The best laid plans are not always successfully, or satisfactorily, carried out. There was, as both boys knew, a big doubt as to whether they could drive the buffaloes in the way they desired; but, at least, there was a good chance that they would kill another of the big animals.
“Take a bull, Dig,” advised Chet, as they rode up the brook. “Don’t kill the cows or calves. If we should enclose any of the herd in our corral, besides the big fellow, I believe we’d have a mighty valuable catch.”
“Say! that would be great,” agreed Dig. “Mebbe we could sell ’em for as much as a hundred dollars.”
“And that’s better than selling a little old maverick for five dollars—eh?” laughed his chum.
The boys trotted their eager mounts up the valley and finally came to the last screen of bushes that stood between them and the buffalo herd. The animals were feeding down the valley, but the wind was not blowing directly in their faces. It was from the southwest; therefore, the odour of the young hunters would not be carried to the beasts.
Chet and Dig again saw the feeding ponies belonging to the two men who had caused them so much trouble. “And maybe we’ll put them in a hole before we get through,” muttered Dig vindictively.
The boys could be sure that the men were close by, when the ponies were so plainly visible. Neither of them would start back for that island camp on the distant river, afoot.
So the boys gave their full attention to the buffaloes. Their rifles were in trim and everything was ready for the charge. Chet had selected an opening in the thicket; he knew the value of a good start in attacking such nimble animals as the buffaloes had already proven themselves to be.
“Ready, Dig?” Chet asked.
“Let her go!” replied his friend, and at the same moment both horses dashed forward.
They appeared upon the plain at full speed. They were aimed at about the centre of the scattered herd. Could they have trusted the two men, they might have helped with the chase and bunched the whole herd. Instead, it split, and a part of the buffaloes went up the valley, while the others fled directly from the two boys, toward the stream.
The heavy rifles cracked almost simultaneously, Chet’s shot brought a vigorous young bull to his knees; but Dig missed his quarry. He came up and put a ball into Chet’s kill, however, while Chet himself put the third bullet through the wounded beast’s vitals.
“Come on! come on!” yelled Chet, excitedly, starting Hero on the jump after the part of the herd that was scrambling through the brook.
Dig was after him at once. The boys spread out and their horses took the water-jump splendidly. The mounts were as wildly excited as their masters.
The big bull that had inspired Chet and Dig with such enthusiasm was in the lead. This was a piece of luck that delighted the young trailers.
“We’ve got him! we’ve got him!” cried Digby.
“Don’t holler—till—you’re out—of the—woods!” panted Chet. “Goodness! that big beast looks as though he could go right through a brick wall. Suppose he turns on us?”
“Then you’ll see this boy take to his heels,” returned Dig, with conviction.
They did not follow the buffaloes too closely; and they kept on the water side of them, yet near enough so that the frightened animals did not fancy turning to run back along the foot of the southern wall of the valley.
The monster buffalo, head down and whip-like tail twirling, thundered straight on. The thicket of thorny trees was ahead. He couldn’t get through that, and he knew it.
Towards the brook, where was easy escape, was likewise a figure on horseback, waving both hands. That was Dig. The big buffalo did not want to go that way.
He wheeled and there, right in front of him, was the welcome opening of the grassy gulch. In a moment he galloped into it. After him galloped seven of the herd—all that had followed him in the stampede.
“Hurrah! We’ve got ’em!” shrieked Dig, spurring Poke up the hill.
“Keep right before the mouth of that pocket—but outside,” cried Chet, throwing himself from the saddle, with the axe in his hand. “Keep Poke moving. Don’t let the beasts catch you afoot. If they charge back on us, try to scare them into the gulch again.”
“Hot chance I’d have to do that,” muttered Dig.
But he held his ground while Chet struck steel to timber with much vigour. Cutting down a tree of this size was no easy task, and well the boy knew it; but he was determined to shut the buffaloes into the pocket in the hill. Once the big tree was felled across the mouth of the gulch he was very sure the herd would be secure.
Chet was no poor woodsman. He could swing an axe as well as a full-grown man, for his father owned a wood-lot near the Silent Sue mine, and Chet for two years had cut and sledded down to the Havens house the winter’s wood.
But to hammer at this big tree trunk with a short-handled hatchet was a more difficult task.
Dig had to laugh at him, despite the anxiety they both felt about the buffaloes. “Cricky, Chet! why don’t you use your pocketknife?” he demanded. “You’d get it down just as quick.”
“Can you suggest any better way?” asked Chet, stopping for breath.
“You might set fire to it,” grinned his chum.
“You keep still, or I’ll make you come here and spell me,” said Chet. “My goodness! but my hand is getting sore.”
“You’ll have some pretty blisters before you get through with that stunt,” said Dig.
And he was truly a prophet! Chet was more than an hour cutting down the tree, but he had used good judgment in placing it and when it fell the mouth of the gulch was so closed that no buffalo could get out. But Chet was lame, bruised, and blistered.
“I declare you had the worst half of the job,” Dig said. “But just think, old man! we’ve captured eight buffaloes, including the king of them all.”
“We have them cornered—yes. Now we’ve got to find somebody either to buy them just as they stand in there, or to help us get them out and to a market.”
“Whew! That’s so. We’ve only begun the job, eh?”
“That’s right, Dig,” Chet replied, nodding his head seriously.
“At any rate,” the other boy said, “it’s an ideal corral we have ’em in. There is that trickle of water, and plenty of grass and green bushes. ‘All the comforts of home.’ What buffalo wouldn’t be content in such quarters?”
The boys climbed up the hillside, after tethering their horses, and crept along over the rocks above the pocket until they could see the herd. Strangely enough the big buffalo and his seven companions were feeding quietly and whisking flies at the upper end of the gorge, their panic entirely departed.
“Say! did you ever see a more peaceful scene?” chuckled Digby. “They look as tame as barnyard cattle, don’t they?”
“That’s all right,” replied Chet, “but I’d hate to go down there and try to milk one of those bossies.”
The beasts were corralled. Chet wasted little time in congratulating his chum and himself. Luck and foresight had brought about the capture; but it would take something more to make it of any value to the chums. Both the boys realised that.
“We have to get to Grub Stake and interest somebody in our haul,” Dig said. “That’s the ticket for us.”
“And we have something else to do first,” Chet replied, as they got back to the horses. “We’ve left those two rascals, Steve and Tony, too long by themselves. I bet they’ve hiked out after those lost deeds already.”
“What? without their meat?”
“Come on! I reckon the condition of that buffalo we shot will surprise you,” said Chet.
And it did. Dig sputtered like an overfilled teakettle when they reached the place where they had dropped the young bull.
No animal had been drawn to the kill, although several timid coyotes sneaked out of sight behind the nearest thicket. But the robe was ruined. The body had been slashed right into, without any pains being taken to butcher it properly. The better parts of the carcass had been taken, and the mess that had been made of the remainder sickened the two boys. They cut off a few shoulder steaks, and got away from the spot as soon as possible.
“They got their meat and have hiked out for that island in the river,” Chet said, sternly. “That’s all they wanted, of course. Steve saw his chance to start now instead of to-night, and he took it.”
“We can follow their trail, Chet,” exclaimed Dig. “The nasty things! They ruined that buffalo.”
“We’ll do better than follow their trail,” Chet said quickly.
“How’s that?”
“I believe I can find that island they spoke of myself. We’ll see if we cannot beat them to it, Dig. Certainly we have the advantage of the best mounts, if we don’t know the country as well as Steve does.”
They recovered their outfit, built a fire, and cooked dinner while their horses rested; then they set out toward the east without paying any attention to the route followed by their two enemies, nor much to the course they had taken in coming to this sheltered valley.
Chet had his compass and he laid as direct a course as he knew for the shallow river in question.
The six remaining members of the buffalo herd were out of sight as the boys rode up the valley. Where they had gone to was a mystery.
“But you can bet Tony and that other fellow are not following them,” remarked Dig, in disgust.
“Quite right,” responded Chet. “Those scamps have got all they wanted.”
“I hope the time will come when we can ‘call quits’ with ’em,” said Dig.
“Hear! hear! Satisfaction is what we’re after—and those deeds.”
The boys crossed the divide and as they went down the slope, they struck another watercourse which, beginning as a small rill, increased in width and volume of water very rapidly. They were in sight of this stream through the rough country spreading eastward until past mid-afternoon.
By that time they had ridden many miles and were saddle-weary. The horses, too, showed the effect of hard work.
“We’d ought to breathe them awhile,” Dig urged, for he was very careful of horseflesh.
“Not yet. I’m sorry for them,” Chet said, “but we’ve got to keep moving just as long as daylight holds, at least. You know, we don’t know this country after dark, and that Steve evidently does.”
“But we must be travelling almost two miles to their one,” Dig said.
“Granted. But they may be going more directly to that island than we,” Chet told him. “Though I believe this stream we’re following empties into the very river we’re in search of.”
“We never saw this creek before.”
“No. It’s a good deal farther south than the way we came with those rascals.”
“Well! I reckon you know, Chet.”
“I know the points of the compass,” returned his friend. “The sun doesn’t fool us.”
“Of course—we’re going toward Silver Run again, not toward Grub Stake.”
“Quite right. And goodness!” added Chet, “we are spending a lot more time in this trip than I expected to. I wonder what father will say?”
“Say! It’s been a lot different from what I expected. Whew! but we have worked, Chet.”
“Aren’t you just right?” and Chet looked sadly at his blistered palms.
They rode hard and were weary and hungry long before sundown. The chums did not talk much—they seemed to be talked out. The uncertainty of the errand they rode on, and what they had already gone through, made both boys sober. There had been excitement enough, certainly, on this journey. They had been in peril and had taken part in sturdy adventure—enough in the past few days to satisfy most boys for a year.
“We were looking for a little fun on the trail,” Chet said reflectively. “But, my goodness, Dig! we certainly have got more than we bargained for.”
“Yes, and it isn’t ended,” responded his chum, shaking his head. “Wait till we meet up with that Steve and Tony again—if we do!”
“That doesn’t bother me so much as the chances, for and against, of our meeting up with those lost deeds. That’s what’s troubling yours truly,” said Chet.
In the dim dusk of late evening the trail boys suddenly came down to the river bank. They were leading their mounts, for the way was so rough they did not want to risk a misstep on the faithful creatures’ part in the dark.
As Chet Havens expected, the stream they had followed so long—almost from the valley where they had corralled the buffaloes—fell into the wide but shallow river they had crossed several days before on the trail of the thieves.
The horses’ sides were heaving and their heads hung almost to the ground; but Chet, as leader of the expedition, was not willing to allow them much rest.
“Just a mouthful of grass and a drink of water after it,” he said to his chum. “We must wait for our supper until later.”
“All right as far as we are concerned, Chet,” said the other boy, more seriously than was his wont. “But I don’t want you to forget one important fact.”
“What’s that?”
“These horses have been grain fed until we brought them out on this trip. We have ridden them mighty hard, Chet—mighty hard. They are beginning to suffer now. Grass for a grain fed horse is like feeding a man on breakfast food when he’s been used to a meat, Chet. The man will quickly give out, and so will the horse.”
“I’m sorry,” said his chum. “You know more about it than I do, Dig, I admit. But I feel that I just must push on up this river till I reach that island. I want to get there before those scamps do. If there is any such thing as finding the lost deeds, I want to be on the ground first.”
“Uh-huh! I’m on to your desire, Chet. But have a heart for the horses—do!”
“You stay here and rest Poke, then,” said Chet. “I’ll have to punish poor Hero. I’m sorry; but I must get on.”
“Well!” retorted Dig, “you don’t suppose I’d let you go alone, do you?”
“I believe I can handle those two fellows. Tony is only foolish,” Chet said, with confidence—perhaps expressing a larger share than he really possessed.
“Well, you can bet your bottom dollar!” exclaimed the slangy Dig, “that you are not going to tackle them alone. I’m with you to the end of the dock, old man—and we’ll jump off together.
“Say!” he added, “how far up the river do you think the island is?”
“I believe we must be all of twenty miles below the crossing to which we trailed those fellows in the first place. But how far this side of that crossing the island is, I don’t know. We’ll just have to go up stream till we come to it.”
“Suppose there are several islands?” suggested Dig.
“Oh, don’t!” exclaimed Chet. “Don’t suggest more trouble. I’m just as worried about those deeds as I can be.”
Chet gave the horses half an hour on the grass; then they cinched on the saddles so the animals wouldn’t drink too much, and were soon splashing up the shallow edge of the stream. At this time of the year, save in certain holes, the stream ran very shoal indeed. The way was smoother on the beach than on the prairie above.
“Besides,” Chet said, in a low tone, “we can’t be seen down here. Even our hats aren’t above the edge of the bank. Anybody riding on the plain would not know we were here, unless near enough to hear the horses splashing along.”
“Those fellows have never got over here so soon on their miserable cayuses—take it from me,” Dig urged.
Nevertheless, Chet’s mind was in a turmoil as they rode on. The sunset faded; but the stars shone brilliantly over the plains that night—big, and sparkling, just as they do at sea. The chums from Silver Run did not lack for light.
It was nine o’clock when they spied the wooded island in the river which Chet believed must be the site of the camp of which Steve and Tony had spoken. The water grew suddenly deep, too, and the boys had to force their tired horses out upon the sandy shore.
Chet remembered that Steve had spoken of having hard work swimming his pony ashore from the island, and he believed this must be the place for which they had been searching.
“We’ll halt here, boy,” he said to Dig. “There’s some greasewood up there. You make the fire and I’ll hobble the nags. The water must be very shallow on the other side of this island. Those thieves rode easily out to it from the east bank of the river, and then had to swim their ponies over here.”
“Sure!” agreed Dig.
“It was somewhere along here Steve thinks he dropped the packet of papers he stole from me. Keep your eyes open.”
“You bet you!” exclaimed his chum, going to work at once to make a fire under the shelter of the bank.
They had their welcome supper as soon as it could be cooked, and then Dig took the first watch. He patrolled the camp on the bank overlooking it, so that he might see all about upon the plain. Their enemies must come from this direction.
The men, however, did not appear during Dig’s watch. The boys had travelled very rapidly, and the sorry beasts ridden by Steve and Tony could not have brought them very fast on the trail to the river.
Chet, however, spied them before dawn. The stars were just beginning to pale when two hazy figures loomed out of a distant thicket, and the boy made them out to be two mounted men. He soon heard them talking, too, for the sound of voices carried far in the damp air.
The boy was excited; but he felt that he had the situation well in hand. He awoke Dig, and ordered him to keep quiet until the men rode nearer. Then the chums stepped out upon the bank boldly and hailed the travellers.
“We’re here first, you fellows,” Chet said. “And we have located a claim all up and down this creek. Don’t come any nearer, for if you do I shall shoot your ponies—and I’m sure you don’t want to be left afoot out here in the open.”
Both men burst into ejaculations of anger and disappointment. But Tony’s anger seemed aimed at his companion.
“What did I tell ye?” he cried. “Didn’t I say these lil’ boys of Havens’ and Fordham’s was too smart for us? Now I’m goin’ ter hike out for the trail an’ git to some man’s town—you hear me? You ain’t nothin’ but a frost, Mr. Steve Brant—that’s what you be.”
As for the leading rascal, his hard words could not hurt the chums. He retired with Tony, and they made camp far up stream—at least two rifle-shots away. The boys, however, never lost sight of them.
As the light increased, Chet began to search the shore of the river. Had there been a rain since they had come over it, the level of the water would have risen and washed out the marks of the pony’s struggles where Steve Brant had got him ashore. In this dry time, however, it was easy for the boy to discover just the spot.
And, strange as it seemed, the packet of papers was right there, too. Nothing had disturbed the papers. The packet lay under the bank half hidden by a bunch of weeds, and all the papers were intact, as Chet very soon made sure.
“Cricky! aren’t you the lucky boy?” cried Dig, when he saw them.
“I’m very grateful that I found them,” his chum said, soberly. “And let me tell you that nobody’s going to pry them away from me again with anything less than a crowbar. This losing of the deeds has been the most worrisome thing that I hope will ever happen to me.”
“And we’ve had about as exciting a time as I suppose we ever shall have,” added Dig, shaking his head.
Both boys, however, were somewhat mistaken in these prognostications, as the sequel will show, for we hope to meet Chet and Dig again in another volume, to be called, “The Trail Boys in the Gold Fields; Or, The Search For the Lost Nugget.”
They saddled their horses soon after finding the packet and rode away from the vicinity of the villains’ camp. Their mounts were refreshed and, considering the condition of the men’s ponies, the boys were very sure that they could keep ahead of Steve and Tony Traddles all the way to Grub Stake.
Chet insisted on following the river down-stream till they struck the Grub Stake trail, although Dig was eager to go back by the way of the gulch in which they had corralled the buffaloes.
“We’ve fooled away enough time on this journey already,” Chet said decisively. “Why, Dig! to-day is Sunday. We’ve been a week on the trail. We must hurry.”
“Whew! I’d like to see if those creatures are safe.”
“They’re safe enough. Nobody will roll that tree away—not even our friends back yonder. We’ll hurry on to town and see what arrangements we can make for selling the whole herd.”
“By the last hoptoad that was chased out of Ireland!” ejaculated Dig, vigorously. “If you do that, Chet Havens, you’ll be the very smartest fellow I ever met!”
“I bet we can sell the buffaloes a whole lot more easily than you could have sold that little old Stone Fence you started to bring along,” laughed his chum.
And so it proved. The boys reached the regular trail to Grub Stake without mishap, and on Monday evening rode into the mountain mining town and put up at the best hotel. After more than a week on the trail they were glad to get a bath and crawl in between sheets again.
Tuesday morning Chet went to the express office, identified himself, made arrangements for the payment of his father’s money to the owner of a certain share in the Crayton claim, and then hunted up Mr. John Morrisy.
The chums found him to be a very pleasant old man, if illiterate. After their business with him was transacted, Mr. Morrisy, who had heard the story of the boys’ adventures, found the very man for them who was willing to invest in a herd of buffaloes.
This man agreed to pay the boys a hundred dollars in cash on the ground where the buffaloes were corralled. Of course, the beasts were worth a great deal more; but the boys were not prepared to transport them to any market. There was a public-spirited citizen farther east who was willing to pay well for live buffaloes and this man at Grub Stake was acting as his agent.
He gathered together a party of old cattlemen and various paraphernalia, and all set out with the boys for the valley in which the herd was confined. On the way out of Grub Stake they met Tony Traddles and Steve Brant, coming in.
Tony, when he heard what the expedition meant, asked the boss for a job and got it, for he was a husky looking fellow and said he was anxious to work. He parted company with Steve Brant with no apparent regret on either side.
Brant himself, the chums learned, was a man who went about the mining country picking up claims cheap and reselling them to eastern capitalists. He had been suspected of “salting” some of these claims, and he might have intended to salt the Crayton claim when he was at work there.
However, neither the boys nor Mr. Havens were ever troubled by the fellow again. The signing of the deed by Mr. John Morrisy settled that. The old claim was controlled by Mr. Havens; and if ever anything of value should come from the mine, it would belong to him.
The party of bison hunters found the big old bull and his seven comrades just as the boys had left them. The men praised Chet and Dig highly for their work in corralling the beasts. And when the head of the expedition saw the size of the big buffalo, he added a ten dollar bill to the agreed price he paid the happy boys.
Chet and Dig could not wait to see the bison snared; they had been too long from home now. So they pushed for the train and cantered a long day’s travel toward Silver Run before they pulled up.
Then, riding down into a sandy bottom they suddenly heard some creature bawling. Dig looked all about, noting the landmarks, and suddenly exclaimed:
“By all the hoptoads that were chased out of Ireland! It’s Stone Fence!”
He dismounted instantly and found the calf in the thicket nearby. Whether it was glad to see the boys or not it suffered itself to be roped and this time it led very peaceably. In spite of anything Chet could say, Dig was determined to take the maverick home with him.
That is how it came about that the two friends rode into the outskirts of Silver Run with a little red yearling trailing behind them and “blatting its head off,” as Dig expressed it. Everybody made comments upon it; but that did not disturb Digby Fordham.
“I feel just like a brother towards this dogy,” he confessed. “Come on, Stone Fence! Lift your heels!”
At Hardpan the boys came upon a curious sight. There was an exciting game of baseball going on in the empty lot. A nine of pure-blood Indians, captained by Amoshee, the lame Cheyenne, was matched against a scrub team of the neighbourhood boys, and, as Dig inelegantly put it, “the redskins were licking the socks off the white boys.”
“I bet Amoshee is going after the scalps of the high school nine—and serve ’em right!” Chet said. “Those Indians can play some; can’t they?”
Finally the trail boys arrived at home, and were welcomed by their parents and friends. They had had more than a week of adventures on the trail, had accomplished an important errand satisfactorily, and, secretly, were hoping for other adventures during their vacation.
THE END