Ted Strong in Montana Part 11

As he rode he drew his revolver, and broke it to see that its chambers were filled.

Ted's face was pale and stern, and Stella saw at a glance that he was terribly angry, and had the look in it that she had observed there several times when he had seen animals being used with cruelty.

As he dashed into the milling herd he gave a cry of rage.

At the same moment a man sprang to an upright position in the midst of the cattle, and gave a cry of surprise.

Over his shoulders hung the fresh hide of a cow, with the skin of the head and the horns protruding above his head.

He gave one swift glance at Ted, then threw the hide to the ground and set out at a run through the plunging beasts.

Ted was hampered by the cattle getting in his way, and was not making much progress, but he was beating the horned beasts aside with his quirt.

It was possible even yet that the man who was running from him would escape, and this was what Ted was trying with all his might to prevent.

Ted knew why the man was among the cattle protected from them by his disguise of the cow's hide.

He had been hamstringing them by the wholesale.

In one day the inhuman brute could destroy for range use a whole herd.

In the meantime, the cattle were growing wilder and wilder from the pain caused by the hamstringer's knife, the wild career of the unmounted man among them, and Ted and Stella pressing through them from the rear with shouts and cracking quirts.

"Great Scott! They'll get him!" shouted Ted, reining in his pony.

The furious steers had turned their attention to the man on foot, and were surging about him with angry bellowings, charging upon him, and crowding him.

He was in a very perilous position, and it was only that the cattle were herded so close together that he had not gone down sooner.

But once the cattle got him down he would be gored and trampled to death. Nothing could save him.

Ted and Stella were trying to force their way to his side, but were unable to do so.

Notwithstanding the fact the fellow had been caught in the act of mutilating his cattle, Ted could not see him die without trying to save him.

Now they heard a cry of fear, and saw the man throw his arms up in the air.

The cattle were surging about him with wild and angry bovine cries, and with a great tossing of horns, and leaps into the air.

There were m.u.f.fled yells of agony from beneath the tossing ma.s.s of horns.

"They've got him," muttered Ted. "They are wreaking their own revenge."

"Are they killing him, Ted?" asked Stella.

"They have got him down. The fool he was to go among them on foot. He should have known better."

Ted made another effort to get through the cattle, and at last succeeded in making a lane for himself.

"Stella," he shouted over his shoulder, "you stay where you are! This is nothing for you to see. Better let me attend to this."

Stella was aware that Ted always knew what he was talking about when he warned her away from anything, and she made her way out of the herd.

When Ted got to the spot where he had last seen the man, the cattle were still milling, but were getting calmer, and had no hesitancy in scattering when he rode among them slashing right and left with his quirt and firing his revolver over their heads.

When he had cleared an open s.p.a.ce he rode back into it, and instantly recoiled from the sight presented to him.

On the ground lay the hamstringer, a ma.s.s of b.l.o.o.d.y clothes in which were torn flesh and broken bones. He was quite dead, and had been not only gored but had been trampled hundreds of times.

The vengeance of the maimed animals was complete.

CHAPTER VII.

A NIGHT RAID.

Ted bent over the mangled body of the hamstringer and turned him over.

Then he leaped back with an exclamation of horror.

He had recognized the miscreant.

It was Sol Flatbush, the traitorous cow-puncher, member of the gang of cattle rustlers and gamblers headed by Shan Rhue, who had run off about five hundred head of cattle of the Circle S brand into the Wichita Mountains in Indian Territory.

But how had Sol Flatbush got into this part of the country? And where was he stopping? It was evident that the cow-puncher and desperado had hamstrung the cattle out of revenge for having been discovered and driven out of the broncho boys' camp.

Now that he was dead, however, Ted lost all his resentment, and was genuinely sorry for the poor chap because of the horrible means of his death.

Ted hardly knew what to do with him. It were better if his friends could take charge of his body and bury it, but where were his friends?

Suddenly a thought occurred to Ted. Perhaps Sol Flatbush, following his instincts and habits, had come north after he and Shan Rhue had been outwitted by the boys at the Hole in the Wall in the Wichita Mountains, and allied himself with the Whipple gang in the Sweet Gra.s.s Mountains.

If this were true, the simplest thing to do was to send the body of Flatbush to the gang. It would serve, Ted hoped, as a terrible warning to the other members of the gang not to meddle with the affairs of the broncho boys.

Not far away Ted saw a pony, saddled and grazing quietly.

Mounting his pony, he rode up to it. Tied to the cantle of the saddle was a pair of blankets.

This was the very thing! Ted carried the blankets to where the body of Flatbush lay. Spreading them out, he rolled the remains of Flatbush into them, and bound them securely with a rope.

With some difficulty he lifted the bundle to the back of the outlaw's pony, and bound it securely with a lariat.

Then he tied the pony's reins to the horn of the saddle, gave the beast a slash with his quirt, and it started, snorting and jumping, toward the distant mountains.

Thus was the body of Sol Flatbush sent to his friends.