The party of young people were so excited by the adventure that they were scarcely in mind to appreciate the rugged beauty of the cañon. The opposite wall was covered with verdure—hardy trees and shrubs found their rootage in the crevices between the rocks. Some beds of moss, far down where the spray from the river continually irrigated the thin soil, were spangled so thickly with starlike, white flowers that the patches looked like brocaded bedspreads.
Around the elbow in the trail—that sharp turn which had been the scene of the all but fatal accident—the driveway broadened. Far ahead (for the cañon was here quite straight again) they could see the arching roof of rock, surmounted by the primeval forest, which formed the so-called natural bridge. The river tumbled out of the darkness of the tunnel, fretted to a foaming cascade by battling with the boulders which strewed its bed under the roof-rock. The water’s surface gleamed ghostly in the shadow of the arch, andbefore the opening the arc of a rainbow shone in the spray.
As the girls’ excitement subsided, Ruth saw this scene far ahead and cried aloud in rapture:
“Look! Oh, just look! Isn’t that beautiful?”
“The waterfall,” agreed her chum, “or cascade, or whatever they call it, is just a picture, Ruthie!”
“Mighty pretty,” said Tom, reining in the pony beside them.
“The cavern is so black and the water is so white—like milk,” cried Madge from the second carriage. “What a contrast!”
“I tell you what it looks like,” added Heavy, who sat beside her. “A great, big chocolate cream drop that’s broken and the cream oozing out. M—m!”
They all laughed at the stout girl’s figure of speech, for Jennie Stone’s mind seemed always to linger upon good things to eat, and this comparison was quite characteristic.
“I’d be afraid to go down under that bridge,” said Helen. “It’s so dark there.”
“But there’s a path through the tunnel, Miss,” said Jib, the Indian. “And there’s another path by which you can climb out on the top of the bridge. But the trail for a waggin’ stops right yonder, where we camp.”
This spot was a sort of cove in the wall of thecañon—perhaps half an acre in extent. There was a pretty lawn with a spring of sweet water, the overflow of which trickled away to the edge of the precipice and dashed itself to spray on the rocks fifty feet below.
They had become used to the sullen roar of the river now and did not heed its voice. This was a delightful spot for camping and when Ricardo came up with the wagon, the boys and Jib quickly erected the tent, hobbled the ponies, and built a fire in the most approved campers’ fashion.
Never had a picnic luncheon tasted so good to any of the party. The mountain air had put an edge on their appetites, and Heavy performed such feats of mastication that Helen declared she trembled for the result.
“Don’t you trouble about me,” said the stout girl. “You want to begin to worry overmyhealth when I don’t eat at all. And I can’t see where I have got so far ahead of any of the rest of you in the punishment of this lunch.”
But afterward, when the other girls proposed to climb the rocky path to the summit of the natural bridge, Heavy objected.
“It’s injurious to take violent exercise after eating heavily,” she said.
“I never knew the time when Heavy considered it safe to exercise,” said The Fox, who had gradually recovered her usual manner since the runaway. “Thetime between meals isn’t long enough, in her opinion, to warrant anybody’s working. Come on! let’s leave her to slothful dreams.”
“And blisters,” added Heavy. “My shoes have hurt me for two days. I wouldn’t climb over these rocks for a farm—with a pig on’t! Go on—and perspire—and tell yourselves you’re having a good time. I’ve a book here to read,” declared the graceless and lazy stout girl.
“But aren’t the boys going?” asked Ruth.
“They’ve started for the tunnel down there—with Jib,” said Jane Ann, with a snap. “Huh! boys aren’t no good, anyway.”
“Your opinion may be correct; your grammar is terrible,” scoffed Mary Cox.
“Never you mind about my grammar, Miss Smarty!” rejoined the Western girl, who really couldn’t forget the peril into which The Fox had run her friends so recently. “If you girls are comin’ along to the top of the bridge, come on. Let the boys go down there, if they want to. The rocks are slippery, and they’ll get sopping wet.”
“There isn’t any danger, is there?” queried Helen, thinking of her brother.
“No, of course not,” replied Jane Ann. “No more danger than there is up this way,” and she led the way on the path that wound up the rocky heights.
The girls were dressed in corduroy skirts and strong, laced walking boots—a fitting costume for the climb. But had Jib been present at the camp perhaps he would not have allowed them to start without an escort. Ricardo had to remain at the camp. This was a wild country and not even Jane Ann carried any weapon, although when the ranchman’s niece rode about the range alone she carried a gun—and she knew how to use the weapon, too.
But they could hear the shouts of the boys, rising above the thunder of the river, when they left the plateau and began to climb the heights, and danger of any kind did not enter the minds of the girls. It was like picnicking along the Lumano River, at home, only the scenery here was grander.
Ruth and Helen assumed the lead after a very few minutes; they were even better climbers than the Western girl. But the way was steep and rugged and it wasn’t long before their chatter ceased and they saved their breath for the work in hand. Madge and Jane Ann came along after the chums quite pluckily; but The Fox began clamoring for rest before they had climbed half the distance to the top of the cliff.
“Oh, come on, Mary!” ejaculated Madge. “Don’t be whining.”
“I don’t see anything in this,” grumbled TheFox. “It’s no fun scrambling over these rocks. Ouch! Now I’ve torn my stocking.”
“Aw, come on!” said Jane Ann. “You’re a regular wet blanket, you are.”
“There’s no sense in working so hard for nothing,” snapped The Fox.
“What did you start out for, Mary?” demanded Madge. “You might have remained at the camp with Heavy.”
“And she had sense.”
“It’s too badyouhaven’t a little, then,” observed Jane Ann, rudely.
Ruth and Helen, who really enjoyed the climb, looked down from the heights and beckoned their comrades on.
“Hurry up, Slow Pokes!” cried Ruth. “We shall certainly beat you to the top.”
“And much good may that do you!” grumbled Mary Cox. “What a silly thing to do, anyway.”
“I do wish you’d go back, if you want to, Mary,” declared Madge, wearily.
“She’s as cross as two sticks,” ejaculated Jane Ann.
“Well, why shouldn’t I be cross?” demanded The Fox, quite ready to quarrel. “This place is as dull as ditch-water. I wish I hadn’t come West at all. I’m sure,I’vehad no fun.”
“Well, you’ve made enough trouble, if youhaven’t had a good time,” Jane Ann said, frankly.
“I must say you’re polite to your guests,” exclaimed Mary Cox, viciously.
“And I must say you’re anything but polite to me,” responded the ranch girl, not at all abashed. “You’re pretty near the limit,youare. Somebody ought to give you a good shaking.”
Ruth and Helen had gotten so far ahead because they had not wasted their breath. Now they were waiting for the other three who came puffing to the shelf on which the chums rested, all three wearing frowns on their faces.
“For pity’s sake!” gasped Helen; “what’s the matter with you all?”
“I’m tired,” admitted Madge, throwing herself upon the short turf.
“This girl says it’s all foolishness to climb up here,” said Jane Ann, pointing at The Fox.
“Oh, I want to reach the very summit, now I’ve started,” cried Ruth.
“That’s silly,” declared Mary Cox.
“You’re just as cross as a bear,” began the Western girl, when Helen suddenly shrieked:
“Oh,oh! Will you look at that?What is it?”
Ruth had already started on. She did not wish to have any words with The Fox. A rod or more separated her from her mates. Out of an aperture heretofore unnoticed, and between Ruth andthe other girls, was thrust the shaggy head and shoulders of a huge animal.
“A dog!” cried Madge.
“It’s a wolf!” shrieked Mary Cox.
But the Western girl knew instantly what the creature was. “Run, Ruthie!” she shouted. “I’ll call Jib and the boys.It’s a bear!”
And at that moment Bruin waddled fully out of the hole—a huge, hairy, sleepy looking beast. He was between Ruth and her friends, and his awkward body blocked the path by which they were climbing to the summit of the natural bridge.
“Wu-uh-uh-uff!” said the bear, and swung his head and huge shoulders from the group of four girls to the lone girl above him.
“Run, Ruth!” shrieked Helen.
Her cry seemed to startle the ursine marauder. He uttered another grunt of expostulation and started up the steep path. Nobody needed to advise Ruth to run a second time. She scrambled up the rocks with an awful fear clutching at her heart and the sound in her ears of the bear’s sabre-like claws scratching over the path!
Ruth was just as scared as she could be. Although the bear did not seem particularly savage, there surely was not room enough on the path for him and Ruth to pass. The beast was ragged and gray looking. His little eyes twinkled and his tongue lolled out of his mouth, like that of an ox when it is plowing. Aside from a grunt, or two, he made at first no threatening manifestation.
Helen could not remain inactive and see a bear chase her chum over the rocks; therefore she picked up a good-sized stone and threw it at the beast. They say—at least, boys say!—that a girl can’t throw straight. But Helen hit the bear!
The stone must have hurt, for the beast let out a sudden growl that was in quite a different tone from the sounds he had made before. He turned sharply and bit at the place on his flank where the stone had hit him, and then, in a perfectly unreasonable manner, the bear turned sharp around and scampered after Ruth harder than ever. It was plain that he blamed her for throwing the stone. At least, she was nearest to him, and thebear was anxious to get out of the way of the screaming girls below.
Ruth did not give voice to her fear. Perhaps if she had shrieked as The Fox did the bear would have been afraid of her. As it was, he came on, growling savagely. And in half a minute he was fairly upon her heels!
The way up the height was in a gully with steep sides. Ruth, casting back over her shoulder a single terrified glance, saw the lumbering beast right upon her heels. The rocks on either hand were too steep to climb; it seemed as though the bear would seize her in a moment.
And then it was that the miracle happened. It seemed as though the girlmustbe torn and mangled by the bear, when a figure darted into sight above her. A voice shouted:
“Lie down! Lie down, so I can shoot!”
It was a man with a gun. In the second Ruth saw him she only knew he was trying to draw bead on the pursuing bear. She had no idea what her rescuer looked like—whether he was old, or young.
It took courage to obey his command. But Ruth had that courage. She flung herself forward upon her hands and knees and—seemingly—at the same instant the man above fired.
The roar of the weapon in the rocky glen and the roar of the stricken bear, was a deafeningcombination of sound. The bullet had hit the big brute somewhere in a serious spot and he was rolling and kicking on the rocks—his first throes of agony flinging him almost to Ruth’s feet.
But the girl scrambled farther away and heard the rifle speak again. A second bullet entered the body of the bear. At the same time a lusty shout arose from below. The boys and Jib having explored the river-tunnel as far as they found it practicable, had returned to the camp and there discovered where the girls had gone. Jib hastened after them, for he felt that they should not be roaming over the rocks without an armed escort.
“Hi, yi!” he yelped, tearing up the path with a rifle in his hand. “Keep it up, brother! We’re comin’!”
Tom and Bob came with him. Jib saw the expiring bear, and he likewise glimpsed the man who had brought bruin down. In a moment, however, the stranger darted out of sight up the path and they did not even hear his footsteps on the rocks.
“Why, that’s that feller from Tintacker!” cried the Indian. “Hey, you!”
“Not the crazy man?” gasped Jane Ann.
“Oh, surely he’ll come back?” said Helen.
Ruth turned, almost tempted to run after the stranger. “Do you really mean to say it is theyoung man who has been staying at the Tintacker properties so long?” she asked.
“That’s the feller.”
“We’d ought to catch him and see what Uncle Bill has to say to him about the fire,” said Jane Ann.
“Oh, we ought to thank him for shooting the bear,” cried Madge.
“And I wanted to speak with him so much!” groaned Ruth; but nobody heard her say this. The others had gathered around the dead bear. Of a sudden a new discovery was made:
“Where’s Mary?” cried Helen.
“The Fox has run away!” exclaimed Madge.
“I’ll bet she has!” exclaimed Jane Ann Hicks. “Didn’t you see her, Jib?”
“We didn’t pass her on the path,” said Tom.
Ruth’s keen eye discovered the missing girl first. She ran with a cry to a little shelf upon which the foxy maid had scrambled when the excitement started. The Fox was stretched out upon the rock in a dead faint!
“Well! would you ever?” gasped Madge. “Who’d think that Mary Cox would faint? She’s always been bold enough, goodness knows!”
Ruth had hurried to the shelf where The Fox lay. She was very white and there could be no doubt but that she was totally unconscious. Jib lent his assistance and getting her into his armshe carried her bodily down the steep path to the camp, leaving Tom and Bob to guard the bear until he returned to remove the pelt. The other girls strung out after their fainting comrade, and the journey to the summit of the natural bridge was postponed indefinitely.
Cold water from the mountain stream soon brought The Fox around. But when she opened her eyes and looked into the face of the ministering Ruth, she muttered:
“Andyousaw him, too!”
Then she turned her face away and began to cry.
“Aw, shucks!” exclaimed the ranchman’s niece, “don’t bawl none about it. The bear won’t hurt you now. He’s dead as can be.”
But Ruth did not believe that Mary Cox was crying about the bear. Her words and subsequent actionsdidpuzzle the girl of the Red Mill. Ruth had whispered to Tom, before they left the scene of the bear shooting:
“See if you can find that man. If you can, bring him into camp.”
“But if he’s crazy?” Tom suggested, in surprise.
“He isn’t too crazy to have saved my life,” declared the grateful girl. “And if he is in his right mind, all the more reason why we should try to help him.”
“You’re always right, Ruthie,” admitted Helen’s brother. But when the boy and Jib returned to camp two hours later, with the bear pelt and some of the best portions of the carcass, they had to report that the stranger who had shot the bear seemed to have totally disappeared. Jib Pottoway was no bad trailer; but over the rocks it was impossible to follow the stranger, especially as he had taken pains to hide his trail.
“If you want to thank that critter for saving you from the b’ar, Miss Ruthie,” the Indian said, “you’ll hafter go clear over to Tintacker to do so. That’s my opinion.”
“How far away is that?” demanded Mary Cox, suddenly.
“Near a hundred miles from this spot,” declared Jib. “That is, by wagon trail. I reckon you could cut off thirty or forty miles through the hills. The feller’s evidently l’arnt his way around since Winter.”
Mary asked no further question about the man from Tintacker; but she had shown an interest in him that puzzled Ruth.
The bear fight and the runaway together so disturbed the minds of the picnicking party in the cañon that nobody objected to the suggestion of an early return to the ranch-house. Ruth was secretly much troubled in her mind over the mysterious individual who had killed the bear. She had not seen her rescuer’s face; but she wondered if Mary Cox had seen it?
The girls never did get to the top of the natural bridge. Jib and the boys in trying to trace the stranger had gone over the summit; but they did not tarry to look around. The girls and Ricardo got supper, immediately after which they set out on the return drive.
Jib insisted upon holding the lines over the backs of the team that had run away—and he saw that Mary Cox rode in that vehicle, too. But The Fox showed no vexation at this; indeed, she was very quiet all the way to Silver Ranch. She was much unlike her usual snappy, sharp-tongued self.
But, altogether, the party arrived home in verygood spirits. The wonders of the wild country—so much different from anything the Easterners had seen before—deeply impressed Ruth and her friends. The routine work of the ranch, however, interested them more. Not only Tom and Bob, but their sisters and the other girls, found the free, out-of-door life of the range and corral a never-failing source of delight.
Ruth herself was becoming a remarkably good horsewoman. Freckles carried her many miles over the range and Jane Ann Hicks was scarcely more bold on pony-back than was the girl from the Red Mill.
As for the cowboys of the Silver outfit, they admitted that the visitors were “some human,” even from a Western standpoint.
“Them friends o’ yourn, Miss Jinny,” Jimsey said, to Old Bill’s niece, “ain’t so turrible ‘Bawston’ as some tenderfoots I’ve seen.” (“Boston,” according to Jimsey, spelled the ultra-East and all its “finicky” ways!) “I’m plum taken with that Fielding gal—I sure am. And I believe old Ike, here, is losin’ his heart to her. Old Lem Dickson’s Sally better bat her eyes sharp or Ike’ll go up in the air an’ she’ll lose him.”
It was true that the foreman was less bashful with Ruth than with any of the other girls. Ruth knew how to put him at his ease. Every spare hour Bashful Ike had he put in teaching Ruth toimprove her riding, and as she was an early riser they spent a good many morning hours cantering over the range before the rest of the young people were astir at Silver Ranch.
It was on one of these rides that Bashful Ike “opened up” to Ruth upon the subject of the red-haired school-teacher at the Crossing.
“I’ve jest plumb doted on that gal since she was knee-high to a Kansas hopper-grass,” the big puncher drawled. “An’ she knows it well enough.”
“Maybe she knows it too well?” suggested Ruth, wisely.
“Gosh!” groaned Ike. “Igotterkeep her reminded I’m on the job—say, ain’t I? Now, them candies you bought for me an’ give to her—what do you s’pose she did with ’em?”
“She ate them if she had right good sense,” replied Ruth, with a smile. “They were nice candies.”
“I rid over to Lem’s the next night,” said Ike, solemnly, “an’ that leetle pink-haired skeezicks opened up that box o’ sweetmeats on the counter an’ had all them lop-eared jack-rabbits that sits around her pa’s store o’ nights he’pin’ themselves out o’mygift-box. Talk erbout castin’ pearls before swine!” continued Bashful Ike, in deep disgust, “thatwas suah flingin’ jewels to the hawgs, all right. Them ’ombres from the Two-Tenoutfit, an’ from over Redeye way, was stuffin’ down them bonbons like they was ten-cent gumdrops. An’ Sally never ate a-one.”
“She did that just to tease you,” said Ruth, sagely.
“Huh!” grunted Ike. “I never laid out to hurt her feelin’s none. Dunno why she should give me the quirt. Why, I’ve been hangin’ about her an’ tryin’ to show her how much I think of her for years! She must know I wanter marry her. An’ I got a good bank account an’ five hundred head o’ steers ter begin housekeepin’ on.”
“Does Sally know all that?” asked Ruth, slyly.
“Great Peter!” ejaculated Ike. “She’d oughter. Ev’rybody else in the county does.”
“But did you ever ask Sally right out to marry you?” asked the Eastern girl.
“She never give me a chance,” declared Ike, gruffly.
“Chance!” gasped Ruth, wanting to laugh, but being too kind-hearted to do so. “What sort of a chance do you expect?”
“I never git to talk with her ten minutes at a time,” grumbled Ike.
“But why don’t youmakea chance?”
“Great Peter!” cried the foreman again. “I can’t throw an’ hawg-tie her, can I? I never cangit down to facts with her—she won’t let me.”
“If I were a great, big man,” said Ruth, her eyes dancing, “I surely wouldn’t let a little wisp of a girl like Miss Dickson get away from me—if I wanted her.”
“How am I goin’ to he’p it?” cried Ike, in despair. “She’s jest as sassy as a cat-bird. Ye can’t be serious with her. She plumb slips out o’ my fingers ev’ry time I try to hold her.”
“You are going to the dance at the schoolhouse, aren’t you?” asked Ruth.
“I reckon.”
“Can’t you get her to dance with you? And when you’re dancing can’t you ask her? Come right out plump with it.”
“Why, when I’m a-dancin’,” confessed Ike, “I can’t think o’ nawthin’ but my feet.”
“Your feet?” cried Ruth.
“Yes, ma’am. They’re so e-tar-nal big I gotter keep my mind on ’em all the time, or I’ll be steppin’ on Sally’s. An’ if I trod on her jest wunst—wal, that would suah be my finish with her. She ain’t got that red hair for nawthin’,” concluded the woeful cowpuncher.
Ike was not alone at the Silver Ranch in looking forward to the party at the schoolhouse. Every man who could be spared of the —X0 outfit (“Bar-Cross-Naught”) planned to go to the Crossing Saturday night. Such a rummagingof “war-bags” for fancy flannel shirts and brilliant ties hadn’t occurred—so Old Bill Hicks said—within the remembrance of the present generation of prairie-dogs!
“Jest thinkin’ about cavortin’ among the gals about drives them ’ombres loco,” declared the ranchman. “Hi guy! here’s even Jimsey’s got a bran’ new shirt on.”
“’Tain’t nuther!” scoffed Bud. “Whar’s your eyes, Boss? Don’t you reckernize that gay and festive shirt? Jimsey bought it ‘way back when Mis’ Hills’ twins was born.”
“So it’s as old as the Hills, is it?” grunted Mr. Hicks. “Wal, he ain’t worn it right frequent in this yere neck o’ woods—that I’ll swear to! An’ a purple tie with it—Je-ru-sha! Somebody’ll take a shot at him in that combination of riotin’ colors—you hear me!”
The girls too were quite fluttered over the prospect of attending the party. Helen had agreed to take her violin along and Bob offered to help out with the music by playing his harmonica—an instrument without which he never went anywhere, save to bed or in swimming!
“And I can’t think of anything more utterly sad, Bobbie,” declared his sister, “than your rendition of ‘the Suwanee River’ on that same mouth-organ. When it comes to your playing for square dances, I fear you would give our Western friends much cause for complaint—and many ofthem, I notice, go armed,” she continued, significantly.
“Huh!” sniffed Bob. “I guess I don’t play as bad as all that. Busy Izzy could dance a jig to my playing.”
“That’s what I thought,” responded Madge. “You’re just about up to playing jig-tunes on that old mouth-organ.”
Just the same, Bob slipped the harmonica into his pocket. “You never can tell what may happen,” he grunted.
“It’ll be something mighty serious, then, Bobbie, if it necessitates the bringing forth of that instrument of torture,” said his sister, bound to have the last word.
At dusk the big automobile got away from Silver Ranch, surrounded by a gang of wall-eyed ponies that looked on the rattling machine about as kindly as they would have viewed a Kansas grain thrasher. The visitors and Jane Ann all rode in the machine, for even Ruth’s Freckles would have turned unmanageable within sight and sound of that touring car.
“That choo-choo cart,” complained Bud, the cowboy, “would stampede a battalion of hoptoads. Whoa, you Sonny! it ain’t goin’ tuh bite yuh.” This to his own half-crazy mount. “Look out for your Rat-tail, Jimsey, or that yere purple necktie will bite the dust, as they say in the storybooks.”
The hilarious party from Silver Ranch, however, reached the Crossing without serious mishap. They were not the first comers, for there were already lines of saddle ponies as well as many various “rigs” hitched about Lem Dickson’s store. The schoolhouse was lit brightly with kerosene lamps, and there was a string of Chinese lanterns hung above the doorway.
The girls, in their fresh frocks and furbelows, hastened over to the schoolhouse, followed more leisurely by their escorts. Sally Dickson, as chief of the committee of reception, greeted Jane Ann and her friends, and made them cordially welcome, although they were all some years younger than most of the girls from the ranches roundabout.
“If you Eastern girls can all dance, you’ll sure help us out a whole lot,” declared the brisk little schoolmistress. “For if there’s anything I do dispise it’s to see two great, hulking men paired off in a reel, or a ‘hoe-down.’ And you brought your violin, Miss Cameron? That’s fine! You can play without music, I hope?”
Helen assured her she thought she could master the simple dance tunes to which the assembly was used. There were settees ranged around the walls for the dancers to rest upon, and some of the matrons who had come to chaperone the affair were already ensconced upon these. Therewas a buzz of conversation and laughter in the big room. The men folk hung about the door as yet, or looked in at the open windows.
“Did that big gump, Ike Stedman, come over with you-all, Miss Fielding?” Sally Dickson asked Ruth, aside. “Or did he know enough to stay away?”
“I don’t believe Mr. Hicks could have kept him on the ranch to-night,” replied Ruth, smiling. “He has promised to dance with me at least once. Ike is an awfully nice man, I think—and so kind! He’s taught us all to ride and is never out of sorts, or too busy to help us out. We ‘tenderfoots’ are always getting ‘bogged,’ you know. And Ike is right there to help us. We all like him immensely.”
Sally looked at her suspiciously. “Humph!” said she. “I never expected to hear that Bashful Ike was so popular.”
“Oh, I assure you he is,” rejoined Ruth, calmly. “He is developing into quite a lady’s man.”
Miss Dickson snorted. Nothing else could explain her method of emphatically expressing her disbelief. But Ruth was determined that the haughty little schoolmistress should have her eyes opened regarding Bashful Ike before the evening was over, and she proceeded to put into execution a plan she had already conceived on the way over from Silver Ranch.
Ruth first of all took Jane Ann into her confidence. The ranchman’s niece had been going about the room renewing her acquaintance with the “neighbors,” some of whom lived forty miles from Silver Ranch. The Western girl was proud of the friends she had made “Down East,” too, and she was introducing them all, right and left. But Ruth pinched her arm and signified that she wished to see her alone for a moment.
“Now, Nita,” the girl from the Red Mill whispered, “we want to see that Mr. Stedman has a good time to-night. You know, he’s been awfully good to us all.”
“Bashful Ike?” exclaimed Jane Ann.
“Yes. And we must give him so good a time that he will forget to be bashful.”
“He’s a right good feller—yes,” admitted Jane Ann, somewhat puzzled. “But what can we do for him?”
“Every one of us girls from the ranch must dance with him.”
“Oh, crickey!” chuckled Jane Ann, suddenly.“You want to try to make Sally Dickson jealous, don’t you?”
“No. I only want to make her see that Ike is popular, even if she doesn’t think him worth being kind to. And Ikeisworth being kind to. He’s a gentleman, and as kind-hearted a man as I ever saw.”
“He’s all of that,” admitted the Western girl. “But he’s so clumsy—”
“Forget that!” exclaimed Ruth. “And makehimforget his clumsiness. He’s as good as gold and deserves better treatment at the hands of Sally than he has been getting. Of course, she won’t be jealous of us young girls——”
“Humph! ‘Young girls,’” scoffed Jane Ann. “I don’t think we’re so awful young.”
“Well, we’re too young to be accused of trying to take Sally’s beau away from her,” cried Ruth, merrily. “Now, you’ll make him dance with you—and first, too. He’ll have to if you say so, for he’s your uncle’s foreman.”
“I’ll do it,” agreed Jane Ann.
Ruth of course found Helen ready and willing to agree to her plan, and Madge did not need much urging. They all liked Ike Stedman, and although the brisk little schoolmistress seemed to be a very nice girl, the foreman of Silver Ranch was quite worthy of her.
“If he dares to dance with me,” chuckledHeavy, “I am willing to keep it up all the evening. That is, if you think such a course, Ruthie, will awaken Miss Dickson to poor Ike’s good points.”
“And how about those blisters you were complaining about the other day?” asked Madge, slyly.
“Pshaw! what girl ever remembered blisters when she could dance?” responded the stout girl, with scorn.
Ruth had all but The Fox in line when the violin struck up the first number; she did not think it wise to speak to Mary about the plan, for she feared that the latter would refuse to coöperate. The boys came straggling in at the first notes of Helen’s violin, and there were no medals on Ike Stedman for bashfulness at first. Tom Cameron, spurred on by his sister, broke the ice and went at once to the school-teacher and asked for the dance. Bob followed suit by taking Mary Cox for a partner (Mary engineeredthat), and soon the sets began to form while Helen played her sprightliest.
The young men crowded in awkwardly and when Jane Ann saw the tall figure of Ike just outside the door she called to him:
“Come on in, Mr. Stedman. You know this is our dance. Hurry up!”
Now Ike usually didn’t get up sufficientcourage to appear upon the floor until half the evening was over, and there was a deal of chuckling and nudging when the foreman, his face flaming, pushed into the room. But he could not escape “the boss’ niece.” Jane Ann deliberately led him into the set of which Tom and Sally Dickson were the nucleus.
“My great aunt!” groaned Ike. “Just as like as not, honey, I’ll trample all over you an’ mash yo’ feet. It’s like takin’ life in your han’s to dance with me.”
“Mebbe I better take my feet in my hands, according to your warning, Ike,” quoth Jane Ann. “Aw, come on, I reckon I can dodge your feet, big as they are.”
Nor did Bashful Ike prove to be so poor a dancer, when he was once on the floor. But he went through the figures of the dance with a face—so Jane Ann said afterward—that flamed like a torchlight procession every time he came opposite to Sally Dickson.
“I see you’re here early, Mr. Stedman,” said the red-haired schoolmistress, as she was being swung by the giant cow puncher in one of the figures. “Usually you’re like Parson Brown’s cow’s tail—always behind!”
“They drug me in, Sally—they just drug me in,” explained the suffering Ike.
“Well, do brace up and look a little less likeyou was at your own funeral!” snapped the schoolmistress.
This sharp speech would have completely quenched Ike’s desire to dance had Ruth not laid her plans so carefully. The moment the music ceased and Ike made for the door, Heavy stopped him. She was between the bashful cow puncher and all escape—unless he went through the window!
“Oh, Mr. Stedman! I do so want to dance,” cried the stout girl, with her very broadest and friendliest smile. “Nobody asked me to this time, and I just know they’re all afraid of me. Do I look as though I bite?”
“Bless you, no, Miss!” responded the polite foreman of Silver Ranch. “You look just as harmless as though you’d never cut a tooth, as fur as that goes!”
“Then you’re not afraid to dance the next number with me? There! Helen’s tuning up.”
“If you re’lly want me to, Miss,” exclaimed the much-flurried foreman. “But I won’t mislead ye. I ain’t a good dancer.”
“Then there will be a pair of us,” was Heavy’s cheerful reply. “If the other folk run off the floor, we’ll be company for each other.”
Carefully rehearsed by Ruth Fielding, Jennie Stone likewise picked the group of dancers of which Sally Dickson and a new partner weremembers; and once again Bashful Ike found himself close to the object of his adoration.
“Hullo, Ike! you back again?” demanded Sally, cheerfully, as they clasped hands in a “walk-around.” “I believe you are getting to be a regular lady’s man.”
“Aw—now—Sally!”
“So that Ruth Fielding says,” laughed Sally. “You’re sure popular with those youngsters.”
Ike grinned feebly. But he was feeling better. He had actually forgotten his feet—even in Sally’s presence. Jennie Stone, although an all too solid bit of humanity, was remarkably light upon her feet when it came to dancing. Indeed, she was so good a dancer that she steered Ike over the floor to such good purpose that he—as well as other people—began to believe that Bashful Ike was no more awkward than the next man off the range.
“Why, Ruthie!” whispered Madge Steele, who was the next “victim” in line. “Ike is a regular Beau Brummel beside some of these fellows. Look at Heavy steering him around! And look at the teacher watching them. Humph! young lady I believe you’re got a ‘great head on you,’ to quote Master Bobbie.”
“Now, you be real nice to him, Madge,” Ruth urged.
“Of course I shall, child,” replied Miss Steele,with her most “grown-uppish” air. “He’s nice anyway; and if we can ‘wake teacher’ up to his importance, I’ll gladly do my part.”
“If it only gives him a grain of confidence in himself, I shall be satisfied,” declared Ruth. “That is what Ike lacks.”
The foreman of Silver Ranch was coming out pretty strong, however. The Virginia Reel was the favorite dance, and when Helen stopped playing the applause was so great, that she responded with a repetition of the whole figure; so Ike and Heavy continued on the floor for a much longer period, and the big cowpuncher gained more ease of manner. When they ceased dancing the stout girl led her escort right into the clutches of Madge Steele.
Now, Madge was taller than the schoolmistress and in her city-made gown looked years older. The boys were rather afraid of Madge when she “put on the real thing,” as her brother inelegantly expressed it, for she seemed then quite a young lady grown!
“I really believe you Western men are gallant, Mr. Stedman,” she announced. “Chivalrous, and unafraid, and bold, and all that. I am deeply disappointed.”
“How’s that, Miss?” exclaimed poor Ike.
“I haven’t had an invitation to dance yet,” pursued Madge. “If I had scarletina, or themeasles—or even the mumps—I do not think I should be more avoided by the male portion of the assembly. What do you suppose is the matter with me, Mr. Stedman?”
“Why, I—I——”
Ike was on the verge of declaring that he would find her a partner if he had to use a gun to get one to come forward; but he was inspired for once to do the right thing. He really bowed before Madge with something of a flourish, as the tinkle of the violin strings began again.
“If you think you can standme, Miss Steele,” declared the big foreman, “I’d be near about tickled to death to lead you out myself.”
“You are very good,” said Madge, demurely. “But are you sure—I think that pretty little teacher is looking this way. You are not neglecting any old friends formeI hope, Mr. Stedman?”
Ike’s face flamed again furiously. He stole a glance at Sally Dickson, who had just refused Jimsey for a partner—and with sharpness.
“I’m pretty sure I’ll be a whole lot better off with you, Miss,” he admitted. “Jest now, especially.”
Madge’s ringing laugh caught Sally’s ear, as the Eastern girl bore the foreman of Silver Ranch off to join the next set of dancers. The teacher did not dance that number at all.
Mrs. “Jule” Marvin, the young and buxom wife of the owner of the Two-Ten Ranch, caught Ike’s hand and whispered loudly:
“I never suspected you was such a heart-breaker, Ike. Goodness me! you’re dancing every dance, and with a new partner each time. I haven’t got to be left out in the cold just because I’m married to Tom, I hope? He can’t dance with that game leg, poor old man! You going to save a dance for me, Ike?”
“Suah’s your bawn, honey!” responded the foreman, who was beginning to enjoy his prominence and had known Mrs. Jule for years. “The next one’s yours if you say the word.”
“You’re my meat, then, Ike,” declared the jolly Western matron, as she glided away with her present partner.
So there was a little rift in Ruth Fielding’s scheme, for Ike danced next with the ranchman’s wife. But that pleased the girl from the Red Mill and her fellow conspirators quite as well. Ike was no neglected male “wall-flower.” Sally only skipped one dance; but she watched the big foreman with growing wonder.
A rest was due Helen anyway; and Bob Steele was at hand with his never-failing harmonica. “The heart-rending strains,” as Madge termed the rather trying music from the mouth-organ, were sufficiently lively for most of the party, andthe floor was filled with dancers when Helen captured Ike and he led her into a set just forming.
“You must be the best dancer among the men, Mr. Ike,” declared Ruth’s chum, dimpling merrily. “You are in such demand.”
“I b’lieve you gals have jest been ladlin’ the syrup intuh me, Miss Cam’ron,” Ike responded, but grinning with growing confidence. “It’s been mighty nice of you.”
“You’d better give Sally a chance pretty soon,” whispered Helen. “There is surely fire in her eye.”
“Great Peter!” groaned Ike. “I’m almost afraid to meet up with her now.”
“Pluck up your spirit, sir!” commanded Helen. And she maneuvered so that, when the dance was done, they stood right next to Sally Dickson and her last partner.
“Well, ain’t you the busy little bee, Ike,” said the school-teacher, in a low voice. “Are you bespoke for the rest of the evening? These young-ones certainly have turned your head.”
“Me, Sally?” responded her bashful friend. “They like tuh dance, I reckon, like all other young things—an’ the other boys seem kinder backward with ’em; ’cause they’re Bawston, I s’pose.”
“Humph!” ejaculated Miss Sally; “you ain’t such a gump as to believe all that. That littleSmartie, Ruth Fielding, planned all this, I bet a cent!”
“Miss Ruth?” queried Ike, in surprise. “Why, I ain’t danced with her at all.”
“Nor you ain’t a-goin’ to!” snapped Sally. “You can dance with me for a spell now.” And for the remainder of that hilarious evening Sally scarcely allowed Bashful Ike out of her clutches.
The party at the schoolhouse was declared a success by all Jane Ann Hick’s Eastern friends—saving, of course, The Fox. She had only danced with Tom and Bob and had disproved haughtily of the entire proceedings. She had pronounced Ruth’s little plot for getting Ike and Sally together, “a silly trick,” although the other girls had found considerable innocent enjoyment in it, and the big foreman of Silver Ranch rode home with them after midnight in a plain condition of ecstacy.
“Ike suah has made the hit of his life,” Jimsey declared, to the other cowboys.
“He was the ‘belle of the ball’ all right,” chimed in another.
“If I warn’t a person of puffectly tame an’ gentle nature, I’d suah be a whole lot jealous of his popularity,” proceeded he of the purple necktie. “But I see a-many of you ’ombres jest standin’ around and a-gnashin’ of your teeth at the way Ike carried off the gals.”
“Huh!” grunted Bud. “We weren’t gnashin’ no teeth at old Ike. What put our grinders onedge was that yere purple necktie an’ pink-striped shirt you’re wearin’. Ev’ry gal that danced with you, Jimsey, was in danger of gettin’ cross-eyed lookin’ at that ne-fa-ri-ous combination.”
Sunday was a quiet day at the ranch. Although there was no church nearer than Bullhide, Bill Hicks made a practice of doing as little work as possible on the first day of the week, and his gangs were instructed to simply keep the herds in bounds.
At the ranch house Ruth and her girl friends arranged a song-service for the evening to which all the men about the home corral, and those who could be spared to ride in from the range, were invited. This broke up several card games in the bunk house—games innocent in themselves, perhaps, but an amusement better engaged in on week days.
The boys gathered in the dusk on the wide porch and listened to the really beautiful music that the girls had learned at Briarwood Hall. Ruth was in splendid voice, and her singing was applauded warmly by the cowboys.
“My soul, Bud!” gasped Jimsey. “Couldn’t that leetle gal jest sing a herd of millin’ cattle to by-low on the night trick, with that yere voice of hers?”
“Uh-huh!” agreed Bud. “She could stop a stampede, she could.”
“Oh, I’d love to see a real stampede!” exclaimed Helen, who overheard this conversation.
“You would eh?” responded Jane Ann. “Well, here’s hoping you never get your wish—eh, boys?”
“Not with the Bar-Cross-Naught outfit, Miss Jinny,” agreed Bud, fervently.
“But it must be a wonderful sight to see so many steers rushing over the plain at once—all running as tight as they can run,” urged the innocent Helen.
“Ya-as,” drawled Jimsey. “But I want it to be some other man’s cattle.”
“But do you really ever have much trouble with the cattle?” asked Helen. “They all look so tame.”
“Except Old Trouble-Maker,” laughed her twin, who stood beside her.
“Looks jest like a picnic, herdin’ them mooley-cows, don’t it?” scoffed Jimsey.
“They’d ought to be on the night trick, once,” said Jane Ann. “It’s all right punching cows by daylight.”
“What’s the night trick?” asked Heavy.
“Night herding. That’s when things happen to a bunch of cows,” explained the ranchman’s niece.
“I believe that must be fun,” cried Ruth, who had come out upon the porch. “Can’t we goout to one of the camps and see the work by night as well as by day?”
“Good for you, Ruth!” cried Tom Cameron. “That’s the game.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to do that,” objected Mary Cox. “We’d have to camp out.”
“Well, them that don’t want to go can stay here,” Jane Ann said, quickly. If anything was needed to enlist her in the cause it was the opposition of The Fox. “I’ll see what Uncle Bill says.”
“But, will it be dangerous?” demanded the more careful Madge.
“I’ve ridden at night,” said Jane Ann, proudly. “Haven’t I, Jimsey?”
“Just so,” admitted the cowboy, gravely. “But a whole bunch o’ gals might make the critters nervous.”
“Too many cows would sure make the girls nervous!” laughed Bob, grinning at his sister.
But the idea once having taken possession of the minds of Ruth and her girl friends, the conclusion was foregone. Uncle Bill at first (to quote Jane Ann) “went up in the air.” When he came down to earth, however, his niece was right there, ready to argue the point with him and—as usual—he gave in to her.
“Tarnashun, Jane Ann!” exclaimed the old ranchman. “I’ll bet these yere gals don’t get backhome without some bad accident happening. You-all are so reckless.”
“Now Uncle Bill! don’t you go to croaking,” she returned, lightly. “Ain’t no danger of trouble at all. We’ll only be out one night. We’ll go down to Camp Number Three—that’s nearest.”
“No, sir-ree! Them boys air too triflin’ a crew,” declared the ranchman. “Jib is bossing the Rolling River outfit just now. You can go over there. I can trust Jib.”
As the rest of the party was so enthusiastic, and all determined to spend a night at Number Two Camp on the Rolling River Range, Mary Cox elected to go likewise. She declared she did not wish to remain at the ranch-house in the sole care of a “fat and greasy Mexican squaw,” as she called the cook.
“Ouch! I bet that stings Maria when she knows how you feel about her,” chuckled Heavy. “Why let carking care disturb your serenity, Mary? Come on and enjoy yourself like the rest of us.”
“I don’t expect to enjoy myself in any party that’s just run by one girl,” snapped Mary.
“Who’s that?” asked the stout girl, in wonder.
“Ruth Fielding. She bosses everything. She thinks this is all her own copyrighted show—likethe Sweetbriars. Everything we do she suggests——”
“That shows how good a ‘suggester’ she is,” interposed Heavy, calmly.
“It shows how she’s got you all hypnotized into believing she’s a wonder,” snarled The Fox.
“Aw, don’t Mary! Don’t be so mean. I should think Ruth would be the last personyou’dever have a grouch on. She’s done enough for you——”
“She hasn’t, either!” cried Mary Fox, her face flaming.
“I’d like to know what you’d call it?” Heavy demanded, with a good deal of warmth for her. “If she wasn’t the sweetest-tempered, most forgiving girl that ever went to Briarwood,you’dhave lost your last friend long ago! I declare, I’m ashamed of you!”
“She’s not my friend,” said Mary, sullenly.
“Who is, then? She has helped to save your life on more than one occasion. She has never said a word about the time she fell off the rocks when we were at Lighthouse Point. You and she were together, andyouknow how it happened. Oh, I can imagine how it happened. Besides, Nita saw you, and so did Tom Cameron,” cried the stout girl, more hotly. “Don’t think all your tricks can be hidden.”
“What do you suppose I care?” snarled Mary Cox.
“I guess you care what Tom Cameron thinks of you,” pursued Heavy, wagging her head. “But after the way you started those ponies when we drove to Rolling River Cañon, you can be sure that you don’t stand high with him—or with any of the rest of the boys.”
“Pooh! those cowboys! Great, uneducated gawks!”
“But mighty fine fellows, just the same. I’d a whole lot rather have their good opinion than their bad.”
Now all this was, for Jennie Stone, pretty strong language. She was usually so mild of speech and easy-going, that its effect was all the greater. The Fox eyed her in some surprise and—for once—was quelled to a degree.
All these discussions occurred on Monday. The Rolling River Camp was twenty miles away in the direction of the mountain range. Tuesday was the day set for the trip. The party would travel with the supply wagon and a bunch of ponies for the herders, bossed by Maria’s husband. On Wednesday the young folk would return under the guidance of little Ricarde, who was to go along to act as camp-boy.
“But if we like it out there, Uncle Bill, maybe we’ll stay till Thursday,” Jane Ann declared,from her pony’s back, just before the cavalcade left the ranch-house, very early on Tuesday.
“You better not. I’m going to be mighty busy around yere, and I don’t want to be worried none,” declared the ranchman. “And I sha’n’t know what peace is till I see you-all back again.”
“Now, don’t worry,” drawled his niece. “We ain’t none of us sugar nor salt.”
“I wish I could let Ike go with ye—that’s what I wish,” grumbled her uncle.
Ruth Fielding secretly wished the same. The direction of the Rolling River Camp lay toward Tintacker. She had asked the foreman about it.
“You’ll be all of thirty mile from the Tintacker claims, Miss Ruth,” Bashful Ike said. “But it’s a straight-away trail from the ford a mile, or so, this side of the camp. Any of the boys can show you. And Jib might spare one of ’em to beau you over to the mine, if so be you are determined to try and find that ‘bug’.”
“Idowant to see and speak with him,” Ruth said, earnestly.
“It’s pretty sure he’s looney,” said Ike. “You won’t make nothing out o’ him. I wouldn’t bother.”
“Why, he saved my life!” cried Ruth. “I want to thank him. I want to help him. And—and—indeed, I need very much to see and speak with him, Ike.”
“Ya-as. That does make a difference,” admitted the foreman. “He sure did kill that bear.”
The ponies rattled away behind the heavy wagon, drawn by six mules. In the lead cantered Ricarde and his father, herding the dozen or more half-wild cow-ponies. The Mexican horse-wrangler was a lazy looking, half-asleep fellow; but he sat a pony as though he had grown in the saddle.
Ruth, on her beloved little Freckles, rode almost as well now as did Jane Ann. The other girls were content to follow the mule team at a more quiet pace; but Ruth and the ranchman’s niece dashed off the trail more than once for a sharp race across the plain.
“You’re a darling, Ruthie!” declared Jane Ann, enthusiastically. “I wish you were going to live out here at Silver Ranch all the time—I do! I wouldn’t mind being ‘buried in the wilderness’ if you were along——”
“Oh, but you won’t be buried in the wilderness all the time,” laughed the girl from the Red Mill. “I am sure of that.”
“Huh!” ejaculated the Western girl, startled. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that we’ve been talking to Uncle Bill,” laughed Ruth.
“Oh! you ain’t got it fixed for me?” gasped the ranchman’s neice. “Will he send me to school?”
“Surest thing you know, Nita!”
“Not to that boarding school you girls all go to?”
“Unless he backs down—and you know Mr. Bill Hicks isn’t one of the backing-down kind.”
“Oh, bully for you!” gasped Jane Ann. “I know it’s your doing. I can see it all. Uncle Bill thinks the sun just about rises and sets with you.”
“Helen and Heavy did their share. So did Madge—and even Heavy’s aunt, Miss Kate, before we started West. You will go to Briarwood with us next half, Nita. You’ll have a private teacher for a while so that you can catch up with our classes. It’s going to be up to you to make good, young lady—that’s all.”
Jane Ann Hicks was too pleased at that moment to say a word—and she had to wink mighty hard to keep the tears back. Weeping was as much against her character as it would have been against a boy’s. And she was silent thereafter for most of the way to the camp.
They rode over a rolling bit of ground and came in sight suddenly of the great herd in care of Number Two outfit. Such a crowd of slowly moving cattle was enough to amaze the eastern visitors. For miles upon miles the great herd overspread the valley, along the far side of which the hurrying river flowed. The tossing horns, the lowing of the cows calling their young, thestrange, bustling movement of the whole mass, rose up to the excited spectators in a great wave of sound and color. It was a wonderful sight!
Jib rode up the hill to meet them. The men on duty were either squatting here and there over the range, in little groups, playing cards and smoking, or riding slowly around the outskirts of the herd. There was a chuck-tent and two sleeping tents parked by the river side, and the smoke from the cook’s sheet-iron stove rose in a thin spiral of blue vapor toward that vaster blue that arched the complete scene.
“What a picture!” Ruth said to her chum. “The mountains are grand. That cañon we visited was wonderful. The great, rolling plains dwarf anything in the line of landscape that we ever saw back East. Butthiscaps all the sights we have seen yet.”
“I’m almost afraid of the cattle, Ruthie,” declared Helen. “So many tossing horns! So many great, nervous, moving bodies! Suppose they should start this way—run us down and stamp us into the earth? Oh! they could do it easily.”
“I don’t feel that fear of them,” returned the girl from the Red Mill. “I mean to ride all around the herd to-night with Nita. She says she is going to help ride herd, and I am going with her.”
This declaration, however, came near not beingfulfilled. Jib Pottoway objected. The tent brought for the girls was erected a little way from the men’s camp, and the Indian stated it as his irrevocable opinion that the place for the lady visitors at night was inside the white walls of that tent.
“Ain’t no place for girls on the night trick, Miss Jinny—and you know it,” complained Jib. “Old Bill will hold me responsible if anything happens to you.”
“‘Twon’t be the first time I’ve ridden around a bunch of beeves after sundown,” retorted Jane Ann, sharply. “And I’ve promised Ruth. It’s a real nice night. I don’t even hear a coyote singing.”
“There’s rain in the air. We may have a blow out of the hills before morning,” said Jib, shaking his head.
“Aw shucks!” returned the ranchman’s niece. “If it rains we can borrow slickers, can’t we? I never saw such a fellow as you are, Jib. Always looking for trouble.”
“You managed to get into trouble the other day when you went over to the cañon,” grunted the Indian.
“‘Twarn’t Ruthie and me that made you trouble. And that Cox girl wouldn’t dare ride within forty rods of these cows,” laughed the ranchman’s niece.
So Jib was forced to give way. Tom and Bob had craved permission to ride herd, too. The cowboys seemed to accept these offers in serious mood, and that made Jane Ann suspicious.
“They’ll hatch up some joke to play on you-all,” she whispered to Ruthie. “But we’ll find out what they mean to do, if we can, and just cross-cut ’em.”
The camp by the river was the scene of much hilarity at supper time. The guests had brought some especially nice rations from the ranch-house, and the herders welcomed the addition to their plain fare with gusto. Tom and Bob ate with the men and, when the night shift went on duty, they set forth likewise to ride around the great herd which, although seemingly so peacefully inclined, must be watched and guarded more carefully by night than by day.
Soon after Jane Ann and Ruth rode forth, taking the place together of one of the regular herders. These additions to the night gang left more of the cow punchers than usual at the camp, and there was much hilarity among the boys as Jane Ann and her friend cantered away toward the not far-distant herd.
“Those fellows are up to something,” the ranchman’s niece repeated. “We must be on the watch for them—and don’t you be scared none, Ruthie, at anything that may happen.”