CHAPTER II.
THE RAID.
“Ghosties!” gasped Sandy, in a voice scarcely above a whisper.
“No wonder we couldn’t place it—but I knew it warn’t no coyote,” asserted Deadshot.
For several minutes the men gazed at the awesome thing as it flitted hither and thither.
“By the blood of my mother! But I’m glad the crittur never took it into its head to visit us on the range,” breathed Pinky.
“Same here,” chorused Sandy and Deadshot.
“It means trouble—you see if it doesn’t,” continued the latter. “The only other time I ever see anything like it was the night before the Piutes dashed down on old man Turner’s ranch and killed all but me and a low-down gambler called Crooked Joe.”
This assertion that the eerie spectre floating before their eyes was not the first one he had seen instantly claimed the ears of his companions, though they kept their gaze riveted on the apparition.
“What wasthatone like?” breathed Pinky.
“It was all lit up, like fire. The Piutes said it was a curse put out by their Medicine Man.”
“But how’d you manage to get away from the Injuns and escape the massacre?” inquired Sandy, in whom Deadshot’s tales of his experiences always aroused suspicion of their truthfulness.
“Me and Crooked Joe sloped as soon as the light in the sky was discovered. Mark my word, man dear,every time you sees anything in the air like ghosties, it means trouble!”
“Well, you aren’t going to get out of it this time by digging out,” broke in the ranch owner, who had been listening with increasing alarm to his cowpuncher’s story, and feared the effect it might have upon the rest of his men. “I need you all to-morrow to get the bunch to the loading station. So don’t think you can sneak off.”
“We can’t eh?” demanded Deadshot. “Who’s a going to stopmeif I want to go?”
“I am, with this rifle I’ve got in my hands,” returned the owner of the ranch, calmly. “I don’t want any trouble. But I won’t stand for any of this nonsense about spirits, trouble and running away. If any one of you tries to get a pony from that corral to-night, I’ll put a shell into him. Just keep that in your heads.”
The unexpected turn of affairs had amazed the other cowboys, and, forgetting all about the spectre, they watched the ranchman and his helper.
“You kinder got the drop on me, Sam,” growled the cowpuncher, “so I ’low I’ll do just as you say. Besides, I didn’t mean nothing anyhow.”
“All right, Deadshot. No hard feelings. Let’s go over to the cattle corral and see what this white thing is.”
“What, go chasing a ghostie?” gasped Sandy, the very thought of any man daring to investigate an apparition seeming akin to sacrilege to his superstitious mind.
“Sure. Why not? It won’t eat you.”
“Well,youcan go if you like. But I ain’t particular,” returned the foreman. “That ain’t any part of my job.”
The necessity for any one to go, however, was suddenly obviated.
With an abruptness that was in keeping with its coming, the spectre vanished.
“Skulls and crossbones! Did you see that? It just floated away and we looking straight at it!” moaned Sandy.
The uncanniness of the apparition’s disappearance impressed even the ranch owner, and he was wondering as to the course he should pursue to reassure his men, when Pinky whispered:
“Let’s go into the house before the blamed thing lights on us here!”
The thought that the mysterious spectre might appear face to face with them unnerved these men of the plains—men to whom danger in any tangible form was a delight—and they were on the point of dashing into their bunkhouse in utter panic when they were recalled to their normal selves.
Simultaneously with the disappearance of the spectre came a pitching and swaying among the cattle, followed instantly by terrified bellowing and the wildest confusion.
“The ghosties cast a spell on the cattle!” whimpered Sandy.
“Didn’t I say it meant trouble?” demanded Deadshot, exulting at the very evident fulfilment of his prophecy.
“Don’t stand there talking! Get your ponies and come on! We’ve got our work cut out for us! What it means I don’t know. But Idoknow, if we don’t steady those cattle down lively, they’ll stampede—and then we’ll have a merry time!” declared the ranchman, leading the way to the horse corral.
A moment, fearing that the animals had, indeed, been cursed, held the cowpunchers inactive. Then, their lifelong training on the plains coming to the fore, they followed their employer and were soon racing to the terror-stricken cattle.
Their fear increasing with every moment, the animals were plunging and lowing, the crashing of their horns sounding like the barking of pistols above the dull roar of the pounding of their hoofs.
“There must be wolves in amongst ’em!” yelled Sandy, riding up close to Bowser. “It’s breaking out all over the corral, not in just one place.”
“Well, whatever it is, we’ve got to quiet the cattle, or I won’t have one fit to ship away. Get busy, boys!”
But just as the ranchman finished speaking, Pinky let out a yell.
“Look, right in the middle of the corral! The ghostie again!” he cried.
Turning their eyes in the direction indicated, the horsemen beheld the same white form seemingly floating over the heads of the cattle.
“It must be the Old Nick himself!” moaned Sandy. “There’ll be no quieting them critturs, Sam, with that thing hovering over them.”
Too well did the ranch owner realize this fact—and he also realized that unless he did something to remove the suggestion of the supernatural from the mysterious apparition, he would be unable to control either men or cattle.
Just what the thing was, he did not know. Yet, being a man of an unimaginative mind, he decided to find out.
Without saying a word of his intentions to his assistants, the owner of the Double Cross threw his rifle to his shoulder, took a hurried sight at the spectral form and pulled the trigger.
As the report rang out, the cowpunchers leaned forward in their saddles, watching the form intently.
To shoot at a ghost required more courage—in view of the traditions relating to ill-luck and curses such an act brought down upon the head of one so rash—than they possessed, and the cowboys fully expected some dire punishment to be instantly meted out to their boss.
For an intense moment, there was no apparent result from the bullet sent at the floating form.
Then a mocking laugh rent the air, and the white spectre vanished as completely as before!
“There’s more human than spook to that voice!” exclaimed Bowser.
“Skulls and crossbones! I have it! It’s a raid!” cried Sandy.