and dashing after its companions.

  The lad was not slow to crawl from his hiding place the moment he considered it safe to do so. As it was, he got away before the snarl of steers had entirely unraveled itself.

  What to do Tad did not know. His pony gone, and, with no sense of direction left, he was in sore straits.

  "I'll follow the cattle," he decided. "Besides, it's my business to stay with them if I can. I'll do it as long as I've got a leg to stand on," he declared, cautiously working around those of the cattle that were leaping from the heap and running away.

  The mesquite was still full of stragglers dashing wildly here and there. In the darkness, the boy was really in great danger. There were no large trees behind which he could dodge to get out of the way of the animals as they rushed toward him, nor was he able to see them when they did get near him. He was obliged to judge of their direction by sound alone. This was made doubly difficult since the rain had begun to fall, for now, young Butler could scarcely distinguish one sound from another.

  Once a plunging steer hit the lad a glancing blow with its great side, hurling him into a thicket of bristling mesquite. The thorns gashed his face and body, almost stripping the remnants of his tattered clothes from him.

  Still, with indomitable pluck, the lad sprang to his feet, stubbornly working his way through the thicket.

  He came out finally on the other side and floundering about for a time, found himself once more on a plain, which he had observed in the light from a flash of lightning extended away indefinitely. Off to the west, he plainly made out a large body of cattle. Apparently they were now headed to the northwest.

  It was almost a hopeless task for one to expect to be able to overhaul them on foot, and even were he to do so he could accomplish nothing after reaching them.

  But Tad kept on just the same, with the rain beating him until he was gasping for breath, the lightning playing about him in lingering sheets of yellow flame.

  He had run on in this way for fully half an hour when a flash disclosed an object to the right of him. It was moving, but Tad was sure it was not a steer.

  The boy changed his course somewhat and trotted along with more caution, shading his eyes with a hand that he might make out what it was when the next flash came.

  "It's a pony!" he shouted. "It's my pony!"

  The animal was standing with lowered head, gazing straight at the boy.

  Tad whistled and called with a long drawn "Whoa-oo-ope!"

  The pony made no move to approach, nor did it attempt to run away. But Tad had had experience enough with the cow ponies by this time to know that the animal was not likely to stand still and permit him to come up with it. At any moment it was likely to kick its heels in the air and dash away.

  "I've got to make a run for him," decided the lad, stepping cautiously forward, making a slight detour that he might come up from the animal's left instead of approaching him directly from the front.

  After having done this, Tad waited, crouching low. He chuckled to himself as he observed that the pony was looking straight ahead, not having discovered his master's new position.

  The boy was not more than two rods from him.

  Measuring the distance with his eyes, he waited until the lightning flash died out, then ran on his toes straight for where he believed the horse was standing. It was Tad's purpose to grab the animal about the neck.

  Instead he ran straight against the pony's side with a resounding bump.

  The pony uttered a grunt of fear, springing straight up into the air.

  "Whoa, Barney!" coaxed the lad. But Barney had no idea of obeying the command at that moment. It is doubtful if, in the fright of the sudden collision, he even understood what was wanted of him.

  Tad's hands had missed the neck. Instead they had grasped the pommel and cantle of the saddle, so that when the pony leaped, Tad's feet were jerked clear of the ground.

  As the animal came down on all fours, Tad threw himself into the saddle.

  Instantly the pony's back arched, and, with a cough, it went off into a series of bucks, twisting, whirling and making desperate efforts to unseat its rider.

  For the first few minutes the lad could do no more than hold on. At the first opportunity, however, he let go of the pommel long enough to reach forward and pick up the reins, which hung well down on the pony's neck.

  "Now, buck, Barney, you rascal!" shouted Tad gleefully, giving a gentle pressure with the spurs.

  Barney at once decided to stop bucking.

  Tad clucked to him and shook out the reins.

  Away they went on the trail of the cattle, heading to the northwest, where the lad could plainly see them running.

  At the pace the pony was going they were able to overhaul the herd in a short time. Tad had clung to his quirt when he was thrown. Reaching the head of the line of charging beasts, he rode straight at the leaders, bringing the quirt again and again across the noses of those nearest to him. This treatment served to deflect the line a little; yet, try as he would, Tad seemed unable to turn the bunch toward home. Yet he kept steadily at his work, "milling" the steers, as the turning process is called, until pony and rider were well-nigh exhausted.

  Tad knew he was a long way from camp and alone with the herd. After a time the animals seemed to him to be slackening their speed. Discovering this, he untied the slicker or rubber blanket from the saddle cantle, and, riding against the leaders again, flaunted the slicker in their faces, shouting and urging at the same time.

  "If I had a gun I believe I could stop them right away," he said. "But I'm going to turn them if it's the last thing I ever do."

  The fury of the storm was abating and the lightning flashes were becoming less frequent.

  Now that he had succeeded in turning the point of the herd, it proved much easier to keep them under control. Besides, it gave both boy and pony a breathing spell. The hard riding was not now necessary.

  Round and round young Butler kept the herd circling for nearly an hour. The steers, moving more and more slowly, Tad concluded wisely that they were growing tired of this and that they would quiet down. His judgment proved correct. The storm passed. He could hear it roaring off to the northwest where the lightning flamed up in intermittent flashes.

  "Wonder what time it is," queried Tad aloud, searching about in his clothes for his watch.

  "Pshaw, I've lost it," he exclaimed. "Well, it is not so much of a loss after all. I paid only a dollar for it and I've had more than a dollar's worth of fun to-night. I wonder what I look like. I must be a sight."

  It now lacked only
an hour of dawn, but, of course, the boy did not know this. In the darkness preceding the dawn he had no idea of the size of the bunch of cattle that he had led out over the plain. He knew it must be large, however.

  At last daybreak was at hand, the landscape and the herd being faintly outlined in the thin morning light. Tad was surprised to find that he had milled the cattle into a compact bunch. Now the boy began galloping around the herd, speaking words of encouragement to the animals as he went, whistling and trying to sing, until finally he was rewarded by seeing some of them begin to graze.

  "I've done it," shouted Tad gleefully. "I've bagged the whole bunch. I wonder what Mr. Stallings will say to that. I don't believe Big-foot Sanders could beat that. The next question is, where am I? I don't know. I guess I'm lost for sure. But I've got lots of company."

  To add to his perplexity, a light fog was drifting over the plain from the southeast, shutting out what little view there was in the early morning light.

  The cattle were now grazing as contentedly as if they never had known such an experience as a stampede. It was useless, however, to attempt to drive them, for he might be leading them away from camp instead of toward it.

  Tad was wet and hungry, and now that he was able to get a look at himself, he discovered that his belt was about the only whole thing left of his equipment. Scarcely a vestige of his trousers remained; his shirt hung in ribbons, his hat was lost and his leggins had been stripped off clean.

  Tad laughed heartily as he surveyed himself.

  "Well, I am a sight! I guess I shall need a whole new harness before I drive cattle much more."

  All he could do now was to wait for the sun to rise. Then, he might be able to determine something about his position.

  But the sun was a long time in making its appearance that day.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XI

  THE VIGIL ON THE PLAINS

  "I wish I had a drink of water," said Tad after some hours had passed. Instead of drifting away, the fog had become more dense. He could see only part of the herd now. However, as they showed no disposition to run, Tad felt no concern in that direction. He was obliged to ride around the herd more frequently than would otherwise have been the case, in order to keep the straying ones well rounded in.

  The hours passed slowly, and with their passing Tad's appetite grew. He sat on his pony, enviously watching the cattle filling their stomachs with the wet grass.

  "I almost wish I were a steer," declared Tad. "I could at least satisfy my hunger."

  Then the lad once more took up his weary round.

  Off to the eastward, all was still excitement. The herd had broken up into many parts during the stampede and the cowmen were having a hard time in rounding up the scattered bunches.

  A few of them had succeeded in working some of the animals back to the bedding ground of the previous night, where the animals were left in charge of one man.

  With the coming of the morning and the fog, which blanketed everything, their work became doubly difficult. The storm had wiped out almost all traces of the trail made by the different herds in their escape, until even an Indian would have been perplexed in an effort to follow them.

  "Who is missing?" asked Stallings, riding into camp after a fruitless search for his cattle.

  "Tad Butler, for one," answered Walter Perkins.

  "Let's see. He was on guard with Big-foot Sanders," mused the foreman. "Big-foot has not shown up, so the young man probably is with him. No need to worry about them. Big-foot knows this country like a book. You can't lose him. Then there's Curley Adams and Lumpy Bates to come in yet. I can see us eating our Thanksgiving dinner on the trail if this thing keeps up much longer."

  Yet, despite these discouragements, the foreman kept his temper and his head.

  "Is there nothing we can do toward finding the boy?" asked Professor Zepplin anxiously.

  "Does it look like it?" answered Stallings, motioning toward the fog that lay over them like a dull, gray, cheerless blanket.

  Late in the afternoon Curley and Lumpy came straggling into camp with the remnants of the herd, with which they had raced out hours before. An hour afterwards, Big-foot Sanders drove in with a bunch of two hundred more.

  "Where's the Pinto?" asked Stallings as Big-foot rode up to the trail wagon and reported.

  "The Pinto? Why, I haven't seen the kid since the bunch started on the rampage last night. I thought he was with me on the other end of the herd. Hasn't he come in yet?"

  "No."

  "Then the kid's lost. All the cows back?"

  "I don't know. I'll look over the herd and make an estimate. You come along with me."

  Together the foreman and the big cowman rode out to the grazing ground, where they circled the great herd, glancing critically over them as they rode.

  "What do you think?" asked Big-foot as they completed the circuit of the herd.

  "I should say we were close to five hundred head short," decided the foreman. "How does it look to you?"

  "I reckon you're about right. Suffering cats, but that was a run! Never saw a bunch scatter so in my life."

  "Couldn't be helped. The night was so dark you couldn't tell whether you had a hundred or a thousand with you. Did you strike any cross trails while you were coming in!"

  "Nary a onenot in the direction I came from. If I'd kept on last night, at the rate I was going, I'd have rounded up in Wyoming some time to-day I reckon. Sorry the Pinto's strayed away. He'll have a time of it finding his way back. Reckon we won't see the kid again this trip," decided Big-foot.

  "We've got to," answered the foreman sharply. "We don't move from this bed till he's been picked up, even if it takes all summer."

  "Youyou don't reckon he's with that other bunch, do you?"

  "I shouldn't be surprised. The boy has pluck and I have an idea that if he got in with a lot of cows he'd stick to them till the pony went down under him."

  "More'n likely that's what happened. I'll tell you what we had better do"

  "Get all the boys together who are not needed on guard," interrupted Stallings. "Let them circle out to the west and southwest and shoot. Have each man fire a shot every five minutes by the watch as they move out. That will keep them in touch with each other, and will act as a guide to the kid if he happens to be within hearing."

  "How far shall we go?"

  "Half an hour out. It's not safe to leave the herd any longer unless the fog clears away. As soon as that goes we'll organize a regular search. I want those cows, and I want to find the boy."

  The men quickly mounted their ponies and disappeared in the fog, following the orders given by the foreman. After a time those in camp could faintly hear the distant cracks of the cowpunchers' pistols as they fired their signals into the air.

  In the meantime Tad Butler was keeping his lonely vigil on the fogbound plains many miles away.

  The fog was still hovering over the herd as the afternoon waned, and the lad's body was dripping wet from it. Occasionally he brushed a hand across his face, wiping away the moisture.

  Darkness settled down earlier than usual that night. Yet, to the boy's great relief, the fog lifted shortly afterwards and the stars came out brightly.

  With the skill of an old cowman Tad had bedded down the herd and began to ride slowly about them, whistling vigorously. His face ached from the constant puckering of his lips, and his wounds gave him considerable pain. Yet he lost none of his cheerfulness.

  At times Tad found himself drooping in his saddle as his sleepiness overcame him. But he fought the temptation to doze by talking to himself and bringing the quirt sharply against his legs.

  "Tad Butler, don't you dare to go to sleep!" he warned himself. "It's the first real duty you have had to perform, so you're not going to make a mess of it. My, but I'm hungry!"

  From that on the boy never allowed his eyelids to drop, though at times they felt as if weighted down with lead.

  After what seemed an eternity, the gray dawn appe
ared on the eastern horizon. Immediately Tad began routing out the cows that they might have an opportunity to graze before the rising of the sun. It was his intention to point them toward where he believed the camp to be the moment they had grazed to their satisfaction. Until then it would not be wise to start the animals on their course.

  About six o'clock, deciding that they had eaten enough, Tad began galloping up and down, shouting and applying his quirt here and there to the backs of the cows. It was slow work for one lone horseman to start five hundred cattle on the trail. Yet, after half an hour of effort, he had the satisfaction of seeing them begin to move.

  "Whoop!" shouted the boy. "I'm a real cowboy this time!"

  Yet his task was more difficult than he had imagined it could be. While he was urging on one part of the herd, the others would lag by the wayside and begin to graze.

  Constant effort and continual moving about at high speed on his part, were necessary to keep up any sort of movement among the cattle.

  The lad headed as nearly as possible for the southeast, believing that he had come from that direction.

  At the same time a party had set out from the camp in search of young Butler. They had laid their course more toward the southwest. Holding these directions the two parties would not come within some miles of each other.

  Tad's eyes were continually sweeping the plains in hope of discovering a horseman or some signs of the main herd, which he was sure must have been rounded up long before. Not a trace of them could he discover.

  Once the boy straightened up in his saddle believing he had heard the report of a gun. After listening for some time he came to the conclusion that he had been in error.

  "I guess it's my stomach imagining things," grinned Tad Butler.

  He had now been out for two nights, and was now well along on the second day. During all that time he had not had a mouthful to eat. His lips were dry and parched; his throat burned fearfully. Still, he kept resolutely on. About two o'clock in the afternoon the herd came upon a clump of trees. Tad at sight of it, spurred his pony on, attracted by the greenness of the grass about the place, hoping that he might find a spring.