The Pony Rider Boys in Texas (9 page)

The cattle immediately following the leaders did not fare so well. A number
of them, leaping over the log at the same instant, fell headlong as the pony had
done before them. However, the steers were less fortunate. Before they were able
to scramble to their feet, others following had tumbled over on top of them, and
Tad Butler found himself wedged in behind a barricade of bellowing cattle, whose
flying hoofs made him hastily burrow deeper into the decayed log.

This obstruction soon caused the main body to swerve. Their solid front had
been broken at last, yet they continued on as wildly as before, bellowing and
horning one another in their mad flight.

The rain, which had held back during the brilliant electrical display, now
came down in drenching torrents, packing down the sand of the plain which the
wind, before, had picked up and tossed into the air in dense clouds.

Tad was soaked to the skin almost instantly. But he did not mind this. His
thought, now, was to get out of his perilous position and follow the herd.

The cattle that had fallen so near him, were now one by one extricating
themselves from their predicament, each one giving vent to a bellow as it did so
and dashing after its companions.

The lad was not slow to crawl from his hiding place the moment he considered
it safe to do so. As it was, he got away before the snarl of steers had entirely
unraveled itself.

What to do Tad did not know. His pony gone, and, with no sense of direction
left, he was in sore straits.

"I'll follow the cattle," he decided. "Besides, it's my business to stay with
them if I can. I'll do it as long as I've got a leg to stand on," he declared,
cautiously working around those of the cattle that were leaping from the heap
and running away.

The mesquite was still full of stragglers dashing wildly here and there. In
the darkness, the boy was really in great danger. There were no large trees
behind which he could dodge to get out of the way of the animals as they rushed
toward him, nor was he able to see them when they did get near him. He was
obliged to judge of their direction by sound alone. This was made doubly
difficult since the rain had begun to fall, for now, young Butler could scarcely
distinguish one sound from another.

Once a plunging steer hit the lad a glancing blow with its great side,
hurling him into a thicket of bristling mesquite. The thorns gashed his face and
body, almost stripping the remnants of his tattered clothes from him.

Still, with indomitable pluck, the lad sprang to his feet, stubbornly working
his way through the thicket.

He came out finally on the other side and floundering about for a time, found
himself once more on a plain, which he had observed in the light from a flash of
lightning extended away indefinitely. Off to the west, he plainly made out a
large body of cattle. Apparently they were now headed to the northwest.

It was almost a hopeless task for one to expect to be able to overhaul them
on foot, and even were he to do so he could accomplish nothing after reaching
them.

But Tad kept on just the same, with the rain beating him until he was gasping
for breath, the lightning playing about him in lingering sheets of yellow
flame.

He had run on in this way for fully half an hour when a flash disclosed an
object to the right of him. It was moving, but Tad was sure it was not a
steer.

The boy changed his course somewhat and trotted along with more caution,
shading his eyes with a hand that he might make out what it was when the next
flash came.

"It's a pony!" he shouted. "It's my pony!"

The animal was standing with lowered head, gazing straight at the boy.

Tad whistled and called with a long drawn "Whoa-oo-ope!"

The pony made no move to approach, nor did it attempt to run away. But Tad
had had experience enough with the cow ponies by this time to know that the
animal was not likely to stand still and permit him to come up with it. At any
moment it was likely to kick its heels in the air and dash away.

"I've got to make a run for him," decided the lad, stepping cautiously
forward, making a slight detour that he might come up from the animal's left
instead of approaching him directly from the front.

After having done this, Tad waited, crouching low. He chuckled to himself as
he observed that the pony was looking straight ahead, not having discovered his
master's new position.

The boy was not more than two rods from him.

Measuring the distance with his eyes, he waited until the lightning flash
died out, then ran on his toes straight for where he believed the horse was
standing. It was Tad's purpose to grab the animal about the neck.

Instead he ran straight against the pony's side with a resounding bump.

The pony uttered a grunt of fear, springing straight up into the air.

"Whoa, Barney!" coaxed the lad. But Barney had no idea of obeying the command
at that moment. It is doubtful if, in the fright of the sudden collision, he
even understood what was wanted of him.

Tad's hands had missed the neck. Instead they had grasped the pommel and
cantle of the saddle, so that when the pony leaped, Tad's feet were jerked clear
of the ground.

As the animal came down on all fours, Tad threw himself into the saddle.

Instantly the pony's back arched, and, with a cough, it went off into a
series of bucks, twisting, whirling and making desperate efforts to unseat its
rider.

For the first few minutes the lad could do no more than hold on. At the first
opportunity, however, he let go of the pommel long enough to reach forward and
pick up the reins, which hung well down on the pony's neck.

"Now, buck, Barney, you rascal!" shouted Tad gleefully, giving a gentle
pressure with the spurs.

Barney at once decided to stop bucking.

Tad clucked to him and shook out the reins.

Away they went on the trail of the cattle, heading to the northwest, where
the lad could plainly see them running.

At the pace the pony was going they were able to overhaul the herd in a short
time. Tad had clung to his quirt when he was thrown. Reaching the head of the
line of charging beasts, he rode straight at the leaders, bringing the quirt
again and again across the noses of those nearest to him. This treatment served
to deflect the line a little; yet, try as he would, Tad seemed unable to turn
the bunch toward home. Yet he kept steadily at his work, "milling" the steers,
as the turning process is called, until pony and rider were well-nigh
exhausted.

Tad knew he was a long way from camp and alone with the herd. After a time
the animals seemed to him to be slackening their speed. Discovering this, he
untied the slicker or rubber blanket from the saddle cantle, and, riding against
the leaders again, flaunted the slicker in their faces, shouting and urging at
the same time.

"If I had a gun I believe I could stop them right away," he said. "But I'm
going to turn them if it's the last thing I ever do."

The fury of the storm was abating and the lightning flashes were becoming
less frequent.

Now that he had succeeded in turning the point of the herd, it proved much
easier to keep them under control. Besides, it gave both boy and pony a
breathing spell. The hard riding was not now necessary.

Round and round young Butler kept the herd circling for nearly an hour. The
steers, moving more and more slowly, Tad concluded wisely that they were growing
tired of this and that they would quiet down. His judgment proved correct. The
storm passed. He could hear it roaring off to the northwest where the lightning
flamed up in intermittent flashes.

"Wonder what time it is," queried Tad aloud, searching about in his clothes
for his watch.

"Pshaw, I've lost it," he exclaimed. "Well, it is not so much of a loss after
all. I paid only a dollar for it and I've had more than a dollar's worth of fun
to-night. I wonder what I look like. I must be a sight."

It now lacked only an hour of dawn, but, of course, the boy did not know
this. In the darkness preceding the dawn he had no idea of the size of the bunch
of cattle that he had led out over the plain. He knew it must be large,
however.

At last daybreak was at hand, the landscape and the herd being faintly
outlined in the thin morning light. Tad was surprised to find that he had milled
the cattle into a compact bunch. Now the boy began galloping around the herd,
speaking words of encouragement to the animals as he went, whistling and trying
to sing, until finally he was rewarded by seeing some of them begin to
graze.

"I've done it," shouted Tad gleefully. "I've bagged the whole bunch. I wonder
what Mr. Stallings will say to that. I don't believe Big-foot Sanders could beat
that. The next question is, where am I? I don't know. I guess I'm lost for sure.
But I've got lots of company."

To add to his perplexity, a light fog was drifting over the plain from the
southeast, shutting out what little view there was in the early morning
light.

The cattle were now grazing as contentedly as if they never had known such an
experience as a stampede. It was useless, however, to attempt to drive them, for
he might be leading them away from camp instead of toward it.

Tad was wet and hungry, and now that he was able to get a look at himself, he
discovered that his belt was about the only whole thing left of his equipment.
Scarcely a vestige of his trousers remained; his shirt hung in ribbons, his hat
was lost and his leggins had been stripped off clean.

Tad laughed heartily as he surveyed himself.

"Well, I am a sight! I guess I shall need a whole new harness before I drive
cattle much more."

All he could do now was to wait for the sun to rise. Then, he might be able
to determine something about his position.

But the sun was a long time in making its appearance that day.

"I wish I had a drink of water," said Tad after some hours had passed.
Instead of drifting away, the fog had become more dense. He could see only part
of the herd now. However, as they showed no disposition to run, Tad felt no
concern in that direction. He was obliged to ride around the herd more
frequently than would otherwise have been the case, in order to keep the
straying ones well rounded in.

The hours passed slowly, and with their passing Tad's appetite grew. He sat
on his pony, enviously watching the cattle filling their stomachs with the wet
grass.

"I almost wish I were a steer," declared Tad. "I could at least satisfy my
hunger."

Then the lad once more took up his weary round.

Off to the eastward, all was still excitement. The herd had broken up into
many parts during the stampede and the cowmen were having a hard time in
rounding up the scattered bunches.

A few of them had succeeded in working some of the animals back to the
bedding ground of the previous night, where the animals were left in charge of
one man.

With the coming of the morning and the fog, which blanketed everything, their
work became doubly difficult. The storm had wiped out almost all traces of the
trail made by the different herds in their escape, until even an Indian would
have been perplexed in an effort to follow them.

"Who is missing?" asked Stallings, riding into camp after a fruitless search
for his cattle.

"Tad Butler, for one," answered Walter Perkins.

"Let's see. He was on guard with Big-foot Sanders," mused the foreman.
"Big-foot has not shown up, so the young man probably is with him. No need to
worry about them. Big-foot knows this country like a book. You can't lose him.
Then there's Curley Adams and Lumpy Bates to come in yet. I can see us eating
our Thanksgiving dinner on the trail if this thing keeps up much longer."

Yet, despite these discouragements, the foreman kept his temper and his
head.

"Is there nothing we can do toward finding the boy?" asked Professor Zepplin
anxiously.

"Does it look like it?" answered Stallings, motioning toward the fog that lay
over them like a dull, gray, cheerless blanket.

Late in the afternoon Curley and Lumpy came straggling into camp with the
remnants of the herd, with which they had raced out hours before. An hour
afterwards, Big-foot Sanders drove in with a bunch of two hundred more.

"Where's the Pinto?" asked Stallings as Big-foot rode up to the trail wagon
and reported.

"The Pinto? Why, I haven't seen the kid since the bunch started on the
rampage last night. I thought he was with me on the other end of the herd.
Hasn't he come in yet?"

"No."

"Then the kid's lost. All the cows back?"

"I don't know. I'll look over the herd and make an estimate. You come along
with me."

Together the foreman and the big cowman rode out to the grazing ground, where
they circled the great herd, glancing critically over them as they rode.

"What do you think?" asked Big-foot as they completed the circuit of the
herd.

"I should say we were close to five hundred head short," decided the foreman.
"How does it look to you?"

"I reckon you're about right. Suffering cats, but that was a run! Never saw a
bunch scatter so in my life."

"Couldn't be helped. The night was so dark you couldn't tell whether you had
a hundred or a thousand with you. Did you strike any cross trails while you were
coming in!"

"Nary a onenot in the direction I came from. If I'd kept on last night, at
the rate I was going, I'd have rounded up in Wyoming some time to-day I reckon.
Sorry the Pinto's strayed away. He'll have a time of it finding his way back.
Reckon we won't see the kid again this trip," decided Big-foot.

"We've got to," answered the foreman sharply. "We don't move from this bed
till he's been picked up, even if it takes all summer."

"Youyou don't reckon he's with that other bunch, do you?"