Boy Scouts on the Open Plains; The Round-Up Not Ordered

“That’s what all scouts mean to do, Chunky,” advised Jimmy, promptly. “Their motto is ‘be prepared,’ even if they don’t always live up to the same. But we’ll try to keep our eyes on the watch for signs of trouble. See you later, boys! So-long!”

Jimmy was rapidly picking up range ways. All he needed to make him a regular puncher, he imagined, was a cowboy suit with sheepskin chaps and a real range hat, to take the place of the campaign headgear that as a scout he always wore.

Already the calico pony was showing signs of being conquered. Jimmy had a masterful way about him, being a bit reckless, and the animal, no doubt, began to understand that, as his new rider seemed bent on keeping up the fight to the bitter end, it might be the best policy to seem to yield. But Ned, still having in mind the white eyes that struck him as treacherous, warned Jimmy not to trust his mount too far.

They rode for miles along the foot of the hills. Ned never failed to keep track of the distance and the points of the compass. When they considered that it was time to head toward home they could depend on the scout master to tell them just where the ranch buildings lay, and about how much distance separated them from home.

Up to that time they had not come across any signs of game, a fact that caused Jimmy to express himself as very much disappointed; for their lunch had been a scanty one, according to his mind, and he indulged in high hopes that if they could only knock over an antelope or a deer while the rest were resting, he could start a cooking fire and fix up a little snack to allow him to hold out until suppertime arrived.

Ned, who had been closely observing their surroundings for some little time now, gave it as his opinion that they might find something in the shape of quarry if they left the plain and turned into the scrub that covered the slope of the hills.

“It looks like our last chance for to-day, boys,” he announced, “and because our chum, Jimmy here, has set his heart so much on taking home some game, we might make one more try. If nothing shows up in half an hour we’ll call the hunt off for to-day and come again some other time. Are you all agreeable?”

There was no dissenting voice.

Half an hour may have seemed like a very short time to Jimmy, who disliked to give anything up on which he had set his heart; but he realized that Ned was always a better judge of things than he could ever hope to be. Besides, their ponies had begun to exhibit slight signs of weariness, not having fully recovered from the effects of the weed they had eaten, and which had made them sick. As the ranch buildings were a good many miles away, they must not force the ponies too hard if they hoped to be home by sunset.

This was only the first of many trips the scouts had planned to cover during their stay at the cattle ranch. They meant to exhaust the resources of the country for good times, and Jack was figuring on adding largely to his collection of wild animals’ pictures while there. He had interested Jimmy in the matter, so that he could count on company and assistance in his excursions by day and night in search of fitting subjects.

They turned their ponies at the brush and started to comb it, being constantly on the watch for signs of a leaping deer aroused from a noonday nap in the shade.

The going was inclined to be rough, so that they had to be careful not to let their mounts trip and throw them.

Ned knew that what little air there was stirring came in their faces, which was a favorable sign; but it is doubtful whether any of the others noticed this fact, as they were not in the same class as the scout master when it came to understanding the elements that go to make a successful stalk.

Still no game obliged them by jumping out of some shady covert, which Jimmy considered mighty mean, when his stomach was fairly clamoring for food. When the nature of their surroundings showed a considerable change, and instead of mere brush and a scraggy growth of trees they found rocks surrounding them, with miniature canyons opening up all around, Ned began to think they had gone far enough.

He yielded, however, to Jimmy’s pleading when the latter suggested that they fasten the ponies in a thicket and advance a short distance on foot.

“It looks good to me up yonder,” Jimmy was saying feverishly. “I’m most sure now I glimpsed somethin’ movin’, which might have been a browsin’ Rocky Mountain big horn sheep, if they have such down here; or, again p’raps, it was a grizzly bear, or a four-legged venison feedin’. Let’s take a turn up there and if we don’t raise a solitary thing, why, I’ll give in and go back home empty-handed, feelin’ like a dog with his tail between his legs.”

Ned certainly would not think of letting Jimmy make that little excursion alone, nor did he feel like allowing only one other to accompany the would-be mighty hunter. Chunky had warned them particularly against getting scattered while exploring the country roundabout.

“Where one goes all must follow!” he said, positively.

“Bully for you, Ned,” Jimmy declared joyously. “The more the merrier they say; and Jack and me’ll be glad to have the whole bunch along.”

“How about the ponies, Ned; do you think it is safe to leave them here?” Harry wanted to know, a little anxious about the safety of their mounts; because a twelve-mile hike did not appeal to him just then.

“I don’t think anything or anybody would be apt to bother them,” Jack remarked, although no one had asked his opinion on the subject.

“Sure they won’t,” asserted the eager Jimmy, making his jaws work as though in imagination he were already enjoying a tender venison steak alongside of a splendid camp fire.

“We’ll have to risk a little,” Ned admitted, as he dismounted, and once more looked to see that his rifle was in condition for immediate use.

They found places where the ponies could be tied, and the animals evidently did not object to the rest in the least, if their actions were any judge.

“’Tis meself that’s thinkin’ the dope Ally Sloper gave Spot here, as I’ve renamed Satan, must have taken the heart out of the critter, because he’s been as gentle as you please all day,” Jimmy remarked, as he patted the calico pony; but Ned only shook his head without making any reply, for he had seen the ears flattened and noted the half-inclination on the part of the pony to bite at the hand that was caressing its wet neck and withers.

Presently they started up the canyon toward the spot where Jimmy still declared he believed he had seen an object move, which must be game of some sort. All conversation having been positively tabooed by Ned, Jimmy could only take it out in sundry grins and vigorous nods of his head as they proceeded.

Everybody was tuned up to a tense state of excitement as they reached the bend of the rock wall and then carefully crept around the same. Unless Jimmy had made a mistake, or was willfully deceiving them, they must speedily discover the animal he claimed to have sighted. All sorts of speculations were doubtless rife in their minds concerning its nature; one hoped it would prove to be a deer; another may have had a monster grizzly in view while caressing his repeating rifle; while Jack, who carried his little camera along with him, would have been highly pleased could he have snapped off a big-horn sheep in the act of leaping from crag to crag somewhere up there along the high canyon walls.

Nothing loomed up, though Ned went further than his prudence dictated, in order to satisfy Jimmy. The latter’s face had fallen forty-five degrees, and he was shaking his head gloomily as he stared around, looking in vain for favorable signs.

Ned was even about to open his mouth and give the order that would take the little party back to where they had left their mounts tied, when he heard something like a stone falling back of him.

Remembering that the canyon had narrowed there, like the neck of a bottle, Ned turned suddenly on his heels. If he expected to discover any sort of wild game slinking off, he was greatly in error. What he did see caused a spasm of alarm to dart through the scout master’s brave heart.

Up on a shelf of rock, just over the narrow part of the defile, several figures of men could be seen. They looked like ordinary cowboys, but when Ned recognized Ally Sloper and Coyote Smith, yes, and Lefty Louie as well among them, he understood that instead they were a part of the rustler gang that he and his chums had been instrumental in cheating out of their intended prey!

CHAPTER XIX.

AT BAY IN THE CANYON

“Dodge back!” suddenly snapped Ned, as he seized hold of Jimmy and half-pulled him along; while Harry and Jack, although they did not understand what it was all about, made haste to tumble pellmell in the direction the scout master was dragging the fourth chum.

A gun cracked and chips of stone flew up very close to their feet. This was quite enough to tell the others what sort of danger menaced them. It doubtless acted as a spur to hasten their departure from the open, for in another moment they were to be seen huddled under a shelf of rock, each fellow eagerly handling his rifle as though ready to give a good account of himself.

“Was it just one man made us skip out like all that?” Jimmy wanted to know, for he was proud, and the thought would have come back to him many times later on, to cause heartburnings and keen regrets.

“No, there was a bunch of them there,” Ned informed them. “I recognized Ally Sloper, Coyote Smith and Lefty Louie. There was another big man along, a regular giant, with a bushy head of hair and the look of a terror!”

“Wow! I wonder now if that wasn’t Amos’s awful dad?” Jimmy exclaimed.

“But what are we going to do about it, Ned?” Harry wanted to know. “Here we are, caught in a little rat-trap, seems like. If we start to run out of this canyon, how do we know what they’ll do? They’ve shot once already and, perhaps, stand ready to give us a volley. This is a bad job, seems to me. See what your everlasting teasing of Ned gets us into, Jimmy.”

“Well, we ain’t all dead yet, are we?” the other naively wanted to know, “and our guns ought to shoot just as straight as the ones they handle, which I reckon now are only the kind punchers carry, and no good at a distance. Chirk up, Harry, and listen to what Ned’s goin’ to say.”

Instead of speaking Ned crept cautiously forward a little ways, and when he returned again, reported that so far as he could see the men on the ledge had disappeared.

“But that’s not saying they’re gone, is it?” asked Jack.

“I’m afraid not,” replied the scout master. “You see, they command the passage from up there on that ledge. If we try and go out, they can drop rocks down and give us a volley from their guns, while we wouldn’t be able to sight them.”

“Two might stay here and keep the ledge covered while the others went out,” suggested Harry, “and play the game that way. With our rifles we’d make things so warm for the bunch they’d hardly dare show themselves. And after the first two got out, why, they could hold the fort for the others. How’s that, Ned?”

“Not bad,” replied the one addressed, “only I’m afraid there may be others near by. I heard some one shout just then, which I take it must be a signal. There goes another yell from across the canyon.”

“By jinks! I believe we’re surrounded!” ejaculated Jimmy, and strange as it might seem, there was something not unlike a vein of gratification in his voice, as though the boy really felt pleased to know they were in for another spell of action.

“We’re going to have a fight, that’s certain!” announced Jack, handling his weapon with nervous fingers, in sharp contrast to Ned’s steady ways.

“Well, this ought to make a pretty fair sort of a fort, I should think,” Harry remarked, as he indicated the slanting rock under which they had crawled, and which sheltered them fairly well from any peril that might be hovering above.

“But if they once get up above us in the canyon, and below as well, they could pour in what is called an enfilading fire, and make it mighty unpleasant under our rock mushroom fort,” Jack explained.

“Which will be apt to happen, sooner or later, if they mean to give us trouble,” assented Ned.

“Then we’d better get a hustle on and see if we c’n side-step any,” Jimmy was heard to remark.

“Keep watching, up and down, and shoot at any moving thing you glimpse,” Ned told them, as he started to creep further under the shelf.

“Where are you going, Ned?” Harry asked, filled with curiosity.

“To see what chance there is of our finding a safer refuge than this,” replied the scout master. “Somehow, I seem to have a notion that there’s a sort of crevice in the canyon wall close by. If it turns out that way and it’s big enough for us to crawl in, why, we’ll be better fixed to stand that crowd off.”

“Good luck to you!” Jimmy called after him.

“Don’t watch what I’m doing, but keep guard in front!” were the last words Ned sent back over his shoulder.

A minute later and Jack announced that he believed there was some one moving up amidst some scraggy bushes growing in a spot where earth had fallen down into the rocky cut.

“I’ve got half a mind to send a shot up there and rout him out,” he declared.

“Cut her loose then,” Jimmy told him.

“If it doesn’t do anything else,” Harry observed, “you’ll publish plain warning of our intention to fight back and give as good as we take. When they hear the crack of a rifle, perhaps, they’ll make up their minds they don’t want to bother us as much as they thought they did in the start.”

So Jack pressed the trigger of his weapon, which promptly went off with a roar, owing to the fact that at the time he was crouching in a confined space under the shelf of rock.

“Look at that, would you?” cried Jimmy.

A man had jumped into momentary view, in the midst of the leafless bushes, and making a wild spring, vanished back of a neighboring spur of rock.

“He thought it was too hot out in the open,” said Harry. “I wonder if you winged him with that shot, Jack?”

“I’d like to believe I did,” came the answer, as Jack worked the mechanism of his rifle, so as to send out the useless brass shell, and shoot another cartridge from the magazine into the firing chamber; “but from the way he jumped, in didn’t look much like he’d been struck. Don’t forget to watch the other side, too. If they get started coming in on us, we’d be in a peck of trouble.”

He had hardly spoken when a gun sounded, and they heard the splash of the bullet mushrooming against the stone close by.

“Wow! that’s getting pretty close, let me tell you!” cried Jimmy, stooping to pick up the rough-edged, flattened circle of lead, and then immediately dropping it with a cry: “Say, that’s as hot as anything! It burned my fingers to beat the band. And there goes another shot down the canyon. They’re meanin’ business this time, boys! If one of us gets in line with a bullet, his name will be Dennis.”

In the temporary absence of the scout master Jack thought that the duty of looking after their safety devolved on him.

“Here, creep back more, everybody!” he ordered, “and snuggled down the best you can behind any stones you find. Make yourself as small as anything, while that lead’s singing around here.”

“Wish I could find a chance to bang away back at the nervy crowd,” grumbled Jimmy, as he sprawled out like a huge frog and listened to several shots from as many different quarters. “What’s sauce for the goose ought to be sauce for the gander, too. It’s a poor rule, I always heard, that don’t work both ways.”

Try as hard as he would, however, Jimmy seemed unable to find a chance to discharge his gun with anything like a prospect of results. The bullets continued to flit around them, making all sorts of queer and blood chilling noises. There were several narrow escapes, too; and once Harry actually felt a tug at his arm that, upon investigation, showed him a slit in the khaki material of which the sleeve of his coat was made, proving that a passing bullet had almost drawn blood.

Several minutes had passed since this bombardment commenced, and it showed no signs of slackening. If it continued much longer there was a chance that one of the scouts might stop a bullet, and the prospect did not seem very pleasant, to say the least.

While this was going on, and all hands were grumbling, because they found so little use for their trusty rifles, Jack heard some one gently calling his name.

“Hello! is that you, Ned?” he asked joyfully, for he felt sure that the return of the scout master would mean a new rift in the clouds.

“Yes, tell the other boys to back in here after you!” the other scout went on to say.

“Yes, it’s here, but hurry and get started!” Ned continued, from the darker depths beyond.

Of course, when the others heard that there was an opportunity to creep out of the fire zone they lost no time in making a move. Jimmy was declaring at the same time that it certainly gave him a pain to be compelled to “take water” in that way, and without having inflicted any material damage that they knew of on the enemy.

“If we’d only knocked half a dozen of the skunks off their pins, it wouldn’t be so bad,” he lamented; “but I ain’t had any chance. It ain’t fair, that’s what; and me just crazy to try my Marlin on that lot of mutts. But wait, that’s all; my time’s agoin’ to come yet, and then, look out, that’s what!”

When they had backed some ten feet or more they came to the wall of the canyon. Ned was waiting to show them where he had found a fissure into which he must undoubtedly have crawled some little ways, seeking to find out what sort of a haven of refuge it would turn out to be.

“I struck a match,” he told his comrades, as they pushed into the split in the wall, “and as near as I could make out, there’s a little cave right here. We’ll take possession and hold the fort against a hundred enemies.”

“Hurrah! that’s right, we will!” shrilled the irrepressible Jimmy, always quick to seize upon any excuse for giving tongue.

Already they seemed to have passed beyond the reach of the flying bullets, although, of course, the ambitious rustlers did not know that and were still banging away right merrily.

“If only they’d keep that up until they’d fired away every scrap of their ammunition, wouldn’t it be just fine,” Harry suggested, “then we could go out and do a little holding-up on our own hook.”

Ned lighted another match, so that all of them might see what manner of refuge had been found in this emergency. It turned out to be a fair-sized cavity, nothing unusual, but capable of answering their needs.

There was, of course, no way of blocking the entrance, but with four guns to stand guard there did not seem to be much reason to fear that the enemy could ever rush their fortress.

“But it makes me clear mad to think that while we’re cooped up here, like rats in a trap, that crowd can hunt around for our ponies and get away with the lot,” Jack complained.

At that Jimmy raised a row.

“And that’d be the last I’d see of my calico broncho, just when I was growing attached to him, too!” he bleated.

“But from what you told us,” Jack remarked, bitingly, “there was a time when you had to throw your arms around his neck in order to become attached to him. But never mind, Jimmy, the rustler that gets your Spot will be sorry for it, if I’m any judge of tricky horses. It may be the best thing that ever happened to you. Some times blessings come in disguise; and, if the pony’s stolen, it may save you from getting a broken collarbone.”

The shooting presently ceased. Whether the rustlers considered that they had accomplished the end they had in view and utterly demoralized the enemy; or, discovered the change of base on the part of the four scouts, no one was able to more than guess.

“Seems to me I can hear somebody talking close by,” Jack remarked, when some time had passed without any renewal of the bombardment.

“Get ready to repel boarders, then!” urged Harry, “for they must have discovered where we’ve crawled. Do you think they’ll try to carry the fort by assault, Ned?”

“I don’t believe so, if they’re the kind of men I take them to be,” replied the scout master. “It would take more than a dozen desperate men to get in here past the hot fire we’d start playing on them, and I reckon there isn’t that many in the bunch. No, if they do anything at all, look out for some trick.”

“But they can’t drop down on us, because there’s only one entrance and we’ve got that covered,” Jack asserted. “It’s dark enough in here, but we could see if anybody came against that line of light, and pepper him in a jiffy. I don’t see what way they could fool us, Ned.”

“I hope I’m mistaken, that’s all,” the other returned, but his vigilance did not relax a particle, nor was he at all sanguine as to the rustlers going away and leaving them to make their escape as they pleased.

The minutes dragged along. Every little while Jimmy would declare that he caught those low voices again, or it might be a rustling sound that puzzled him. Some of the other scouts admitted that they heard something of the same sort, though unable to explain what it might mean.

These things kept them constantly on the alert. Their nerves were held up at a high tension all the while they crouched there, keeping continual watch and ward.

Jimmy had several times grumbled that it seemed like a shame, that four able-bodied scouts should be bottled up in this silly way, and begged Ned to think up a plan that would change the situation around, giving them a chance to play the aggressor.

He was about starting in for the third time to vent his disgust, when the others heard him begin to sniff.

“What’s the matter, Jimmy; think you smell dinner cooking?” jeered Jack.

“No, I don’t, more’s the pity; but I did get a whiff of the most disagreeable smoke that ever was, or could be. There she comes again, with the breeze sendin’ the same right into this little snuggery, hot-footed. Oh! my, don’t that take the cake, though? Whatever can they be burnin’ and how does it happen to get in here?”

“It’s the trick I told you they’d be playing on us, Jimmy,” said Ned, seriously. “That’s what they call the stink weed, and the smoke’ll drive us out of here yet.”

CHAPTER XX.

SMOKED OUT

What Ned had said appalled them all. The situation had seemed peculiar and distressing before, because they could not see far enough ahead to even guess how it might turn out; it became positively terrifying now.

They had heard some of the punchers speak about the powerful agency of the weed mentioned by the scout master. One man had told how it was often used to force wolves from their rocky dens. When set to smouldering, it produced a smoke that was quite irresistible, and which overpowered man or beast.

“Why can’t we find a way to keep it out of the cave?” Jack presently demanded, when they found themselves rubbing their eyes, in spite of themselves, and beginning to feel half choked in the bargain.

“The opening is too wide to think of closing it, more’s the pity,” Harry answered, with deep regret in his voice.

“And even then we couldn’t keep the smoke out,” Ned told them; “because we’d have to get air, and where that can enter the smoke could too.”

“This is sure the worst deal I ever struck!” gasped Jimmy. “It takes your breath away like fun, and makes you think your eyes are bored in your head. They call it by the right name, I tell you, for it certainly does smell rank. Whew! somebody fan me, or I’ll go under.”

Nobody took the trouble to oblige Jimmy. The fact was they all felt it just as badly as the freckled-faced scout; and each fellow was trying the best he knew how to get temporary relief.

“How’s it going to end, Ned?” asked Jack, and his voice sounded very queer, for he was talking between his teeth, not wishing to open his mouth wider than he could possibly help.

“One of two ways,” returned the scout master, gloomily.

“You mean we’ll just have to hoist the white rag and give up?” continued Jack, in deep disgust.

“Either that or be overcome here; and nobody wants to let that happen, because some of us might suffocate. Anything would be better than that, it strikes me,” was what the leader told Jack.

“What if we rushed out and started to fight our way through?” suggested Harry, who had been listening to what his comrades said; and the surprise of it all was that he, the peace-loving member of the little band, should so suddenly display such ferocity; but then it could be laid to the terrible fumes that were driving them all nearly distracted.