CHAPTER VII.
THE STAMPEDE AT THE FAR PASTURE
Such a scene of confusion, hurry and mad rushing about of men and horses as ensued, following the first shout of the alarm, the boys had never witnessed. Cow-punchers staggered about under the burden of heavy Mexican saddles. They tried to buckle on spurs and saddle and bridle their wild little horses all at the same time. But confused as the whole affair looked to an uninitiated spectator, there was system underlying it all. Each man knew what was required of him.
At last all was ready. The last revolver was thrust into the last holster, and the last cinch was tightened round the belly of the last expostulating pony. Mr. Harkness, mounted on a powerful bay horse somewhat heavier than the others, rapidly explained to the punchers what had occurred. The cattle were stampeding on the far pasture. Their course led direct for the Graveyard Cliffs, a series of precipitous bluffs over which, in the past, many stampeding steers had fallen to their death.
Fortunately, the steers had to take a round-about way, owing to various obstructions. The distance to be traversed by the men, cutting off every inch possible, was about five miles. It had to be covered in less than half an hour. No wonder the cow-punchers looked to their cinches and other harness details.
Amid a wild yell from the throats of the score of cowboys who had been about the ranch when the summons was first given, the cavalcade swept forward.
"Wow! this is riding with a vengeance," shouted Rob, above the roar of hoofs, in Harry's ear.
"S-s-s-say!" sputtered Tubby, "I hope my horse doesn't stumble."
Suddenly a voice close at hand struck in. It was one of the cow-punchers shouting to another.
"Remember the last stampede, when Grizzly Sam was trampled?"
"You bet I do. His pony's foot stuck in a gopher hole, and the whole stampede came lambasting on top of him."
The boys began to look rather serious. Apparently they were off on a more dangerous errand than they had bargained for. It was too late to draw out now, however, and, anyhow, not one of them would, for this would have shown "the white feather."
"Did you give the alarm to the rest of the boys?" asked Rob of Harry, after an interval of silence among the boys.
"Yes. I only had time to call Simmons's place, but they'll get the others. Simmons's place is not far from the Graveyard Cliffs, and the boys will be there ahead of us, likely."
"How about the others?"
"They have to come from greater distances. They may not arrive till it's all over."
It was impossible to see any of their surroundings in the thick cloud of dust. All about them, as far as the eye could penetrate the dense smother, were straining ponies and shouting cowboys.
"How can we tell when we get to the place?" asked Tubby.
"My father is riding up ahead," rejoined Harry; "that big bay of his can make two feet to a pony's one. He'll call a halt when we get there."
In the meantime a rumor had been passed from mouth to mouth among the cow-punchers. Moquis had been seen near the far pasture the night before, and open accusations were made that the renegades had started the stampede so as to be able to make a feast off the dead cattle in case they swept over the cliffs.
"Mr. Mayberry hasn't succeeded in rounding them up yet, then," said Rob.
"No," rejoined Harry, "and I heard one of the punchers say yesterday that Indians for miles around are coming into the mountains. I guess they won't disperse till after the snake dance."
Suddenly a wild yell from up in front caused them to halt.
"Got there, I reckon," uttered one of the cowboys. As he spoke there was but one question in every mind.
"Were they in time?"
As the dust cloud settled, and they were able to make out their surroundings, the boys found that they had come to halt on a sort of plateau. Just beyond this was a sheer drop, as if a great hunk had been cut out of the ground. This drop – which was fully sixty feet deep, – formed the dreaded Graveyard Cliff, so called, although, as will be clear from our description, it was more properly a deep, narrow gulch.
The distance across the yawning crack in the plateau – which was undoubtedly of volcanic origin – varied from a hundred feet or more to fifteen, and even less. A queerer place the boys had never seen.
But they had little time to gaze about them. Blinky, who was one of the crowd of stampede arresters, gave a sudden shout as they came to a halt.
"Hark!"
From far off came a sound that, to the boys, resembled nothing so much as distant thunder. But unlike thunder, instead of ceasing, it grew steadily in volume.
"Here they come!" shouted Mr. Harkness, as the advancing roar grew louder. The solid earth beneath the boys' feet seemed to shake as the stampede swept toward them.
Suddenly, a mile or more off, a dark cloud grew and grew until it spread half across the blue sky, wiping it out.
"They raise as much dust as a tornado," exclaimed Blinky. "Pesky critters! I'd like to get a shot at the Moquis what started them."
But it was no time to exchange remarks. The face of each man in that little band was grave, and he appeared to be mustering every ounce of courage in his body for the struggle that was to come.
To the boys, as to the men, the situation was clear enough. Across the plateau the stampeding cattle were thundering, headed straight for the Graveyard Cliffs. Behind them, like a mighty wall, rose the sheer face of a precipice where a bold peak of the range soared upward. Between this wall and the ominously named gorge was the little band of horsemen. They faced the problem of turning the stampede or being swept with it into the jaws of the deep, narrow gulch. Small wonder that the bravest of them felt his heart beat a little quicker as the cattle rushed on.
Suddenly Mr. Harkness espied the boys.
"You boys go back!" he shouted sharply. "I should never have let you come. This is too dangerous for you."
"Why, dad, we'll be all right. Let us stay and see it out," protested Harry.
"Go back at once, boy," said Mr. Harkness sternly. "You don't know the danger."
There was no disobeying the stern command, and the boys, all of them with the exception of Tubby, regretting the necessity, turned their ponies away. The stout youth was inwardly much gratified at the idea of avoiding the stampede.
"Beefsteak is all very fine," he said to himself, "but I like it inside, and not on top of me, at the bottom of a gulch."
As the boys wheeled their mounts and separated from the main body of the cow-punchers, three other mounted figures swept toward them with wild yells. The newcomers were the three Simmons brothers, the recruits to the Boy Scouts. With them, and close behind, came Charley and Frank Price and Jeb Cotton. All had ridden post haste to the spot on receipt of the hastily 'phoned message from headquarters.
Each boy gave the secret salute of the scouts as he drew rein, and awaited orders. A regular howl of disappointment went up when they learned that they had been ordered off "the firing line," so to speak.
"It's a shame," growled Tom Simmons.
"That's what," assented Jeb Cotton, trying to quiet his little calico pony, which was dancing about, scenting the excitement in the air. Indeed, all the animals seemed to have caught the infection, and were prancing about, almost unmanageable. Perhaps the increasing thunder of the hoofs of the advancing stampede had something to do with it.
"Well, what are we to do?" demanded Frank Price.
"Stay here and wait for a chance to help if we see it," said Rob.
"Oh, pshaw! They're busy. They won't see us. Let's slip in while they're not looking," urged Bill Simmons.
"The first duty of a Boy Scout is to obey orders," said Harry Harkness decisively.
"It's mighty hard to sit here doing nothing, though," grumbled Frank Price.
"That's what our soldiers had to do in many a battle," his brother Charley reminded him.
"That's so. I guess we'll have to be patient."
And now, under the direction of Mr. Harkness, the cattlemen spread out in a long line, so arranged as to be capable of sweeping across the vanguard of the cattle in a compact skirmish line rank. Each puncher had his gun ready for action, and at the word from Mr. Harkness they rode toward the approaching stampede at a quick lope.
Up till now the stampede had not been visible. Only the signs of its approach were manifest. Suddenly, however, over the crest of a little rise, there swept into view an appalling spectacle. Hundreds of fear-crazed cattle, bellowing as they raced forward, and clashing their horns together with a sharp sound, formed the vanguard. Behind them came a huddled mass, goring and trampling each other in their terror.
The boys' faces paled as they watched.
"Yow-yow-yow-eee-ee-e!"
The yells burst from the cattlemen's throats above the noise of the stampede.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
A score of revolver shots crackled as the line swept forward and rode at full gallop right across the faces of the leaders of the mad rush. It was terribly risky work. The slightest stumble would have meant death. At the head of his cow-punchers, like a general leading his forces, rode Mr. Harkness on his big bay.
Clear across the front of the line the cow-punchers swept without appreciably diminishing the speed of the onrush.
A second time they tried the daring tactics. This time they succeeded in checking the cattle a little, but only a bare two hundred yards remained between the leaders and the edge of the Graveyard. In this space galloped the cow-punchers. Could they stop the advance in time to save themselves from a terrible death?
"Father! Father!" shouted Harry, in his painful excitement standing up in his stirrups.
The boys felt a great sympathy for the rancher's son. If the cattle were not stopped in the next few minutes a terrible death seemed certain to overtake the brave man and his helpers.
"Fire at 'em!" yelled Mr. Harkness suddenly.
This was a desperate last resort. Hitherto, the cow-punchers had been firing in the air. Now, however, they leveled their revolvers at the oncoming herd.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Several of the leaders crumpled up and fell to the ground, mortally wounded. In a second they were trampled under foot, but suddenly, after twenty or more had been thus slaughtered, the band began to waver. At last, with mad bellows, and amid frantic yells from the cowboys, their ranks broke and wavered.
"Yip-yip-u-ee-ee!"
The triumphant shrieks of the cowboys rang out as the disorganized herd split up.
"Wow! They've turned 'em!" shouted Harry. "Hooray!"
The next instant his shout of delight changed to a yell of dismay, and he turned his pony sharply.
"Come on, Rob!" he cried. "We've got to get out of here!"
"They're coming this way!" yelled Tubby, spurring his pony and galloping off at top speed, the others following him. As Rob's pony jumped forward, however, it stumbled and threw the boy headlong. He kept his hold of the reins, fortunately, and was up on its back in a trice. But the second's delay had been fatal.
Sweeping toward the boy, from two points of the compass, were two sections of disorganized stampede. The cattle were trying, according to their instinct, to reunite.
"I'm hemmed in," was Rob's thought.
He switched rapidly round to a quarter where there seemed a chance of escape, but already it had been closed. The boy was on a sort of island. Behind him was the gorge, deep and terrible. In front of him on two sides, death was closing in on the wings of the wind.
CHAPTER VIII.
HEMMED IN BY THE HERD
There was little time to think, and hardly more for action. A more perfect trap of its kind than that in which Rob was caught could not have been devised by the utmost ingenuity.
Shouts of alarm went up from the cow-punchers, and from the little group of Boy Scouts as they saw his danger. But not one of those horrified onlookers could do more than sit powerless. All about them, like waves shattered against a mighty rock, surged the broken stampede, with wild cattle rushing hither and thither. They themselves were, in fact, by no means out of danger.
With an angry bellow, the leader of the advancing left flank of cattle lowered his head. His mighty horns glistened like sharpened sabres. Straight at the boy he rushed, while his companions followed his example.
An involuntary groan burst from the watchers. It seemed as if Rob's doom was sealed. But suddenly something happened that they still talk about in that part of the country.
Quick as thought the boy decided that there was only one course open to him. Advance he could not. Retreat, on the other hand, seemed barred by the gulch. Yet on the gulch side of the beleaguered boy lay the only path.
Foolhardy as the attempt appeared, Rob decided that the risk must be taken.
A shout burst from the lips of the powerless onlookers as they realized what the boy meant to do.
Leap the gulch on his pony!
A run, or take-off, of some fifty feet lay between Rob and the dark crack in the earth that was the gulch. Short as was the distance, from what Rob knew of the active little beast he bestrode, he believed he could do it. He raised his heavy quirt above the pony's trembling flanks.
Crack!
The lash descended, cutting a broad wale on the buckskin's back. He gave a squeal of rage and bounded forward.
"Yip-yip!" yelled Rob.
Out of the peril of the situation a spirit of recklessness seemed to have descended upon him. He could have shouted aloud as he felt the active bounds of the cayuse. One hurried glance at the awful gap before him gave the boy a rough estimate of its width – ten feet or more. A tremendous leap for a pony. But it must be done.
"Yip-yip," yelled Rob once more, as he dug his spurs in deep, and the maddened pony gave one tremendous bound that brought it right to the edge of the pit.
For one sickening instant it paused, and Rob felt the chill fear of death sweep over him. Then the brave buckskin gathered its limbs for the leap. Like steel springs its tough muscles rebounded, and the yelling, shrieking cow-punchers saw a buckskin body, surmounted by a cheering boy, give a great leap upward and – alight safe on the farther side of the chasm.
Cheer after cheer went up, while Rob waved his hat exultantly and yelled back at his friends.
Nothing like that leap for life had ever been witnessed before.
The amazed cattle, cheated of their prey, wavered, and the leaders tried in vain to check themselves. Desperately they dug their forefeet into the edge of the gulch, but the treacherous lip of the chasm gave under their weight, and with a roar and rattle, a cloud of dust and a despairing bellow, four of them shot over the edge and vanished.
Rob could not repress a shudder as he patted his buckskin, and realized that but for the little steed's noble effort he might have shared the fate of the dumb brutes.
Before long the cow-punchers had the rest of the steers rounded up, and ready to be driven back to the Far Pasture. Many were the threats breathed against the Moquis as they did so. The cattle, as is the nature of these half-wild brutes, having had their run out, seemed inclined to collapse from fatigue. As long as unreasoning terror held sway among them they had galloped tirelessly, but now their legs shook under them and they quivered and drooped pitifully. But the cattlemen showed them no mercy. With loud yells and popping of revolvers and cracking of quirts, they rode round them, getting them together into a compact mass.
While all this was going on, Rob had ridden his buckskin along the edge of the gulch. Some two miles below the place where his leap had been made, he found a spot which seemed favorable for crossing. The pony slid down one bank on its haunches and clambered up the other like a cat. As the boy traversed the bottom of the Graveyard, he noticed a peculiarly offensive odor. The smell which offended his nostrils, he found, sprang from the carcasses of the cattle which had at various times fallen into the gulch, above where he was crossing.
"Wonder why they don't put up a fence here," thought the boy.
He did not learn till afterward that that very thing had been done, but every time a freshet occurred in the mountains a part of the gulch caved away, carrying with it the fence and all. It had thus grown to be less of an expense to the ranchmen to lose a few cattle every season than to erect new fences constantly.
By the time Rob rejoined his friends, the cattle were standing ready for the drive back to their pastures. A more forlorn looking lot of beasts could not have been imagined.
"They know they done wrong," volunteered Blinky, gazing at the dejected herd.
"Well done, my boy," exclaimed Mr. Harkness, as Rob rode up. "I never saw a finer bit of horsemanship. But let us hope that such a resource will never again be necessary."
"I hope so, too, Mr. Harkness," said Rob. "I tell you I was scared blue for a minute or two. If it hadn't been for this gritty little cayuse here, I'd never have done it."
"So I did you a good turn, after all, when I roped up that four-legged bit of dynamite, thinking to play you a fine joke," said Blinky.
"You did," laughed Rob, "and I thank you for it."
"Say, Rob," put in Tubby plaintively, after the other boys had got through congratulating Rob, and wringing his hand till, as he said, it felt like a broken pump handle. "Say, Rob, don't ever do anything like that again, will you?"
"Not likely to, Tubby – but why so earnest?"
"Well, you know I've got a weak heart, and – "
"A good digestion," laughed Mr. Harkness; "and speaking of digestions, reminds me that we haven't had any dinner."
"As I was just about to observe," put in Tubby, in so comical a tone that they all had to burst out laughing, at which the stout youth put on an air of innocence and rode apart.
"But," went on Mr. Harkness, "the 'chuck-wagon' I sent out to the Far Pasture last night should still be there. It isn't more than five miles. If you boys think you can hold out we can ride over there, and we can have a real chuck-wagon luncheon. How will that suit you?"
"Down to the ground," said Rob.
"From the ground up," chimed in Tubby, who had recovered from his assumed fit of the sulks, at the mention of the immediate prospect of a meal.
"It'll be great," was Merritt's contribution to the general chorus of approval.
"Very well, then. Blinky, you ride on ahead and tell Soapy Sam to cook us up a fine feed."
"With beans, sir?" asked Blinky in an interested tone.
"Of course. And if he has any T bone steaks, tell him we want those, too."
"Say, did you hear the name of that cook?" asked Tubby, edging his pony up to Merritt's, as the cow-puncher spurred off on his errand.
"Yes – Soapy Sam; what of it?"
"Oh, I thought it was Soupy Sam, that's all," muttered Tubby.
"Say, is that meant for a joke? If so, where is the chart that goes with it?"
But Tubby had loped off to join the cow-punchers, who with yells and loud outcries were getting the steers in motion.
Presently the cloud of dust moved forward. After traversing some rough country a yell announced that the cabins and the chuck-wagon of the Far Pasture were in sight. The cow-punchers immediately abandoned the tired cattle, leaving them to feed on the range, and swept down on the camp like a swarm of locusts.
Soapy Sam, his sleeves rolled up and a big apron about his waist, flourished a spoon at them as they began chanting in a kind of monotonous chorus:
"Chick-chock-we-want Chuck!
Chuck-chuck we want chuck!
Cook-ee! Cook-ee! Cook-ee!"
What's the luck?
As they chanted they rode round and round the cook, whose fires and pots were all on the ground. In a huge iron kettle behind him, simmered that staple of the cow-puncher, beans. The atmosphere was redolent with those sweetest of aromas to the hungry man or boy, sizzling hot steaks and strong coffee. Soapy Sam had fairly outdone himself since Blinky had ridden in with news that the boss and some guests were on the way.
"Now you go way back and sit down, you ill-mannered steer-steering bunch of cattle-teasers," bellowed Soapy Sam indignantly, at the singing punchers. "If you don't, you won't get a thing to eat."
"Oh, cook-ee!" howled the cowboys.
"Oh, I mean it, not a mother's son of you," yelled Soapy Sam. "All you fellows think about is eating and drinking, and then smoking and swopping lies."
"How about work, cook-ee?" yelled some one.
"Work!" sputtered the cook with biting sarcasm. "Why, if work 'ud come up to you and say 'Hello, Bill!' you'd say, 'Sir, I don't know you.'"
Further exchange of ranch pleasantries was put a stop to at this moment by the arrival of Mr. Harkness and the boys, for the Simmons boys and the other Boy Scouts had been included in his invitation. The cowboys dispersed at once, riding over toward the huts, where they unsaddled their ponies and turned them into a rough corral. Water from a spring was dipped into tin basins, and a hasty toilet was made. By the time this was finished, Soapy Sam announced dinner by beating loudly on the bottom of a tin pan with a spoon.
"Grub!" yelled the cowboys.
"Come and get it," rejoined Sam in the time-honored formula.
Within ten minutes everybody was seated, and in the lap of each member of the party was a tin plate, piled high with juicy steak, fried potatoes, and a generous portion of beans of Soapy Sam's own peculiar devising. Handy at each man's or boy's right was a steaming cup of coffee. But milk there was none, as Tubby soon found out when he plaintively asked for some of that fluid.
"Maybe there's a tin cow in the wagon," said Soapy Sam; "I'll see."
"A 'tin cow'," repeated Tubby wonderingly; "whatever is that?"
A perfect howl of merriment greeted the fat boy's query.
"I guess its first cousin to a can of condensed milk," smiled Mr. Harkness. "But if you'll take my advice, you'll drink your coffee straight, in the regular range way."
And so the meal went merrily forward, in the shadow of the frowning, rugged peaks of the Santa Catapinas. In after days, the Boy Scouts were destined to eat in many strange places and by many "strange camp fires," but they never forgot that chuck-wagon luncheon, eaten under the cloudless Arizona sky on the open range.