CHAPTER IX—ON THE TRAIL TO GRUB STAKE

But it was not all settled in a minute. The affair was of a much too serious nature. First of all the boys were sent away while the fathers privately discussed the journey and what had to be done when once the messengers reached the town of Grub Stake, which was fully two hundred miles from Silver Run.

Banished from the front of the house, Chet and Digby had an eager discussion of their own, while the former carefully skinned the hawk so that it could be mounted.

“Oh, Chet! we’ll have just the Jim-dandiest kind of a time if they only let us go,” sighed Digby Fordham.

“And we’ll get a shot at those buffaloes,” said Chet, his eyes sparkling.

“Oh, shucks, boy!” drawled Dig. “You’ve that big buffalo on the brain. I still declare that I don’t believe there is any such animal.”

“Just you take your heavy rifle along. It takes a sizable bullet to kill a bull buffalo. I am going to borrow father’s big rifle.”

“Say! they haven’t said we could go yet!”

“Who else can go?” returned Chet. “If you’ll only promise to behave—”

“Whew! how about you?”

“Well,” answered Chet, “they didn’t speak about me being scatter-brained,” and he laughed.

“I vow,” said Dig, “by all the hoptoads that were chased out of Ireland—”

“John Peep rather doubted if the toads went with the other reptilian species,” chuckled Chet.

“Oh—hum! Well, anyway, I vow not to let my brains be scattered,” Dig remarked. Then he added complainingly, “I think my father is rather hard on me.”

“By the way,” Chet said suddenly, “queer why John Peep left town to live up there in that shack.”

“Give it up,” said Dig. “Perhaps he wanted to be ‘heap big Injun.’ I reckon all redskins are queer.”

“Now, Dig! Don’t you talk that way. John made us hustle in school to keep anywhere near him in classes. You know it.”

“Well! Tell us the news. Never mind about ancient history.”

“I found out that John wanted to play on the school nine. You know, the club’s going to play all this summer; some of the storekeepers have put up money to back it. And the captain and coach wouldn’t let John play.”

“What? By the last hoptoad that was chased out of Ireland! I’ve seen him pitch—”

“I know. He’s a great little pitcher,” Chet interrupted. “He’s a southpaw and he can puzzle most of ’em, you bet! It’s a mean shame. John Peep got sore and left town. Maybe he was sick of his family, too. They’re a lazy and dirty lot.”

“Whew! Can’t blame him for that,” said Dig. “They’re an unhealthy looking crowd. Old Scarface whitewashes fences for a nickel an hour and they live in a dirty hole of a cabin down in Hardpan.”

“John always looked neat and clean when he came to school.”

“But see how he looked up there in the woods—like a reg’lar savage!” sniffed Dig. “Not half dressed—and living in that old shack. I wonder what he’s doing now that his outfit is burned.”

“I believe that stranger burned it—the one we saw talking with him when we rode by,” declared Chet earnestly. “And I never saw that man before— Oh, Dig!” and he suddenly made an excited grab for his chum’s arm.

“Well, goodness! Don’t scare a fellow to death. What’s got you now?” demanded Digby Fordham.

“That fellow is the one we saw with the lame Indian.”

“What fellow?”

“The man who butted in just now when I shot the hawk.”

“Whew! you don’t mean it?” said Dig.

“Yes, I do. I remember him now. I remember his hat. Now, who can he be?”

“Give it up! Hello! there’s father calling for us. Oh, Chet! I hope they let us go to Grub Stake,” said Dig, longingly.

Serious as was the errand to Grub Stake, Mr. Havens and Mr. Fordham were inclined to trust their sons more than ever before, and that because of one uncontrovertible fact.

When nobody else had thought of any way to rescue the entombed miners from the Silent Sue, Chet and Dig had remembered about the old Crayton shaft and the possibility of getting into the closed mine through its old tunnel.

“It showed a surprising amount of thought and initiative for boys of their age,” Mr. Havens said. “I don’t know whether it was my boy or yours who took the lead, Fordham. At any rate, the two in conjunction hunted us out.”

“Something is due the boys,” admitted Mr. Fordham, “and the trip will be a great lark for them.”

“It’s more than a lark. I shall impress that on Chet’s mind,” said his partner, shaking his head.

“Oh! your boy’s got a head on him,” agreed Mr. Fordham.

“I hope so,” concluded Mr. Havens, and it was then the chums were recalled to receive permission and instructions for the journey over the trail to Grub Stake.

Neither Chet nor Digby gave vent to any exuberance of joy at the prospect—not then, at least. They listened earnestly to what they were told, and then at once set about the preparations they had to make, for they were to start the very next morning.

Dig, who never went anywhere on foot if he could help it, brought his black horse, Poke, and all his outfit over to the Havens corral that evening. The boys proposed to camp in the open, there being no ranches at that date along the Grub Stake trail. So they were obliged to pack a good deal of camp equipment.

“We’d better hire one of Mexican Joe’s burros,” said Dig, “and then we can take our piano and your mother’s sewing machine and washtubs.”

“Don’t begin to kick,” Chet said calmly. “You’ll be glad to have all this stuff before we’re half-way to Grub Stake.”

“And we’ll sound like a procession of junkmen when we pass by,” grumbled his chum. “Talk about shooting game! Why, unless all the game is stone deaf, we won’t get within shot of a crippled mine rat!”

“No. I’ll pack this outfit so the tinware won’t rattle,” laughed Chet. “And we couldn’t take a burro. That would delay us. We want to be comfortable when we camp. After a long day’s ride, you’ll be the first one to call for a square meal.”

“Say! how long’s the trip going to take?” demanded Dig. “We’ll be back by the time school opens next fall, I suppose?”

“Don’t be so ridiculous,” responded Chet. “It’s a rough trail, and if we go right on with no delays, but for sleep and meals, it will take all of three days.”

“Whew! my Poke can do it in a day and a half.”

“But why rush like that?” cried Chet. “We want some fun, don’t we? This is no horse-race, I hope! And father says we can take our own time—especially coming back.”

“I know what you’re thinking about, Chet Havens!” cried his chum, in response. “You’re thinking of those buffaloes.”

“Well! and if I am?”

“Huh!” grunted Dig. “If any buffaloes ever see us with all this tinware and stuff aboard they’ll hike out for the north and never stop running till they reach the Arctic Circle!”

Chet only laughed at him. He showed Dig how to pack the cooking utensils and the like in his blanket-roll so that they would not rattle. When they set out right after breakfast the next morning the compass of their outfit did not seem so great as Digby supposed it would.

Chet carried in an inside pocket of his woollen outing shirt the deeds in duplicate which he was to get Mr. John Morrisy to sign. The old prospector who had never sold his interest in the Crayton claim was a queer, illiterate character, well known about Grub Stake.

Mr. Havens had instructed Chet just how to proceed with the business in hand, and the boy was quite sure he could do it all without a hitch. The money to be passed in exchange for Mr. Morrisy’s signature was already on deposit with the Wells Fargo Company in Grub Stake; and of course Chet had no expectation of losing the deeds.

The horses were in fine fettle, and so were the boys, when they rode out of Silver Run. Each of the chums carried a heavy rifle slung over his shoulder and under his arm, the muzzle pointing down his bootleg. And you may be sure they were not loaded so that the hammer rested on a cartridge. The boys had long before been instructed as to the danger of that piece of carelessness.

They were well supplied with loaded shells, for the day of the muzzle-loading rifles, with the cumbersome shot-pouch and powder-horn was long past. Their revolvers were loaded, too, and each boy wore a keen hunting-knife in a sheath.

They expected to kill most of the meat they ate on the trail. Canned beans did not greatly appeal to the trail boys; especially when they were sure there must be plenty of small game along the way.

They aimed to take a trail which wound through the hills to the west of the town and would lead then by mid-afternoon to the open plains. In going this way they passed through the poor suburb known as Hardpan. It was here the family of Lame John, the Cheyenne Indian, lived.

On one side of a littered lane were grouped a dozen lean cabins, with barren yards divided from one another by pickets, eked out with hogshead hoops, gate-bars of old wagons, hoopskirts, and like rubbish. Here and there an attempt had been made by some of the Hardpan women or girls to make flowers grow; but they were sorry gardens.

Across the lane the ground was open—part of it a dump for the refuse of the neighborhood. As Chet and Dig rode into the head of the driveway they heard a shrill chorus of cheers, intermixed with which was the “E-i! e-i! e-i!” of the Indian yell and the “Yee-ee-yip!” favoured by the cowpunchers of the ranges.

“Something doing, boy!” cried Dig to his chum, at once interested.

“Must be that attack on Silver Run by the Comanches you were telling your Cousin Tom about,” said Chet, chuckling.

“I reckon it’s a Cheyenne attack. Whew! Look at that! It’s a ball game.”

“No,” said Chet. “It’s Lame John pitching to his grandfather. Oh, look at that! Old Scarface has put on a glove and John is trying out his fast one.”

“Whew!” blew Dig. “I must take a peep at that. Some little old southpaw, John is. He can show ’em!”

It was a spectacle worth watching. The inhabitants of Hardpan were out in force to see it.

There was a level diamond and surrounding “garden” cleared in the open lot. The spectators were gathered back of the foul lines, and among them were the boys who had recently been playing.

Now John Peep had stepped into the box to throw a few exhibition balls. The governors of the school nine had refused to accept the lame Indian boy as one of their pitching staff; to the Hardpanites he was, nevertheless, something of a hero. He was winding up for another drive just as Chet and Dig appeared, and the spectators held their breath.

Behind the plate stood a gnarled, lean old man in ragged, fringed leggings and a miner’s cast-off shirt, with moccasins on his feet. His hair was as white as could be; but he was as alert and his eyes as bright as though he were a young man. Old Scarface, once a brave of the Cheyenne tribe, was over eighty years of age. When the ball smashed into his glove he threw it back to his grandson as smartly as any boy. His muscles were still supple and his eye true.

Although Chet and Dig did not know it, ball playing was not a strange sport to the American Indian. Most of the tribes were playing ball before Columbus discovered the New World. Only, of course, the rules of the game were entirely different from those of our own baseball.

“Say! the old man is great,” declared Chet, reining in Hero.

“But look at that ball whiz!” murmured Dig, as John Peep sent in another one. “Why didn’t the other fellows want him to play on the team? He could have somebody run for him; and he can bat, even if he has a short leg.”

“Just didn’t want him, that’s all,” said Chet. “But I notice that our nine has got licked in almost every game they’ve played. And it’s particularly weak in the pitching—Say! look at that one, will you?”

“E-i! e-i! e-i!”

“Yee-ee-yip! Yee-ee-yip!”

The crowd went wild. A boy had stepped up to the plate and tried to hit the ball. John Peep’s curve seemed fairly to dodge the bat as the boy swung at it.

Old Scarface—as serious as a deacon—slammed the ball back to his grandson and squatted for the next one. The old Indian took the matter as seriously as he took everything else in life. Nobody ever saw the ancient Cheyenne “crack a smile,” as Dig expressed it.

Two more balls followed the first in quick succession, and the batter tossed away his stick in disgust. He had only fanned.

Then John saw the two boys on horseback, and he tossed the ball to another boy. Scarface stepped out of the catcher’s place and stood with folded arms beside the field. It was beneath his dignity to play ball save when his grandson wanted to pitch. Nobody in Hardpan but Scarface could “hold” the young Cheyenne’s delivery.

The Indian lad ran over to the horsepath and asked Chet:

“You going to take trail?”

“Yes,” said Chet. “We’re hiking for Grub Stake.”

“A-i! So I hear. You’re not going near that shaft I showed you—that way into the old mine?”

“No,” replied Chet. “We’re not taking that trail.”

“All right. You much better keep away from there,” said John, and turned away.

“Say!” cried the too curious Digby, “who burned out your shack, John?”

“Never you mind,” returned the Indian lad, and he showed anger in the expression of his face at this reminder of his loss. “I’ll get my pay for that.”

“I hope you do,” commented Chet soothingly, and preparing to ride on. “We’re all very thankful to you, John. My father would like to see you, if you’ll go up to the house. You know, he’s laid up for a while.”

John Peep looked back at him sharply. “Ugh!” he grunted, in what Dig called his “red Indian style.” “Ugh! Your father give Indian cast-off suit of clothes. Your mother give Indian meal of victuals. Then shake hand, say, ‘Good-bye, Injun!’ I don’t need those things, Chet Havens.”

“Well! by all the hoptoads that were chased out of Ireland!” murmured Dig.

But Chet said calmly: “That isn’t the way my parents will treat you, John.”

The Indian boy was still flushed and angry. “That isn’t even my name!” he exclaimed. “‘John’ is white boy’s name. They make me give it when I go to school. But it does not belong to me.”

“Say! what is your name?” demanded Dig, his curiosity getting the better of his courtesy.

“Never you mind,” responded the Indian boy sharply, and turned away again.

But Chet called after him: “Do think better of it, and go to see my father.” Then he let Hero have his impatient head and he and his chum went on their way.

That which rose out of this advice of Chet’s to the Indian lad could scarcely be foreseen by either of the boys; but it was of much importance.

The chums rode on, soon leaving the last of the scattered cabins behind them. They met timber wagons from the hills, but nothing else for the next hour. The lumbermen looked curiously at the chums’ weapons, for their guns were too heavy for an ordinary hunting expedition.

“What you goin’ out after?” one timberman drawled. “Grizzlies—or is there an Injun uprisin’?”

“We expect to bag a brace of humming-birds,” Dig told him gravely. “Have you seen any?”

“No; but I’ve heard ’em snorin’, sound asleep, in the tops of some of them cottonwoods,” was the reply. “But, say! They ain’t been a trace of Ole Ephraim in these hills, since Methuselah was put inter trousers.” “Ole Ephraim” was the nickname the old-time hunters and trappers gave to the grizzly bear.

“Nor I didn’t know of any redskins goin’ on the warpath. Has Blacksnake’s band of dog soldiers broke loose from the reservation?” pursued the man cheerfully. “Say! ’tain’t old Scarface and his fam’bly begun crow-hoppin’—has they? If so, we sure will have a tumble mas-a-cree.”

“That’s all right,” laughed Chet. “We’re going to bag all the game in the territory—you see.”

“Leave me a mess o’ Molly Cottontails,” said the timberman, driving on. “I ain’t had a rabbit with fixin’s yet this season.”

“And I shouldn’t think he’d want it,” grumbled Dig, as they left the man behind. “Who wants to eat rabbit this time o’ year? I told you how it would be if we took these heavy guns, Chet. Folks will rig us to death. Huh! Buffalo! A fat chance!”

Chet only laughed at him. He had a deal more faith in the existence of the buffalo band that had been reported as roaming upon the plains, across which the trail to Grub Stake lay.

CHAPTER X—MR. HAVENS HAS A VISITOR

Mr. Havens and his wife had bidden the chums good-bye when they rode away from the house on the outskirts of Silver Run and watched them as they cantered off down the road. Chet’s mother secretly feared something might befall her boy on his mission to Grub Stake; while Mr. Havens was only proud that he had a son whom he could trust in such an emergency.

When Mrs. Havens had retired to the house her husband sank comfortably back into his chair and relit his pipe. It was then he espied the stranger in the black slouch hat coming up the street.

Silver Run was not such a large town that the owner of the Silent Sue mine did not know most of its regular inhabitants, either by name or sight. This fellow he never remembered having seen before.

Nevertheless, when the man came opposite to the Havens’ house, he crossed the road and came up to the porch on which Chet’s father sat. He was a broadly smiling man; but his eyes did not smile. They were little and sharp and altogether too near each other to be honest.

“I reckon you’re Mr. Havens?” queried the stranger, putting out a hand that Mr. Havens did not appear to see. He was busy re-tamping his pipe just then.

“Yes, sir,” said the mine owner. “I’m the man.”

“You’ve got an interest in a mine up yonder?” said the stranger, nodding toward the mountain that loomed above the town.

“Another man and I own the Silent Sue,” was the serious answer.

“Shucks! I don’t mean that,” exclaimed the visitor jovially.

“What do you mean, then?” asked Mr. Havens. “Not that it’s any of my business.”

“Sure it’s your business,” cried the stranger. “I’ve come here to talk to you about it.”

“About what?”

“The Crayton claim.”

“Oh!” Mr. Havens eyed him silently and with much curiosity. But he had learned to wait and let the other man do the talking. That was why he was so successful in business.

“Yes,” said the stranger. “I got hold of a share of the Crayton claim in a curious way. And I’d like to own it all, Mr. Havens. I learn at the Office of Record that you own a part. Will you sell?”

“That’s odd,” said Chet’s father slowly, and still examining the stranger with serious gaze. “I became possessed of a share of the claim in a curious way, too, and I want to control it. Will you sell, Stranger?”

“No. I tell you I want to buy,” said the man, with some warmth. “I didn’t come here to peddle my share.”

“And I didn’t ask you to come,” said Mr. Havens softly. “I don’t want to sell.”

“I’ve come here prepared to buy,” declared the man blusteringly.

“Sorry. Looks like a deadlock to me,” said Mr. Havens coolly. “By the way, what is your name, Stranger?”

“Steve Brant. You don’t know me,” said the man ungraciously.

“No. You’re not at home in Silver Run, I take it?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Nothing particular to bring you here but a desire to buy my interest in the Crayton claim?”

“No,” repeated the man.

“Then,” drawled Mr. Havens, “there’s nothing to keep you from taking the next stage-coach out. It leaves the Silver Run Hotel this afternoon at two.”

The man who called himself Brant flushed dully under Mr. Havens’ tone of raillery; but he managed to control his temper.

“You’d better think it over, Mr. Havens. I can give you a good trade.”

“Don’t want to trade.”

“You’re not the only man I can deal with!” exclaimed Steve Brant, looking at the mine owner slyly.

“No?”

“I can get control without buying you out.”

“That so?” returned Mr. Havens with apparent curiosity.

“Yes. You’re not the only one who owns a bit of the Crayton claim. There may not be ten cents’ worth of pay ore left in it, but I have a fancy to open it up.”

“Everybody ought to be free to follow his fancy,” said Mr. Havens cheerfully.

“But you’d better take your chance while you have it offered to you. I’ve only got to go to Grub Stake and buy,” went on the visitor.

“That so? Then shares in the old claim are offered in Grub Stake?” queried Mr. Havens. “Never heard of that before.”

“You don’t know everything,” sneered Steve Brant “Old John Morrisy’s never sold his share in the Crayton mine. I can get it and that will give me control.”

“No,” said Mr. Havens, quietly shaking his head.

“Why not, I’d like to know?” demanded Steve Brant angrily.

“Because I’ve got an option on John Morrisy’s holdings—that’s why, Stranger.”

“What d’ye mean—option?”

“Just what I say. John’s agreed to sell it to me.”

“And you tied down here with a broken foot?” cried the other. “I know old John Morrisy. The man who can show him ready cash first will get his share in the old diggings, sure!”

“You’re so sure,” sighed Mr. Havens. “Go ahead. You’ll learn.”

“You’re bluffing.”

“Go ahead. I might as well tell you, though,” said Chet’s father, “that I’ve got my money on the spot and the papers are on the way to Grub Stake right now. I reckon I’ve beat you to it, Stranger.”

“Say! you don’t know me,” remarked Steve Brant threateningly. “I’m not so easily beaten.”

“And I don’t care whether I beat you or not. I never saw you before,” said Mr. Havens; “and I don’t care to see you again. But take it from me: I’m going to control the old Crayton claim. It won’t be you. Mark that now!”

The mine owner had become a little heated. Now he sank back in his chair again, and puffed strongly on his pipe. He appeared to have no further interest in the discussion.

Steve Brant turned away from the porch—on which he had not been invited to sit—in plain wrath. He did not bid Mr. Havens good-bye, nor did the latter look after Brant when he walked down the street.

Had he done so he could not have heard what the man was saying to himself. He felt that Mr. Havens had the best of him—for the time, at least. And it made him very angry.

“Something has ’woke him up. He must know something about that old claim—he knows as well as I do,” muttered Steve Brant. “He’s in communication with old John Morrisy, is he?

“By gracious! that’s where those boys were bound for when I saw them ride away this morning. I waited for them to get away first, for I was afraid they might have remembered my being up there with that young redskin.

“Ha! I’d like to see what kind of papers they carry. Old John Morrisy is a queer duck—and he can’t read. Pshaw! I ought to be able to get the better of a couple of boys. Now, why not? That Tony knows the trail like a book—Humph!

“If I’m not smarter than a couple of boys and a man that’s tied to his piazza like a poodle-dog, I’ll eat my hat,” declared Steve Brant, as he turned the nearest corner below the Havens’ house.

Mr. Brant was evidently a man who would bear watching.

CHAPTER XI—THE FIRST ADVENTURE

As Chet Havens and Digby Fordham mounted into the hills, the country about them became wilder and quite free from signs of man’s habitation. Even the behaviour of the birds and the squirrels was different from their conduct nearer town.

“I could knock the head off that fellow,” Dig declared, referring to a big grey squirrel that flirted his tail and chattered in a tall hemlock not far off the trail, “if I only had my little rifle. This thing is a reg’lar elephant gun, Chet,” and he shifted the heavy rifle to his other shoulder.

“Knock the head off it, hey?” repeated Chet.

“Not a very sportsmanlike way to get a squirrel.”

“Huh! I’m not so particular how I get my game, as long as I get it. I don’t claim to be a fancy shot like you, Chet.”

“If you were like Davy Crockett, you’d say a squirrel didn’t count in a game score if it wasn’t shot in the eye,” chuckled Chet. “Of course, anybody can shoot the head off a squirrel.”

“Whew!” ejaculated Dig. “Do you s’pose Davy always shot his squirrels in the eye? When a fellow wants a mess of squirrel pot-pie I don’t believe he is going to trouble about which end he kills his squirrel at.”

“He was a great shot, though,” Chet remarked admiringly. “My grandfather saw him shoot in a match once, and he said Davy Crockett carried off every prize.”

“I suppose all the yarns they tell about him are true,” said Digby, his eyes twinkling; “but I always liked that one about his shooting the coon the best.”

“What is that?” asked his chum innocently.

“Why,” said Dig, “when the coon saw Davy Crockett aiming at him, he sang out:

“‘Hol’ on, Mars’ Crockett! Don’ shoot! I’ll come down!’”

“That’s a yarn, Dig,” laughed Chet. “But it’s a good one. Come on! Here’s a straight piece of road. I’ll race you.”

“Hold on!” exclaimed Dig. “I’ve shaken down my breakfast enough already. Do you see those raspberries, Chet?”

“Cracky! what a lot of them!” cried Chet.

“Let’s have a mess of them,” his chum said eagerly, and leaped down from his saddle.

“Here! here!” called Chet. “Hitch your horse, old man. We don’t want to be chasing Poke all over the pasture.”

“All right. And hang your tinware on the saddle,” urged Dig, slipping the strap of his own rifle over the cantle after hitching Poke. He raced to the nearest clump of raspberry bushes as though he thought they would mysteriously disappear if he did not reach there in a minute.

Chet climbed more slowly after him out of the well-defined trail into the rocky berry pasture. Both boys were unarmed save for the knives in their belts, for even their revolvers were in their saddle holsters. The bushes hung heavy with the ripe fruit and Dig, who was inordinately fond of the berries, at once filled both hands and began to cram the fruit into his mouth.

“Look out! you’ll choke yourself,” his chum admonished him.

“Don’t you worry, old boy,” mumbled Dig, still eating greedily. “It would be a lovely way of dyin’—”

Just then, as though conjured for Dig’s particular punishment, there rose up on the other side of the clump of raspberry bushes a shaggy, black figure, almost within reach of Dig’s outstretched arm.

“Oh! oh! ah!” gasped Digby. “It’s yo—your buf—buffalo, Chet!” and he fell back upon his chum, the crushed raspberries running out of his mouth in two streams.

“What’s the matter with you?” asked his chum, who did not, on the instant, observe the object that had surprised Dig. “Stop joking about that buffalo.”

“Give me a gun! Give me a gun!” groaned the other boy, his mouth finally freed from the crushed fruit.

Then Chet saw the bear—a big black fellow, standing erect, and to all appearances just as scared as Digby Fordham was.

It had the funniest expression on its muzzle. Its jaws were all beslobbered with crushed raspberries, as were its paws. It had been pressing the berries into its mouth just as Dig had been doing, and Chet thought the sight of the two—the boy and the bear—was one of the funniest he had ever seen.

The bear’s little ears were cocked, and its eyes were amazingly sharp. But its surprise was plain and it staggered back just as Dig had done.

“Give me a gun!” begged the latter again, hoarsely.

The bear turned and both boys thought it was coming around the clump of bushes to get at them. Dig uttered a squeal of fright and tumbled backwards down the hill. Chet whipped out his skinning-knife, that being the only weapon he had with him, and stood his ground.

But the bear only swung around to drop to all fours, and with a startled “Woof! woof!” he galloped away across the hill, soon disappearing in the thick jungle.

But the bear had startled something besides Digby Fordham. While Chet hugged his sides in laughter at the sight of his chum sprawling down the hill, wild snorts and a sudden clatter rose from the trail.

“Look out for the horses, Dig!” yelled Chet, breaking off his spasm of laughter in the middle.

Poke had caught a glimpse of the bear or had smelled him. The black horse flung himself back upon his strap and snapped it.

“Whoa, Poke!” cried Dig, and ran quickly down the hill.

Yelling “Whoa!” to a whirlwind would have done about as much good. Poke started on a gallop, and when his master rolled down to the trail the black horse was already three lengths away.

Hero did not try to escape. Perhaps his nostrils were not so sensitive to the smell of the bear. But his master hurried to soothe him.

Poke shook off the swinging rifle at almost his first leap, and its striking his heels frightened the horse all the more. Then he began to strew Dig’s camping outfit along the trail, one piece at a time.

Following the rifle, the pistol was tossed out of its holster—Dig had forgotten to fasten the flap of the pocket. His lasso was only hung on the saddle horn and that dropped off, banging the galloping horse about the heels.

Dig, running after him, yelled “Whoa!” until he almost lost his voice, but to no purpose.

The blanket roll became unfastened and it whipped Poke over the flanks. One article after another was spewed from the roll, and after striking the frightened horse, bounded off into the trail or beside it.

A can of condensed milk hit a boulder and burst. A skillet was kicked into the air as Poke ran, and when it was found there was a hole through it as big as one’s fist.

“By all the hoptoads that were chased out of Ireland! That creature never will stop.”

“Get on my horse, Dig,” begged his chum.

“All right. But unhitch all that truck. I’ll take your lariat.”

“Going to lasso Poke?” demanded Chet, still much amused.

“I don’t care if I hang him,” declared Dig, leaping on the bay horse, and whirling him into the trail.

Dig was a splendid rider. No matter how hard-bitted the horse was he rode, he always made a good appearance in the saddle. The black horse could outrun the bay; but Poke lacked the guidance of his master’s hand. He was still going at a heavy gallop, and Hero gained upon him at every leap.

The camp equipment was still dropping out of Dig’s blanket-roll, and as long as that occurred Poke would undoubtedly run. Dig rose up in Hero’s stirrups, uncoiled the rope, and prepared to cast it over the black’s head when he got near enough.

Meanwhile Chet came on behind, loading himself down with the scattered camp outfit and the rifles. He was soon too heavily laden to travel fast; besides, he had to stop now and then to laugh.

Poke gave his master a two-mile chase, and then Dig roped him and brought the black horse back with him at the end of the lariat.

“I’d trade him for a cast-off pair of boots, and then swap the boots for a broken-bladed jackknife,” grumbled Dig, who always made frightful threats against Poke when the black horse had misbehaved. “Whew! I thought I’d have to walk all the way to Grub Stake by the way this villain started.”

Chet was choked with laughter again. Dig turned on him sternly.

“Say! what’s the matter with you now?” he demanded. “What are you laughing at?”

“I—I wonder if that—that buf—buffalo you thought you saw is still—still running,” cried Chet, holding his aching sides.

CHAPTER XII—A MAVERICK

In spite of the delay, the boys had made good progress on the Grub Stake trail when they stopped for a bite at noon. They were well through the foothills, the tall mountain in which were located the silver mines above Silver Run, was behind them, and the trail had become only a faint trace, yet easily followed because of the nature of the country.

Now and again they had obtained glimpses of the open plains through the gullies between the wooded hills—here a great stretch of lawn covered with short buffalo grass; yonder an open piece of country strewn with brilliant flowers.

As they sat on their haunches, cowboy fashion, beside the dying fire over which the coffee had been boiled, the chums suddenly saw a flight of swiftly bounding little animals cross the line of their vision. They passed across the opening between two hills to the north and were gone in a breath.

“Whew! did you see them?” gasped Dig, almost spilling his coffee.

“I saw something,” admitted Chet.

“What I want to know is, did you see the same thing I did?” pursued Dig, grinning. “They went so fast I didn’t know but I had ’em again.”

“I can assure you that you didn’t have those again. They’re almost too quick to lasso. They’re antelopes.”

“Whew! I’d like to catch one; but I never do have any luck catching things, unless it’s measles, or something perfectly useless.”

“Too bad, too bad!” said Chet pityingly, and quoted:

“Waugh!” grunted Dig. “What’s a gazelle?”

“It’s something like an antelope.”

“Well, it sounds awfully mushy. I’d like to catch one of ’em to eat.”

“Sorry,” said Chet, throwing out the remainder of his coffee. “But it would take a long time to trail those fellows. Maybe we’ll try it on our way back.”

“We’re going to fast, then, going over to Grub Stake?” suggested Dig, complainingly. “This sort of a snack isn’t going to keep me in the saddle for long.”

“Perhaps we’ll come across a deer, poor boy,” said Chet soothingly. “I shouldn’t wish you to starve. You know, the redman only pulled his belt the tighter when he had to go without food, and did not complain.”

“That’s all right. I’ll leave that to John Peep. When little Dig Fordham gets hungry you’re going to hear a holler—be sure of that.”

“Keep your eye open for deer, then—or, when we get in the open, for sage hens or quail.”

“I’d rather have a supper of deer liver,” Dig returned, smacking his lips at the thought.

“Well, maybe we can shoot a deer. They are not so swift as the antelope.”

“But aren’t antelope easily trapped? I’ve heard Rafe Peters tell about catching them with a red rag tied to a stalk.”

“Pshaw!” exclaimed Chet. “You mean he toled them near enough with a red rag to pot-shoot them. The little creatures are very curious.”

“Oh! then you shake salt on their tails, I s’pose?” grumbled Dig.

Chet had to laugh at this. But both boys, after the noon halt, kept a bright outlook for game. Their supper actually depended upon the discovery of some game which they might capture.

An hour after their noontide stop the chums rode out upon a plain from between two heavily wooded hills. This open space was a great, level valley, through which a stream ran, and it should have been a paradise for ruminant animals.

There was the shelter of the hills on both the east and north; the clear, placid stream; the abundant grass and low bushes; with sufficient shade along the watercourse to attract the herds.

“Hello!” exclaimed Dig suddenly. “What’s been digging up the prairie in that way? Why, Chet! did you ever see the like?”

“Yes, I have,” returned his chum. “You know, when I went to Benway with father that time, we travelled for a week with a herd.”

“A herd? Cattle, do you mean?” exclaimed Dig.

“Yes.”

“You don’t mean to say this is a cattle trail?” demanded the other boy, drawing the black horse to a stop at the edge of a wide track in the sodded land, and gazing at it wonderingly.

“That’s what it is. More than twice as wide as the street we live in, Dig. See how the cattle’s sharp hoofs have cut it up? The herd we were with was a great sight. The column was a mile long, the cattle trotting along as they pleased, and seemingly of their own accord.”

“But didn’t the cowpunchers hurry ’em on, and crack their quirts and shoot guns to hurry them and all that?”

“Of course not,” said Chet, with disgust. “How much fat would there be left on a steer, do you suppose, if they were treated that way on the trail? I didn’t see a man carrying a whip, and we rode with them nearly a week.

“Everything was quiet; nobody shouted; nobody seemed to bother the cattle at all.”

“But there must have been lots of cowpunchers on hand, so that if the cattle stampeded—” Dig urged.

“There weren’t but eleven men with that herd,” Chet told him. “I tried to find out all about the herd and how they handled them. You see, the men in the lead were called ‘point men,’ those riding along the sides of the herd were the ‘swing men’ and the one who brought up the rear was the ‘drag man.’

“In addition, there was the cook, who drove the chuck wagon, and the horse wrangler, who had charge of the remuda of a hundred and fifty ponies. ‘Remuda’ means relay, you know.”

“Ugh-huh!” grunted Dig. “But didn’t they stop to graze? Why, according to this trail, the cattle went right through the finest kind of grass without taking a bite.”

“This was a big herd,” said Chet, eying the cut-up sod seriously. “But, of course, they grazed. The way they did it when father and I travelled with them was this: An hour before noon one of the point men whistled and the whole column of beeves turned aside and went to grazing. They called it ‘throwing the herd off the trail to graze.’”

“Great!” exclaimed his chum.

“When it was time to start on, the men gathered them, got them headed right, and all settled into the trail again.”

“But how about the nights, Chet?” inquired Digby. “How could eleven men handle such a large herd?”

“Why,” said Chet, “they threw the herd off the trail to graze and to water just the same. The men were divided into watches, something like the watches at sea. Those on watch rode around and around the herd. If the cattle were uneasy they sang.”

Dig chuckled. “Sang what?” he asked. “‘Rock-a-bye-baby’ and the like?”

“No,” laughed Chet. “One fellow didn’t know anything but ‘Beulah Land’—and after you’ve heard it sung a thousand times, you get tired of it. The regular cattle-herding songs have hundreds of verses to them; but the tunes get monotonous, too, after a while.”

“I should think so!” ejaculated Digby. “D’you know, I thought cattle herding was more boisterous.”

“You’ve driven cows to pasture, haven’t you?”

“Yes. For old man Feltman. He has seven,” Digby said.

“Multiply his seven by a thousand and you have a good-sized trail herd. Only there will be more crippled and strayed animals left behind a regular herd. And coyotes, wolves, and bears to pick them up.”

“Whew! Maybe we can find a wolf on this trail,” cried Dig.

“I hope not! There’s nothing wickeder in this country than a grey wolf,” declared Chet Havens.

“Why! I thought they were cowards. Everybody says: ‘As cowardly as a wolf.’”

“Then everybody is mistaken,” said Chet firmly. “Don’t you fool yourself. They are not like coyotes. Rafe has told me that an old she wolf, especially with young, will go out of her way to attack man.”

“Gidap!” exclaimed Dig. “Rafe was stringing you.”

“I don’t think so. And when they run in packs, I’ve read that wolves are very dangerous indeed.”

“Well! we might find a maverick along this trail,” urged Dig. “Say! a yearling that hadn’t been branded might sell for a few dollars at Grub Stake.”

“Goodness me! Do you think for a minute we can stop to drive a dogy all the way to Grub Stake?” laughed Chet.

“Huh! you’d stop for that big buffalo, all right, all right, if you saw him.”

“I expect I would,” admitted his chum. “Wouldn’t you?”

“If I ever see a buffalo—Say, Chet! why do they call them ‘mavericks’?”

“They don’t.”

“What d’you mean, they don’t? Of course they do. Unbranded calves—”

“Oh!” chuckled Chet. “You got me twisted. I thought you meant the buffaloes.”

“Oh! Don’t be funny.”

“Why, mavericks are unbranded cattle—usually yearlings. Called such, so I’ve read, because a certain cattleman in Texas, named Colonel Maverick, refused to brand his cattle. All the other cattle owners did, so Maverick claimed all unbranded stock.”

“Oh!”

“It was a sharp trick, you see,” Chet said. “He gathered in lots of cattle that way. Cowpunchers made a joke of it at first. They called every stray and unbranded beast a ‘maverick.’ The name stuck.”

The boys crossed the cattle trail, for it came up from the south through a pass between the hills there, while the faint trace they were following took them almost due west. The stream flowed with them, and during the afternoon they were never far from its bank.

Therefore they started up several groups of animals that were either feeding near the river or were drinking—a second small herd of antelopes (or possibly the same herd they had caught a glimpse of before), a pair of red deer, coyotes uncounted, and some animal that went crashing off through the willows, which they did not see, but which Dig declared made as much noise as a heavy freight.

“Your big buffalo, I bet, Chet,” he chuckled. “That’s the only chance you’ll have of knocking him over.”

“Maybe not,” his chum said cheerfully.

“Talking of knocking something over,” pursued Digby, “what are we going to have for supper? There’s nothing hearty left in my pack but a condensed milk tin. All these creatures seem to spot us half a mile off.”

“The birds don’t,” said Chet, unmoved.

“What have you in this outfit to shoot sage hens with?” growled Digby. “If you’d have let me bring a shotgun—”

His grumbling was stopped almost instantly. Chet had been riding with the six-shooter loosened in its case while his eyes roved all about them as the horses walked.

He threw up his left hand in warning to Dig and spoke in a low voice to Hero:

“Whoa, Hero! Stand still!”

Dig drew his black horse to a stop, being half a length behind the bay. Chet threw the long barrel of the pistol across his left forearm just as a flock of grouse whirred up from the grass ahead.

Chet Havens’ arm-rest was as steady as an iron bracket. Hero stood like a statue. Crack! crack! crack! Three of the prairie hens fluttered to the ground while the others disappeared beyond the willows across the river.

“Whew!” yelled Dig, clambering down from his saddle. “There’s our supper.”

He threw his lines to his chum while he ran to pick up the birds.

“By the last hoptoad that was chased out of Ireland! you shot the head off of one of these, Chet.”

“That is the first one I shot,” returned his chum calmly, pushing fresh cartridges into his revolver and leaving the hammer resting on an empty shell.

“Talk about Davy Crockett!” chuckled Digby. “I believe you’ve got him beaten—with a six-shooter, anyway.”

“Reckon you’re right,” admitted Chet. “Davy never saw such a gun as this. But what would we do with a long barreled squirrel rifle with the flint filed to a sharp point and a few grains of powder sprinkled in the pan? I bet we’d starve on this journey, Dig.”

“Huh! Maybe. But we’re not going to starve to-night,” returned his chum with assurance, and tying the legs of the grouse to his saddle.

This trail to Grub Stake had never been a wagon trail, and for some months it had scarcely been used; therefore its trace was dim in places. Chet had been told the landmarks to follow by his father, however, and through this first valley there was no chance of the boys going astray.

They would not get out of this valley until the next day. The horses had not been driven hard, save when Poke ran away from the bear, but they had brought the boys a good many miles from Silver Run before sunset.

They made camp in a grove on the river’s bank. The sun had dropped behind the western range and night was coming fast. Chet was making the fire and skinning the grouse. Dig hobbled the horses nearby, where the grazing was good, and then went along the river bank to see if there was a spring, the water of which would be fresher and colder than the river water.

And in stumbling along through the bushes in the half-darkness Dig Fordham fell upon his next adventure. Chet suddenly heard a mighty thrashing and bellowing in the brush. Dig’s voice rose in excitement:

“Bring your rope, Chet! Bring your rope! I have a deer!”

His chum did not believe him, but he did as Dig said and ran with the lariat coiled and ready in his hand. Only a few yards away he came upon his chum on the back of some animal, struggling in the mud beside the river. Dig had his arms around the creature’s neck, and was hanging on for dear life.

“I have him! I have him!” cried Dig.

“Looks as though he had you,” laughed Chet.

The creature had evidently been lying in the mud and Dig had fallen over him. Chet slipped the noose over the head of the animal and then advised his chum to rise.

“You’re frightening the poor thing to death,” he said, for it was bawling as well as struggling. And its voice was unmistakable to Chet’s ear.

“Whew! I fell right over that deer,” gasped Dig, getting up as the creature danced around at the end of the rope, trying to get away from Chet.

“Deer! Your grandmother’s hat!” Chet said scornfully. “You fell on a calf—that’s what you fell on. Don’t you know a deer from a calf?”

“Calf?” repeated the chagrined Dig. “Where did it come from? There’s no ranch around here, is there?”

“This is what you were looking for,” laughed Chet. “It’s a maverick. It likely strayed from the last bunch of cattle that went over the trail we crossed. But how under the sun it managed to escape the coyotes and lions and bears is a mystery to me. Poor little fellow!”

“Come on!” exclaimed Dig. “We’ll drag him back to camp, and I’ll gentle him. We aren’t travelling very fast, Chet, and we can lead him to-morrow.”

“Well! I’d rather you tried it than that I should,” his chum said grimly, handing him the end of the rope. “Go to it, boy!”