Ruth Fielding at Silver Ranch Part 4

"My goodness me!" exclaimed Heavy. "You couldn't put _that_ fire out by spilling a bucket of water on it, could you?"

The fire line was several miles long. The flames advanced slowly; but here and there, where it caught in a bunch of scrub, the tongues of fire mounted swiftly into the air for twenty feet, or more; and in these pillars of fire lurked much danger, for when a blast of wind chanced to swoop down on them, the flames jumped!

Toiling up the ridge, snorting and bellowing, tails in air and horns tossing, drifted a herd of several thousand cattle, about ready to stampede although the fire was not really chasing them. The danger lay in the fact that the flames had gained such headway, and had spread so widely, that the entire range might be burned over, leaving nothing for the cattle to eat.

The rose-light of the flames showed the spectators all this-the black smooch of the fire-scathed land behind the barrier of flame, the flitting figures on horseback at the foot of the ridge, and the herd of steers going over the rise toward the north-and the higher foothills.

"But what can they do?" gasped Ruth.

"They're back-firing," Tom said, holding in his pony. Tom was a good horseman and it was evident that Jane Ann was astonished at his riding.

"But over yonder where they tried it, the flames jumped ahead through the long gra.s.s and drove the men into their saddles again."

"See what those fellows are doing!" gasped Madge, standing up. "They're roping those cattle-isn't that what you call it, _roping_?"

"And hog-tieing them," responded Jane Ann, eagerly. "That's Jib-and Bashful Ike. There! that's an axe Ike's got. He's going to slice up that steer."

"Oh, dear me! what for?" cried Helen.

"Why, the butchering act-right here and now?" demanded Heavy. "Aren't thinking of having a barbecue, are they?"

"You watch," returned the Western girl, greatly excited. "There! they've split that steer."

"I hope it's the big one that bunted the automobile," cried The Fox.

"Well, you can bet it ain't," snapped Jane Ann. "Old Trouble-Maker is going to yield us some fun at brandin' time-now you see."

But they were all too much interested just then in what was going on near at hand-and down at the fire line-to pay much attention to what Jane Ann said about Old Trouble-Maker. Bashful Ike and Jib Pottoway had split two steers "from stem to stern." Two other riders approached, and the girls recognized one of them as Old Bill himself.

"Tough luck, boys," grumbled the ranchman. "Them critters is worth five cents right yere on the hoof; but that fire's got to be smothered. Here, Jib! hitch my rope to t'other end of your half of that critter."

In a minute the ranchman and the half-breed were racing down the slope, their ponies on the jump, the half of the steer jumping behind them. At the line of fire Hicks made his frightened horse leap the flames, they jerked the half of the steer over so that the cloven side came in contact with the flames, and then both men urged their ponies along the fire line, right in the midst of the smoke and heat, dragging the bleeding side of beef across the sputtering flames.

Ike and his mate started almost at once in the other direction, and both teams quenched the fire in good shape. Behind them other cowboys drew the halves of the second steer that had been divided, making sure of the quenching of the conflagration in the main; but there were still spots where the fire broke out again, and it was a couple of hours, and two more fat steers had been sacrificed, before it was safe to leave the fire line to the watchful care of only half a dozen, or so, of the range riders.

It had been a bitter fight while it lasted. Tom and Bob, and Jane Ann herself had joined in it-slapping out the immature fires where they had sprung up in the gra.s.s from sparks which flew from the greater fires.

But the ridge had helped r.e.t.a.r.d the blaze so that it could be controlled, and from the summit the girls from the East had enjoyed the spectacle.

Old Bill Hicks rode beside the buckboard when they started back for the ranch-house, and was very angry over the setting of the fire. Cow punchers are the most careful people in the world regarding fire-setting in the open. If a cattleman lights his cigarette, or pipe, he not only pinches out the match between his finger and thumb, but, if he is afoot, he stamps the burned match into the earth when he drops it.

"That yere half-crazy tenderfoot oughter be put away somewhares, whar he won't do no more harm to n.o.body," growled the ranchman.

"Do you expect he set it, Uncle?" demanded Jane Ann.

"So Scrub says. He seen him camping in the cottonwoods along Larruper Crick this mawnin'. I reckon n.o.body but a confounded tenderfoot would have set a fire when it's dry like this, noways."

Here Ruth put in a question that she had longed to ask ever since the fire scare began: "Who _is_ this strange man you call the tenderfoot?"

"Dunno, Miss Ruth," said the cattleman. "He's been hanging 'round yere a good bit since Spring. Or, he's been seen by my men a good bit. When they've spoke to him he's seemed sort of doped, or silly. They can't make him out. And he hangs around closest to Tintacker."

"You're interested in _that_, Ruth!" exclaimed Helen.

"What d'you know about Tintacker, Miss?" asked Old Bill, curiously.

"Tintacker is a silver mine, isn't it?" asked Ruth, in return.

"Tintacker used to be a right smart camp some years ago. Some likely silver claims was staked out 'round there. But they petered out, and ain't n.o.body raked over the old dumps, even, but some Chinamen, for ten year."

"But was there a particular mine called 'Tintacker'?" asked Ruth.

"Sure there was. First claim staked out. And it was a good one-for a while. But there ain't nothin' there now."

"You say this stranger hangs about there?" queried Tom, likewise interested.

"He won't for long if my boys find him arter this," growled Hicks.

"They'll come purty close to running him out o' this neck o' woods-you hear me!"

This conversation made Ruth even more intent upon solving the mystery of the Tintacker Mine, and her desire to see this strange "tenderfoot" who hung about the old mining claims increased. But she said nothing more at that time regarding the matter.

CHAPTER V-"OLD TROUBLE-MAKER" TURNED LOOSE

After getting to bed at midnight it could not be expected that the young people at Silver Ranch would be astir early on the morning following the fire scare. But Ruth, who was used to being up with the sun at the Red Mill-and sometimes a little before the orb of day-slipped out of the big room in which the six girls were domiciled when she heard the first stir about the corrals.

When she came out upon the veranda that encircled the ranch-house, wreaths of mist hung knee-high in the coulee-mist which, as soon as the sun peeked over the hills, would be dissipated. The ponies were snorting and stamping at their breakfasts-great armfuls of alfalfa hay which the horse wranglers had pitched over the fence. Maria, the Mexican woman, came up from the cowshed with two br.i.m.m.i.n.g pails of milk, for the Silver Ranch boasted a few milch cows at the home place, and there had been sweet b.u.t.ter on the table at supper the night before-something which is usually very scarce on a cattle ranch.

Ruth ran down to the corral and saw, on the bench outside the bunkhouse door, the row of buckets in which the boys had their morning plunge. The sleeping arrangements at Silver Ranch being rather primitive, Tom and Bob had elected to join the cowboys in the big bunkhouse, and they had risen as early as the punchers and made their own toilet in the buckets, too. The sheet-iron chimney of the chuckhouse kitchen was smoking, and frying bacon and potatoes flavored the keen air for yards around.

Bashful Ike, the foreman, met the Eastern girl at the corner of the corral fence. He was a pleasant, smiling man; but the blood rose to the very roots of his hair and he got into an immediate perspiration if a girl looked at him. When Ruth bade him good-morning Ike's cheeks began to flame and he grew instantly tongue-tied! Beyond nodding a greeting and making a funny noise in his throat he gave no notice that he was like other human beings and could talk. But Ruth had an idea in her mind and Bashful Ike could help her carry it through better than anybody else.

"Mr. Ike," she said, softly, "do you know about this man they say probably set the fire last night?"

Ike gulped down something that seemed to be choking him and mumbled that he supposed he had seen the fellow "about once."

"Do you think he is crazy, Mr. Ike?" asked the Eastern girl.

"I-I swanny! I couldn't be sure as to that, Miss," stammered the foreman of Silver Ranch. "The boys say he acts plumb locoed."

"'Locoed' means crazy?" she persisted.

"Why, Miss, clear 'way down south from us, 'long about the Mexican border, thar's a weed grows called loco, and if critters eats it, they say it crazies 'em-for a while, anyway. So, Miss," concluded Ike, stumbling less in his speech now, "if a man or a critter acts batty like, we say he's locoed."

"I understand. But if this man they suspect of setting the fire is crazy he isn't responsible for what he does, is he?"

"Well, Miss, mebbe not. But we can't have no onresponsible feller hangin' around yere scatterin' fire-no, sir!-ma'am, I mean," Ike hastily added, his face flaming up like an Italian sunset again.

"No; I suppose not. But I understand the man stays around that old camp at Tintacker, more than anywhere else?"