The Boy Ranchers Part 17

With snorts, bellows and heavy breathing the steers came on. Some were old Texas longhorns, but many of the cattle on the Diamond X ranch, and the adjacent possessions of Mr. Merkel, had been dehorned. It was found that more animals could be packed in a car when they had no interfering horns, and the practice is becoming general of taking the horns off western stock.

But even though some were without horns, this herd was sufficiently dangerous. The first thought of Bud and his cousins was to put all the distance possible between them and the foremost of the steers. This they had now done. And it was becoming evident that unless some of the leaders tripped and went down, there was to be no disastrous piling up of animals one on the other. The leaders ran well, and the others followed.

The rustlers, if such they were, seemed to realize that their desperate plan had failed, for, so far, not a beef had fallen. And the Greasers, off to one side, dared not try to cut out, and run off, any animals.

To have ventured into the midst of that charging herd would have been madness.

"Come on! Let's see if we can turn 'em!" urged Bud, drawing his gun, an example followed by Nort and d.i.c.k. Led by the son of the owner of Diamond X, the boy ranchers charged down on the oncoming herd, from which they had just ridden away. But now they had the advantage. They stood a better chance. If they could turn the leaders, sending them in a circle, the other animals would follow, and soon the whole bunch would be "milling," which is the most desired way to stop a stampede.

"Come on! Come a ridin'! Whoop-ee!" shrilly cried Bud, yelling, waving his hat in one hand and firing in the air with his gun. Nort and d.i.c.k did likewise. Straight at the cattle they rode.

It was a desperate chance, but one that had to be taken. Bud knew, if the others did not, that about a mile beyond lay a gully, led up to by a cliff, and if the steers and cows reached this, the leaders unable to stop, while the rear ranks pushed on, there would be a ma.s.s of piled-up, dead cattle to tell the story.

"We've got to stop 'em!" shouted Bud.

And stop them, or, rather, turn them, the boy ranchers did. Just when it seemed that the wild animals would rush over, and trample down the three lads, the foremost of the steers turned at a sharp angle, their hoofs skidding in the soil, and swung around.

"Now we've got 'em!" cried Bud. "Make 'em mill! Make 'em mill!"

And this is what the cattle did. Around and around they ran, in a big, dusty circle, while the other Diamond X cowboys rode up.

"That was touch and go," said one of the older riders, when the herd was comparatively quiet. "What started 'em off, Bud?"

"Didn't you see that bunch of Greasers?" asked the rancher's son.

The cowboys had not, it developed, and now, when the three boys tried to point out the rascals the quartette was not in sight. However, something else took the attention of Bud and the older cowboys. This something was a small bunch of steers, galloping off by themselves, but not being hazed by any riders.

"We can't lose them!" shouted Bud. "They belong to dad! Got to get 'em back!"

"We'll go after 'em," offered Nort and d.i.c.k. "We can bring 'em back."

"Yes, I reckon you can, while we ride herd on these," said Bud. "I don't want to take any more chances with 'em. Haze the outlaws back this way, fellows!"

Eager to have this responsibility, and to do something "on their own,"

d.i.c.k and his brother spurred away. And before they realized it, Nort and d.i.c.k found themselves down in a depression, whence they could catch sight neither of the small knot of cattle they had started out to haze back, nor the main herd.

"Say, where are we?" asked d.i.c.k, slowing up his pony, and looking about him. He and Nort were down in a green valley, with hills all around, but no sign of life--animal or human. "Where are we?"

Nort paused a moment before replying. Then, as he drew rein and listened, he said:

"Lost, I reckon!"

CHAPTER XVI

THE VISION

Though Nort spoke with an appearance of calmness, there was something in his voice that made d.i.c.k catch his breath. It was not that the younger lad was exactly afraid, but he was on the verge of becoming so.

"Lost, eh?" repeated d.i.c.k. Then, as he saw a half smile on Nort's face, and looked about on what was really a beautiful scene, his little worry seemed to vanish as mists roll away in the sun. "Well, if we're lost it isn't such a bad place to be in, and I reckon we can easily find our way back. 'Tisn't like being lost in the woods, as we once were."

"No," agreed Nort, "it isn't." They had gone camping once, with their father, and had wandered off in a forest, being "lost" all night, though, as it developed later, not far from their own folks.

"And I don't see why we can't easily ride back the way we came," went on d.i.c.k.

"We can, if we find the way," agreed Nort. "But I seem all turned around. And I don't like to go back without those cattle. We offered to ride off after 'em and bring 'em back, and we ought to do it."

"But where are they?" asked d.i.c.k, "and where's the main herd? That isn't so small that you could hide it in one of these valleys!"

They were, as I have said, in the midst of a rolling country, where swales or valleys were interspersed with hills. One moment they had held in view the small bunch of steers that had wandered away from the main herd, but, in another instant, there was no sign of them.

"Listen, and see if you can hear anything," suggested Nort.

Quietly the boy ranchers sat on their horses; the only sounds being the creaking of the damp saddle and stirrup leathers as the animals moved slightly. But there was no sound of lowing cows or snorting steers, and there came to the ears of Nort and d.i.c.k no distant shouts of Bud and the cowboys, though the main herd, with the men in charge, could not have been more than two miles away. But, for all that, our heroes were as completely isolated as though a hundred miles distant from civilization.

"I can't understand it!" murmured d.i.c.k.

"Nor I," said Nort, "It's just as if those cattle had dropped out of sight in a hole in the ground. Maybe they did, d.i.c.k."

"What do you mean?" asked his brother.

"I mean maybe those mysterious professors have been digging big mining holes around here, and that bunch of steers we were chasing just naturally slipped into one. We'd better look out, or we'll drop out of sight ourselves!"

Though he spoke half jokingly, there was some seriousness in Nort's voice, and d.i.c.k realized it.

"Those professors sure are queer, with their digging operations," d.i.c.k agreed. "I'd like to know what they are after, and why they're hanging around Diamond X."

"Well, I'd like to know that, too," said Nort, "but first of all I'd like to know our way out of this place. There must be some way out, as we didn't have any trouble finding a way in."

"Of course we can get out," d.i.c.k answered. "There aren't any trees to amount to anything, and we aren't fenced in. We can ride in any direction we like, and I say let's ride somewhere."

"I'm with you," spoke his brother. "But the only trouble is we might be riding farther and farther away from Bud and the rest of the fellows. Why not try to locate that bunch of cattle we're after?

They'll be heading directly away from the main herd, I take it, and if we locate them all we'll have to do will be to drive them right about face, and we'll get back where we belong."

"All right, let's find the steers," a.s.sented d.i.c.k.

They started their ponies, which, doubtless, had been glad of the little breathing spell. But it was one thing to say find the missing steers, and another to do it. One swale seemed to so melt in with an adjoining one, and one hill to merge with its mate, that they all looked alike to the boys, who, as it developed afterward, kept working their way farther and farther off from their friends.

"Hang those steers! Where are they, anyhow?" exclaimed Nort after half an hour of search, during which no signs had been seen.

"Let's try over this way," suggested d.i.c.k, turning to the left.

Though it might seem that in a fairly open country, composed of hills and vales, it would be hard to hide a bunch of cattle, still Nort and d.i.c.k, to their chagrin, did not find it difficult. They were completely baffled, and the longer they searched the more puzzled they were.

"Well, there's one thing about it," remarked d.i.c.k, when they drew rein, "we shan't starve right away, and if we have to stay out all night we have the same accommodations we have had before," and he tapped the tarpaulin which formed part of his saddle pack.

"Oh, yes, we can camp out if we have to," agreed Nort, "and I shan't mind that. But it's our failure to do the first job we tackled 'on our own' that gets my goat. Bud will sure think we're tenderfeet for fair!"