The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians.

by Willard F. Baker.

CHAPTER I

COMPANY COMING

High and clear the sweet, western wind brought over the rolling hills the sound of singing. At least it was singing of a sort, for there was a certain swing and rhythm accompanying the words. As the melody floated toward them, three young cowboys, seated at ease in their saddles, looked up and in the direction of the singer.

Thus the song.

"Oh, bury me out on th' lonesome prairie!

Put a stone under my haid!

Cover me up with a rope an' a saddle!

'Cause why? My true-love is daid * * * * * *"

It is impossible in cold print to indicate the mournful and long-drawn-out accent on the word "dead," to rhyme with head.

"Here comes Slim!" exclaimed one of the youthful cow punchers to his companions.

"As if we didn't know that, d.i.c.k!" laughed the slighter of two lads who, from their close resemblance, could be nothing less than brothers.

"His voice doesn't improve with age; does it, Nort?" asked Bud Merkel, smiling at his cousins, Norton and Richard Shannon.

"But he means well," declared Nort with a chuckle. "Oh, you Slim!" he shouted, as a tall lanky individual, mounted on a pony of like proportions, ambled into view, topping a slight rise of the trail.

"Oh, you Slim!"

The older cowboy--a man, to be exact--who had been about to break forth into the second, or forty-second verse of his song (there being in all seventy-two stanzas, so it doesn't much matter which one is designated)--the older cowboy, I say, paused with his mouth open, and a blank look on his face. Then he grinned--that is the only word for it--and cried:

"Well, I'm a second cousin to a ham sandwich! Where'd you fellows come from?"

"We haven't come--we're just going!" laughed Bud. "We're going over to see Dad and the folks. How are they all?"

"Oh, they're sittin' pretty! Sittin' pretty!" affirmed Slim Degnan, with a mingled smile and grin. "How'd you fellows come out with your spring round-up?"

"Pretty fair," admitted Bud. "A few steers short of what we figured on, but that's nothing."

"I should say not!" chuckled Slim. "Your paw was a heap sight worse off'n that."

"Rustlers again?" asked Nort quickly, as he and his brother glanced at one another. They had not forgotten the stirring times when they were on the trail of the ruthless men who had raided Diamond X ranch, and their own cattle range.

"No, nothin' like that," answered Slim easily. "Just natural depravity, so to speak. Some of 'em ate loco weed and others jest got too tired of livin' I reckon. But we come out pretty fair. Just got th' last bunch shipped, an' I'm mighty glad of it."

"Same here!" spoke d.i.c.k. "That's why we came over here--on a sort of vacation."

"I reckon some other folks is headin' this way on th' same sort of ideas," remarked Slim Degnan, as he rolled a cigarette with one hand, a trick for which the boys had no use, though they could but admire the skill of the foreman.

"What do you mean?" asked Bud. "Is Dad going to take a vacation? If he does--"

"Don't worry, son! Don't worry!" laughed Slim, as he ignited a match by the simple process of scratching the head with his thumb nail.

"Cattle will have to fetch a heap sight more'n they do now when he takes a few days off," declared the foreman. "What I meant was that some tenderfeet individuals are headin'--"

Slim did not finish the sentence for he was nearly thrown from his saddle (something most unusual with him) as his pony gave a sudden leap to one side, following a peculiar noise in a bunch of gra.s.s on which the animal almost stepped.

The noise was not unlike that made by a locust in a tree on a hot day, but there was in the vibrations a more sinister sound. And well did Slim's horse know what it indicated.

"A rattler!" yelled Bud, and close on the heels of his words followed action.

He whipped out his .45, there was a sliver of flame, a sharp crack at which the three steeds of the trio of youthful cowboys jumped slightly, and there writhed on the trail a venomous rattle-snake, its head now a shapeless ma.s.s where the bullet from Bud's gun had almost obliterated it.

"Whew! A big one!" exclaimed Slim, who had quickly gotten his pony under control again, and turned it back toward the scene of action. It spoke well for his ability that he had not lost his cigarette, and was puffing on it, though the sudden leap of his steed, to avoid a bite that probably would have meant death, had jarred the words from his mouth.

"First of the season," added Bud, slipping his gun back into the holster.

"Are they more poisonous then than at other times?" asked Nort.

"Guess there isn't much difference, son," affirmed Slim. "I don't want to be nipped by one at any time. Much obliged, Bud," he said, easily enough, though there was a world of meaning in his voice. "I sh.o.r.e plum would hate to have to shoot Pinto, and that's what I'd a done if that serpent had set its fangs in his leg."

"Why'd he shoot him?" asked d.i.c.k, for he and his brother, though far removed from the tenderfoot cla.s.s, were not wise to all western ways yet.

"There isn't much chance for a horse after it's been bit deep by a rattler," Bud explained. "Of course I don't say every horse that's bitten will die, but it's harder to doctor them than it is a man. And Slim meant he wouldn't want to see Pinto suffer."

"You're right there, Bud!" drawled Slim Degnan. "They do say this new-fangled treatment is better'n whisky for snake bites, but I don't reckon I want to chance it."

"The permanganate of potash is almost a sure cure for the ordinary snake bite, if you use it in time," declared Bud. "But I don't know that it would work after a _fer de lance_ set his fangs into you.

Anyhow I'm glad we haven't anything worse than rattlers and copperheads around here."

"They're bad enough!" affirmed Slim, as he gave a backward glance toward the still writhing form of the big rattler, which was now past all power of doing harm.

The incident seemed to cause the foreman to forget what he had been about to say when his horse shied, and the boy ranchers, by which t.i.tle is indicated Bud, Nort and d.i.c.k, did not attach enough importance to it to cause them to question their companion. Yet what Slim had been about to say was destined to have a great influence on their lives in the immediate future, and was to cause them to ride forward into danger. But then danger was nothing new to them.

"Well, things are right peaceful since we got rid of Del Pinzo and his gang of greasers," observed Slim, as he rode on with the boys down the trail that led to Diamond X ranch, the property of Bud's father.

"But I'm always worrying for fear they'll come back, or we'll have some sort of trouble with our cattle," observed d.i.c.k. "It doesn't seem possible that over at our Happy Valley ranch we'll be let alone to do as we please."

"Don't cross a bridge until you hear the rattling of the planks!"

paraphrased Nort to his brother. "We're all right so far."

"Yes, things are sittin' right pretty for the present," declared Slim.

"Well, here we are," he added, as a turn of the trail brought them within sight of the corrals and other parts of Diamond X ranch. "And there's your folks," he added, as a woman and girl, standing in the yard of a red ranch house, began to wave their hands to the boys.

"I see Dad!" exclaimed End.

"Where?" asked Nort.

"Over by the pony corral, talking to Yellin' Kid. Looks like Kid just came in with the mail."