Ruth Fielding at Silver Ranch; Schoolgirls Among Cowboys

“I dunno, Miss. Old Bill’s some hot under the collar himself – and he might well be. Last night’s circus cost him a pretty penny.”

“Did you ever see this man they say is crazy?” demanded Ruth.

“I told you I did oncet.”

“What sort of a looking man is he?”

“He ain’t no more’n a kid, Miss. That’s it; he’s jest a tenderfoot kid.”

“A boy, you mean?” queried Ruth, anxiously.

“Not much older than that yere whitehead ye brought with yuh,” said Ike, beginning to grin now that he had become a bit more familiar with the Eastern girl, and pointing at Bob Steele. “And he ain’t no bigger than him.”

“You wouldn’t let your boys injure a young fellow like that, would you?” cried Ruth. “It wouldn’t be right.”

“I dunno how I’m goin’ to stop ’em from mussin’ him up a whole lot if they chances acrost him,” said Ike, slowly. “He’d ought to be shut up, so he had.”

“Granted. But he ought not to be abused. Another thing, Ike – I’ll tell you a secret.”

“Uh-huh?” grunted the surprised foreman.

“I want to see that young man awfully!” said Ruth. “I want to talk with him – ”

“Sufferin’ snipes!” gasped Ike, becoming so greatly interested that he forgot it was a girl he was talking with. “What you wanter see that looney critter for?”

“Because I’m greatly interested in the Tintacker Mine, and they say this young fellow usually sticks to that locality,” replied Ruth, smiling on the big cow puncher. “Don’t you think I can learn to ride well enough to travel that far before we return to the East?”

“To ride to Tintacker, Miss?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Why, suah, Miss!” cried Ike, cordially. “I’ll pick you-all out a nice pony what’s well broke, and I bet you’ll ride him lots farther than that. I’ll rope him now – I know jest the sort of a hawse you’d oughter ride – ”

“No; you go eat your breakfast with the other boys,” laughed Ruth, preparing to go back to the ranch-house. “Jane Ann says we’re all to have ponies to ride and she maybe will be disappointed if I don’t let her pick out mine for me,” added Ruth, with her usual regard for the feelings of her mates. “But I am going to depend on you, Mr. Ike, to teach me to ride.”

“And when you want to ride over to Tintacker tuh interview that yere maverick, yo’ let me know, Miss,” said Bashful Ike. “I’ll see that yuh git thar with proper escort, and all that,” and he grinned sheepishly.

Tom and Bob breakfasted with the punchers, but after the regular meal at the ranch-house the two boys hastened to join their girl friends. First they must all go to the corral and pick out their riding ponies. Helen, Madge and The Fox could ride fairly well; but Jane Ann had warned them that Eastern riding would not do on the ranch. Such a thing as a side-saddle was unknown, so the girls had all supplied themselves with divided skirts so that they could ride astride like the Western girl. Besides, a cow pony would not stand for the long skirt of a riding habit flapping along his flank.

Now, Ruth had ridden a few times on Helen’s pony, and away back when she was a little girl she had ridden bareback on an old horse belonging to the blacksmith at Darrowtown. So she was not afraid to try the nervous little flea-bitten gray that Ike Stedman roped and saddled and bridled for her. Jane Ann declared it to be a favorite pony of her own, and although the little fellow did not want to stand while his saddle was being cinched, and stamped his cunning little feet on the ground a good bit, Ike assured the girl of the Red Mill that “Freckles,” as they called him, was “one mighty gentle hawse!”

There was no use in the girls from the East showing fear; Ruth was too plucky to do that, anyway. She was not really afraid of the pony; but when she was in the saddle it did seem as though Freckles danced more than was necessary.

These cow ponies never walk – unless they are dead tired; about Freckles’ easiest motion was a canter that carried Ruth over the prairie so swiftly that her loosened hair flowed behind her in the wind, and for a time she could not speak – until she became adjusted to the pony’s motion. But she liked riding astride much better than on a side-saddle, and she soon lost her fear. Ike had given her some good advice about the holding of her reins so that a sharp pull on Freckles’ curb would instantly bring the pony down to a dead stop. The bashful one had screwed tiny spurs into the heels of her high boots and given her a light quirt, or whip.

The other girls – all but Heavy – were, as we have seen, more used to riding than the girl of the Red Mill; but with the stout girl the whole party had a great deal of fun. Of course, Jennie Stone expected to cause hilarity among her friends; she “poked fun” at herself all the time, so could not object if the others laughed.

“I’ll never in this world be able to get into a saddle without a kitchen chair to step upon,” Jennie groaned, as she saw the other girls choosing their ponies. “Mercy! if I got on that little Freckles, he’d squat right down – I know he would! You’ll have to find something bigger than these rabbits for me to ride on.”

At that she heard the girls giggling behind her and turned to face a great, droop-headed, long-eared roan mule, with hip bones that you could hang your hat on – a most forlorn looking bundle of bones that had evidently never recovered the climatic change from the river bottoms of Missouri to the uplands of Montana. Tom Cameron held the mule with a trace-chain around his neck and he offered the end of the chain to Heavy with a perfectly serious face.

“I believe you’d better saddle this chap, Jennie,” said Tom. “You see how he’s built – the framework is great. I know he can hold you up all right. Just look at how he’s built.”

“Looks like the steel framework of a skyscraper,” declared Heavy, solemnly. “Don’t you suppose I might fall in between the ribs if I climbed up on that thing? I thought you were a better friend to me than that, Tom Cameron. You’d deliberately let me risk my life by being tangled up in that moth-eaten bag o’ bones if it collapsed under me. No! I’ll risk one of these rabbits. I’ll have less distance to fall if I roll.”

But the little cow ponies were tougher than the stout girl supposed. Ike weighed in the neighborhood of a hundred and eighty pounds – solid bone and muscle – and the cayuse that he bestrode when at work was no bigger than Ruth’s Freckles. They hoisted Heavy into the saddle, and Tom offered to lash her there if she didn’t feel perfectly secure.

“You needn’t mind, Tommy,” returned the stout girl. “If, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for me to disembark from this saddle, I’ll probably want to get down quick. There’s no use in hampering me. I take my life in my hand – with these reins – and – ugh! ugh! ugh!” she finished as, on her picking up the lines, her restive pony instantly broke into the liveliest kind of a trot.

But after all, Heavy succeeded in riding pretty well; while Ruth, after an hour, was not afraid to let her pony take a pretty swift gait with her. Jane Ann, however, showed remarkable skill and made the Eastern girls fairly envious. She had ridden, of course, ever since she was big enough to hold bridle reins, and there were few of the punchers who could handle a horse better than the ranchman’s niece.

But the visitors from the East did not understand this fact fully until a few days later, when the first bunch of Spring calves and yearlings were driven into a not far distant corral to be branded. Branding is one of the big shows on a cattle ranch, and Ruth and her chums did not intend to miss the sight; besides, some of the boys had corraled Old Trouble-Maker near by and promised some fancy work with the big black and white steer.

“We’ll show you some roping now,” said Jane Ann, with enthusiasm. “Just cutting a little old cow out of that band in the corral and throwing it ain’t nothing. Wait till we turn Old Trouble-Maker loose.”

The whole party rode over to the branding camp, and there was the black and white steer as wild as ever. While the branding was going on the big steer bellowed and stamped and tried to break the fence down. The smell of the burning flesh, and the bellowing of the calves and yearlings as their ears were slit, stirred the old fellow up.

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