Ruth Fielding at Silver Ranch; Schoolgirls Among Cowboys

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. “I gotter keep 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’ my gift-box. Talk erbout castin’ pearls before swine!” continued Bashful Ike, in deep disgust, “that was suah flingin’ jewels to the hawgs, all right. Them ’ombres from the Two-Ten outfit, 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 you make a chance?”

“Great Peter!” cried the foreman again. “I can’t throw an’ hawg-tie her, can I? I never can git 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 rummaging of “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 of them, 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. There was 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.

CHAPTER XIV – BASHFUL IKE COMES OUT STRONG

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 Ike is worth 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 make him forget 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,” chuckled Heavy, “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 engineered that), 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 sufficient courage 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 like you 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 were members; 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 the measles – 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 stand me, 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 for me I 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, and the 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 little Smartie, 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.

CHAPTER XV – “THE NIGHT TRICK”

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 on edge 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 go out 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.