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

The conversation by degrees became general, and finally the scouts went on to talk about their own affairs. During this exchange of opinions, it happened that the name of Clem Parsons was mentioned by Ned. Perhaps it would be hardly fair to call it “chance,” when in reality the scout master wanted to find out whether the kid puncher seemed to be familiar with the name of the man whom the Government authorities in Washington wished him to round up.

The bait took, for immediately he heard Amos say:

“What’s that, Clem Parsons? Say, I happen to know a man by that name, and he’s been over to our house lots of times, too.”

“Then he’s a puncher, is he?” asked Ned.

“Well, I reckon he has been ’bout everything in his day, for I’ve heard him say so,” came the reply. “He rides with my awful dad, an’ they seem to git on together, which is some queer, because most of ’em is that skeered o’ dad they tries to steer clear o’ him.”

“My! but this dad of yours must be a grizzly bear, Amos?” remarked Jimmy, who had been greatly impressed with what he heard the boy say.

“Just you wait till you see him, that’s all,” was what Amos told him. “Mam, she reckons as how ’twas this same Clem Parsons as had got dad to ridin’ ’round the kentry doin’ things that might git him into trouble, an’ she hates him like pizen, for the same. Since they got to goin’ together, dad he’s allers showing plenty of the long-green, which he never handled before. But I ain’t tellin’ fambly secrets, and I reckons I’d better shut up shop.”

He had said enough, however, to convince Ned and Jack that he strongly suspected his step-father of having joined forces with a band of cattle thieves who were stealing the fattest beeves neighboring ranchers owned, and selling them on the side.

There is always this temptation existing when cattle are raised on the range, often feeding for days and weeks many miles away from the ranch house, and scattered among the little valleys where the grass grows greenest. In the darkness of the night, a few of these experienced rustlers can cut out what they want of a herd, and drive them far away, effectually concealing the trail. Then the brands are changed adroitly, and the cattle shipped away to be sold in a distant market.

So long as this lawless business can be carried on successfully, it brings in big money to the reckless rustlers; but if discovered in the act they are usually treated with scant ceremony by the angry punchers and shot down like wolves.

To some men the fascination of the life causes them to ignore its perils. Then besides, the fact that money pours in upon them with so little effort, is a temptation they are unable to resist. So long as there are ranches, and cattle to be raised for the market, there will be men who go wrong and try to get a fat living off those who do the work.

It did not surprise Ned to learn that this clever rascal, whom he had been asked to look up and apprehend if possible, had for the time being forsaken the counterfeiting game and started on a new lay. Clem Parsons was no one idea man. His past fairly bristled with shrewd devices, whereby he deluded the simple public and eluded the detectives sent out by the Secret Service to enmesh him.

He had played the part of moonshiner, smuggler, and bogus moneymaker for years, and snapped his fingers at the best men on the pay roll of the Government. Now, if as seemed possible, he had turned cattle rustler, perhaps there might come a complete change in the programme; for if the irate ranchmen and their faithful punchers only got on a hot trail with Clem at the other end, the authorities at Washington might be saved much further anxiety; for a man who has been strung up to a telegraph pole and riddled with bullets is not apt to give any one trouble again.

Ned had learned some important facts that were apt to prove more or less valuable to him presently. Already he felt that they had been paid many times over for the little effort it had taken to rescue Amos from the sand of the shallow river.

Scouts are taught to do a good deed without any thought of a return; but all the same, it is pleasant to know that the reward does often come, and if any of the four chums had failed to find a chance to turn his badge right-side up that day, on account of having given a helping hand to some one, certainly they must feel entitled to that privilege after lifting Amos out of his sad predicament. Saving a precious human life must surely be counted as answering the requirements of the scout law.

When Amos, a little later, left them to saunter down to the brink of the river, in order to give his mottled pony a last drink before leaving him at the end of his rope to crop grass the remainder of the night, Jack turned to the scout master and gave expression to his convictions as follows:

“Well, it looks like your old luck holds good, Ned, and that you stand a chance of running across your game the very first thing after getting here. If this Clem Parsons Amos tells us about turns out to be the same man the Government wants you to tackle, he’ll be walking into the net any old time from now on. Why, we may run across him tomorrow or the day afterwards, who knows?”

“He’s the right party,” said Ned, quietly. “I asked Amos if he had a scar on his cheek, and he said it gave Clem a look as though he was grinning all the time, a sort of sneering expression, I imagine. And as you say, Jack, I’m in great luck to strike a hot trail so early in the hunt. Given the chance, and I’ll have Mr. Clem Parsons on the way to Los Angeles, by rail, with a hop, skip and a jump.”

“He’s a nifty character, all right,” remarked Jimmy; “and trains with a hard crowd out here, so we’ll all have to pitch in and help lift him. Four of us, armed with rifles as we are, ought to be enough to flag him.”

“One thing in our favor,” ventured Jack, “is that he’ll never for a minute dream of being afraid of a pack of Boy Scouts. While he might keep a suspicious eye on every strange man he meets, and his hand ready to draw a gun, he’ll hardly give us a second look. That’s where we can get the bulge on Clem, and his ignorance is going to be his undoing yet.”

“Perhaps we’d better be a little careful how we mention these things while Amos is around,” Ned went on to say.

“But sure, you don’t think that little runt would peach on us, do you?” demanded Jimmy, who had apparently taken a great liking for the diminutive puncher.

“Certainly not,” answered Ned, “but you understand one of the things that goes to make a successful Secret Service operator is in knowing how to keep his own counsel. He’s got to learn all he can about others, and tell as little about himself as will carry him through. So please keep quiet about my wanting to invite this Clem Parsons to an interview with the Collector in Los Angeles.”

Jimmy promptly raised his hand.

“I’m on,” he said. “Mum’s the word till you lift the embargo, Ned. But it begins to look like we might have some interestin’ happenings ahead of us, from what we know about this Clem Parsons, and what we guess is agoin’ on between the ranchers and the cattle rustlers. I thought all the froth had blown off the top, after we quit that Death Valley, but now I’m beginnin’ to believe we’re agoin’ to scratch gravel again right smart. Which suits Jimmy McGraw all right, because he’s built that way, and never did like to see the green mould set on top of the pond. Keep things astirrin’, that’s my way. When folks go to sleep, give the same a punch, and start something doin’.”

“Well,” said Harry, looking up from his work close by, “if you have a few more narrow squeaks like that one to-day up on the mountain trail, it won’t be long before they plant you under the daisies,” but Jimmy only laughed at the warning.

CHAPTER V.

AROUND THE CAMP FIRE

It was a lovely night, with the moon looking almost as round as a big yellow cart-wheel when it rose in the east, where the horizon lay low, with the level plain and sky meeting.

Besides, it was not nearly as hot there on the plains as they had found it back where the sands of the Mojave Desert shifted with the terrible winds that seemed to come from the regions of everlasting fire, they scorched so.

The scouts appeared to be enjoying themselves so much that even Jimmy, usually the sleepy member of the party, gave no sign of wanting to crawl under his brilliant and beloved Navajo blanket.

Near by the three pack animals were tethered, along with the calico pony owned by Amos. They cropped the grass as though they could never get enough of the same. Everything seemed so very peaceful that one would find it difficult to imagine that there could come any change to the scene.

Amos had joined the circle again, and once more the conversation had become general. Ned asked numerous questions concerning the ranch which they expected to visit, and in this way they learned in advance considerable about the puncher gang, some of the peculiarities of various members of the same, as well as the floating news of the region.

When Amos was asked about the hunting he gave glowing accounts of the sport to be had by those willing to ride twenty miles or more to the coulies of the foothills, where a panther or a grizzly bear might be run across, and deer were to be stalked.

“How about wolves?” Jimmy wanted to know.

Jimmy always declared war on wolves. He had had some experiences with the treacherous animals in the past, and could not forget. There was a standing grudge between them, and every time Jimmy found a chance he liked to knock over a gray prowler.

Amos shrugged his narrow shoulders as though he took very little stock in such cowardly animals.

“Oh! the punchers they have a round-up for the critters every fall, an’ so you see they kind of keep ’em low in stock. Then besides, ever since they took to payin’ a bounty for wolf scalps, men go out to hunt for the same when they ain’t got nothin’ else to do. They ain’t aplenty about this part of the country nowadays. I reckon as how that’s why Wolf Harkness took to raisin’ the critters.”

“What’s that, raising wolves, do you mean, Amos? Sure you must be kiddin’?” was the way Jimmy greeted this announcement.

“Not me, Jimmy; it’s plain United States I’m giving you, sure I am,” the other insisted.

“But there ain’t no great call for wolf pelts, like there is for black fox and ’coon, and otter, and skunks and that sort of thing. How d’ye s’pose this Wolf Harkness makes it pay?”

“Oh! that’s easy,” replied Amos, carelessly. “You see, he kills off a certain number of his stock once in so often and sells the skins. Then later on they reckon that he collects the bounty for wolf scalps from the State.”

“But say, that looks kind of queer for any man to raise pests, and then expect to make the State pay him so much for every one he kills,” Jimmy remarked, shaking his head as though he found it difficult to believe.

“Don’t know how he manages,” the boy continued. “Heard some say that the law, it left a loophole for such practices, and that they couldn’t stop him. Others kind of think he sells the scalps to some hunter, who collects for the same. But everybody just knows Harkness does get a heap of cash out of his queer business.”

“Ever been to his pen and seen his stock?” asked Jimmy.

“Yes, once I happened that way, but the smell drove me away. There must have been thirty or more wolves in the stockade right then, and they looked like they was pretty nigh starved, too. I dreamed that night they broke loose and got me cornered in an empty cabin. I barred the door, but they pushed underneath and clumb through the broken windows, and everywhere I looked I saw red tongues and pale yellow eyes! Then I woke up, and was scared near stiff, for there was a pair of eyes in the dark right alongside me in the loft at home. But say, that turned out to be only our old black cat.”

All of them laughed with Amos, as though they could fully appreciate the scare he must have received on that occasion.

The subject of the wolf farm seemed to have interested Jimmy intensely, for he went on asking more questions concerning the raising of the animals, what they were fed on, the price of wolf pelts, and a lot more along the same lines until finally Harry turned to Ned and complained.

“Tell him to change the subject, won’t you, Ned? He’ll have the lot of us dreaming we’re beset by a horde of wolves. And you’d better make him draw all the charges out of his gun to-night, because he’s sure to sit up and begin blazing away, to keep from being dragged off. Jimmy’s got a big imagination, you know, and every once in a while it runs away with him.”

“Tell me,” announced Jimmy, rather indignantly, “who’s got a better right to be askin’ questions about the habits of the animals than me, who’s a member of that same Wolf Patrol? How can you expect a feller to give the right kind of a howl when he wants to signal to his mates, unless he finds out all these things.”

“Oh! if that’s the worst you are after, Jimmy, go ahead and find out,” Jack was heard to say, condescendingly. “I thought you had a more serious scheme in that head of yours than just accumulating knowledge.”

Jimmy turned and looked at him suspiciously.

“And what did you think I had up me sleeve, if it’s a fair question?” he asked.

“Why, you see,” began Jack, with a twinkle in his eye, “I was afraid that you might want to invest what money you’ve got saved in starting a wolf ranch of your own, or trying to buy this old man Harkness out. I supposed that was why you wanted to know the exact value of wolf hides, and what the State paid bounty on scalps. But I’m just as glad to find that you’re not bothering your head over the business part of the game. Perhaps you’d like to meet up with this Harkness, thinking he might give you a chance to shoot his collection of hungry wolves. That would be a snap for a fellow who hates the beasts like you do, and has made a vow to never let one get past him, when he had a gun handy or a stone to heave.”

Jimmy only grinned. He did not know whether Jack was joking or not, but there seemed to be something complimentary in his way of talking; and Jimmy was not at all averse to being known as a champion wolf killer.

“I only hope I get a chance to see this Harkness and his bunch of slick critters before we quit this neck of the woods,” he remarked. “But as I ain’t a butcher you needn’t think that I’d ask him to let me cut down his list with my new Marlin gun. Out in the open I’m death on the sneakers every time; but it’d go against my grain to knock ’em over, when they hadn’t got any show for their money. I never could do the axe business for a chicken at home, even when we were livin’ in the country.”

“Oh! well, you must excuse me for speaking of such a thing, Jimmy,” said Jack, with assumed gravity; “I was mistaken, that’s all, in sizing you up. Appearances are often deceitful, you know, and things don’t always turn out as they seem. Now, few people looking at you would ever dream that they were gazing on a marvelous phenomenon. I guess you caught that trick from association with Ned, here,” and Jack might have continued along that vein still further had he not been nudged sharply by the scout master, and heard Ned mutter:

“Mum’s the word, Jack. Don’t tell all you know!”

This brought him to his senses, for he remembered that there was a stranger present, and that it had been decided not to expose their full hand to the gaze of Amos, at least for the present.

In this fashion the time passed.

All of the scouts were in a humor to vote that one of the most delightful camps they had ever been in. Perhaps this partly arose from the great contrast it afforded when compared with recent nights passed under the most trying of conditions, when crossing the desert, and the terrible valley lying to the east of it.

Amos had a blanket along with him. Apparently the lad was accustomed to sleeping by himself on the open plain, and always went prepared. Things were not as pleasant as they might be at his cabin home, frequently enough; and besides this, he must be possessed of a wandering nature, feeling perfectly satisfied to take care of himself, and capable of doing it, too.

They were still lying around the dying fire, and each waiting for some one else to take the lead in mentioning such a thing as going to sleep, when Amos suddenly sat upright.

Ned noticed that he had his head cocked on one side, and appeared to be in the attitude of listening for a repetition of some sound that may have struck his acute hearing.

“There it comes again,” Amos remarked. “You see, the wind has veered around that way more or less; but say, twelve miles as the crow flies is pretty hefty of a distance to hear that pack give tongue, seems to me.”

Ned had caught it that time.

“You must mean the wolves that Harkness keeps shut up in his pen for breeding purposes, is that it, Amos?” he inquired.

“Nothing more nor less than that,” came the reply.

“There, I caught it as plain as anything then!” acknowledged Jimmy, with a vein of triumph and satisfaction in his voice, as though he did not mean to be left at the post, when the whole bunch was running swiftly.

“Whew! they do make a racket, when they’re excited, for a fact!” declared Jack.

“Is it the wolves you’re talking about?” asked Harry.

“Don’t you be hearing the noise beyond there?” Jimmy asked him. “P’raps now, meat is so scarce that the old man’s put his pets on half rations, and the whoopin’ we hear is meant for a protest.”

“Well, what of that?” Jack wanted to know; “I guess you’d raise a bigger howl than that, Jimmy, if we tried to put you on half rations. I can fancy how you’d be trying to lift the roof off, and they’d have to call the fire company out to soak you with their hose so as to make you stop. But don’t get alarmed, Jimmy, because none of us have any intention that way.”

They sat there and listened for several minutes. No doubt, Jimmy was endeavoring to picture in his mind what the den of trapped wolves must look like; and at the same time, he was promising himself once more to try and visit the Harkness place before leaving the country. He would like to be able to say he had set eyes on so strange a thing as a wolf ranch.

Harry began to yawn, and stretch tremendously.

“What ails you fellows; don’t any of you expect to crawl into your blankets and pick up a little sleep? Talking may be all very well, but it doesn’t rest you up any. Ned, why don’t you tell Jimmy to sound taps, all lights out so the rest of us can adjourn? As long as Jimmy’s afloat to do the grand talking act, it isn’t any use trying to go to sleep, because you just can’t.”

Jimmy seemed ready to take up that challenge, and entered upon an argument calculated to prove that he was a mild mannered individual alongside of some people he could mention, though not wanting to give names. Ned, however, put his foot down.

“Harry’s right this time, Jimmy, and you know it. So make up your mind to simmer down, and keep the rest for another time. We’ll find a soft spot and see how well this ground lies. And we ought to make up some for lost sleep to-night, with that soft breeze blowing, and the air getting fresher right along.”

At that plain invitation Jimmy began to make his blanket ready, for he never liked seeing any one crawl in ahead of him any more than he did to be the first one up in the morning.

Amos still sat there. Ned, looking at the boy, saw that there was a little frown on his forehead, as though he did not exactly like something or other.

“What’s wrong, Amos?” he asked, quietly.

“The breeze, it is no stronger than before, you can see, Ned,” the kid puncher replied, as he held up his wet forefinger, after the fashion of range riders and plainsmen in general.

“That’s true enough,” replied the scout master, always willing to pick up points in woodcraft, for he did not pretend to know everything there was going.

“But listen!” added Amos; “it is much louder now, you see.”

Ned became intensely interested at once.

“You are right,” he remarked, “the sound of that wolfish howling does come three times as loud as in the start, and yet the wind couldn’t be the reason of that. Do you know what makes it, Amos?”

“I could give a guess, mebbe.”

“As how?” continued Ned, while Jack and Jimmy and Harry all stopped their preparations for fixing their blankets to suit their individual wants, in order to hear what the kid puncher would say.

“When I was over there at the wolf ranch,” Amos commenced, “I remember now that I noticed the pen looked old and weak. I asked the hunter about it, and he said it’d hold, he guessed; that wolves, they didn’t have the intelligence of hosses, or even cattle, so as to make a combined rush at a weak place.”

“Well?” Ned remarked, as Amos paused.

“It might be that somethin’ happened to make that weak place in the big pen give way, and the whole pack is loose, acomin’ for the river, hungry as all get-out, and ready to attack anything that walks on two legs, because they are nearly starved!”

When Amos gave this as his opinion, the scouts who had been getting their blankets ready for a quiet night’s sleep seemed suddenly to lose all interest in the proceedings. Instead Jimmy started reaching around him for that new Marlin repeating rifle, which had already proven its worth on several occasions.

“Whew!” they could hear him saying, almost breathlessly to himself; “thirty hungry wolves, all at a pop, hey? That’s what I call crowding the mourners. I may be set on knockin’ over an occasional critter when I run across the same; but say, I ain’t so greedy as all that. Think I’m in the wholesale line, do you? Well, you’ve got another guess acomin’ to you, that’s all!”

CHAPTER VI.

THE WOLF PACK

“What can we do, Ned?” asked Jack.

Jimmy was not the only one now who had seized hold of his gun, for the other three scouts could be seen gripping their rifles. Only poor Amos was without his rifle, though he carried a revolver, cowboy fashion, attached to his belt.

“It’s out of the question for us to get away,” replied the scout master; “because we only have three poor burros, and they’d be overtaken before they’d gone a mile.”

“Yes,” added Jimmy, “and don’t forget there’s four of us, Ned, darlint.”

“Amos could skip out if he feels like it, because his pony has fleet heels, and might outrun the wolf pack?” Jack suggested.

“But all the same Amos is agoin’ to hang around, and take pot luck with the rest of the bunch,” remarked the kid puncher, quietly.

“But how about the animals,” asked Harry, nervously; “do we leave them to be pulled down by the savage beasts of prey? All of us could shinny up some of these trees, but burros can’t climb.”

“Huh, I’ve seen the time when I thought they could do everything but fly,” grunted Jimmy; “and I wasn’t so sure about that, either.”

“We might bring them in close and stand guard over the poor things,” Ned went on to say.

At that they hurried to where the four animals were tethered. Already something seemed to have told the burros and the calico pony that danger hovered in that breeze, for they were beginning to show signs of excitement, and it was not such an easy job after all to lead them in close to the dying camp fire.

Hastily they were firmly secured.

“Will the ropes hold if they get to cutting up?” Harry asked, after he had tied his as many as five different times, to make sure there would be no slipping of the knot.

“They are all good and practically new,” Ned informed him, “and I think there’s no doubt about their holding. Now to get ourselves fixed. Pick your tree, everybody, but let it be where you can keep watch over the animals, so as to knock over every wolf that makes a jump for them.”

They caught on to the idea Ned had in mind. This was to occupy, say as many as three trees that chanced to grow in a triangle around the fire and the spot where the burros and pony had been fastened.

The bright moon would give them all needed opportunity to see any movement on the part of the assailants, and woe to the daring wolf that ventured to cross the dead line.

Ned waited to see which trees the others would pick out before choosing his own place of refuge. He did this because he thought it good policy to have their forces scattered, as by that means they could guard the camp more surely.