CHAPTER XI
Anxious Hours
"Help! Help!" shrieked Nealie.
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" squealed Sylvia, while Ducky's screaming rose above thedeafening roar that was all around them.
Rupert and Rumple fought and struggled to throw off the mattress and thecanvas and the oddments of clothing in which they were entangled. Theywere choked and nearly suffocated, frightened almost out of their witsby the crying of the girls, to which was now added the lusty howling ofDon and Billykins, who were being rolled and punched and pummelled liketheir elders.
It was Rumple who got disentangled first, and when his head was free,and he had managed to scramble to his feet, he gave a horrified shout ofamazement; for the wagon was lying on its side, there was the sound ofgalloping in his ears, and everywhere he turned there was nothing to beseen but rushing cattle and tossing horns.
"POURED PAST THE OVERTURNED WAGON"]
They had seen so much of the fierceness of the cattle on the previousday that in a minute his hand was on Rupert's head, and he was pressinghis brother back into the comparative shelter given by the projectingwagon wheel.
"Stay where you are! Don't attempt to move! It can't last much longer!"he shouted, holding Rupert down by main force now, for those tossinghorns were such a frightful menace, and the mob of cattle pressed closeon either side as they poured past the overturned wagon in their madflight towards the hills.
"Oh, Rumple, what has happened? Is it an earthquake?" cried Nealie, whowas somewhat reassured by hearing Rumple shout to Rupert. At least theboys were all alive, though, judging by the noise Don and Billykins weremaking, some of them might be rather badly damaged.
"I don't think that it is anything except the cattle on the move, onlythey are going as if they have been pretty badly scared," repliedRumple, trying to stand up by hanging on to the wagon wheel. Then hecried out sharply: "Look out, Nealie! Get in under the tilt quick, forhere come a fresh lot! Oh, I say, we shall all be smashed flat!"
It really looked as if they would be flattened out, for the next lot ofcattle, charging down the steep hillside, came straight for the camp,and but for a lucky accident would most likely have gone straight overthe wagon, which lay on its side. But one big bullock caught its longhorns in the spokes of the wheel, the next blundered on to it and forcedit to its knees, another blundered on to that, until in about a minuteand a half there was piled up a most effectual rampart of strugglingbeasts, which effectually checked the onrush from behind, diverting itto either side.
It was to this accident that some, at least, of the seven owed theirlives, for Don and Billykins lay right in the path of the stampedingherd, while Rupert, scrambling painfully to his feet, would mostcertainly have been knocked down and trampled underfoot.
But the noise and the confusion, the snorting, bellowing, and blowing ofall those hundreds of terrified beasts, were quite beyond description.After the first frightened outcry Ducky lay still and shivering in thearms of Sylvia, who was sitting on the side of the wagon tilt, amid theruins of crockery and the contents of the grocery box, which had beenspilled all over her. Nealie had crawled to the front opening of thetilt, and, regardless of her possible danger, had succeeded in fishingDon and Billykins from the debris of canvas and torn mattress underwhich they were being slowly smothered, and had dragged them into thecomparative safety of the overturned wagon. Then Rupert and Rumplestruggled into the same refuge, and the seven sat close together,wondering what was going to happen next, while the wild uproar raged onaround them, and it seemed as if the rush of cattle would never cease.
"There must have been thousands and thousands of cattle that have gonepast," said Rupert, rubbing his lips with his hand before he ventured tospeak, because of the thick dust upon them.
"I should think that every one of those great mobs we have been passingall day must have turned round and bolted back by the way they came,"said Sylvia. "But what I don't understand is how it came about that thewagon was bowled over."
"That is my fault," groaned Nealie. "I made Rocky back it on to theslope, because I thought that we should be more sheltered from theterrible wind, and I knew that the boys would not be in so much dangerof a wetting if it rained. Then the cattle, charging down the side ofthe hill in the dark, must have blundered up against the wagon and justbowled it over. They are so big and clumsy, you see, and when once theystart there is no stopping them. Now, if the wagon is badly damaged, weshall be put to no end of expense because of my carelessness."
"But it was not carelessness if you did it for our comfort, and it is nouse thinking that the wagon is badly damaged, and getting worried aboutit, until you know," said Rupert. "Of course we can't do anythingtowards finding out, or putting it straight, until morning, for we mightonly make matters worse, and invite more disaster still."
"Will it be long before it is morning?" asked Billykins in a voice ofmisery. "I am quite dreadfully cold, and most horribly hungry."
"So am I, and I wish that we were back at Mrs. Warner's," said Don in adismal tone.
"I don't expect that it will be very long now, and if you curl up underthis rug, if it is a rug, you may go to sleep, and then you will forgetabout being hungry," said Nealie, gripping something which felt likedrapery, and dragging it towards her.
"That is my frock!" cried Sylvia. "Creep in here, close to me,Billykins, and then you will help to keep poor Ducky warm. There is roomfor Don too. Don't sit on more of the lump sugar than you can help, asit is very uncomfortable, I find; but if you were to eat some of thelumps, perhaps they would warm you a little, for I have heard somewherethat there is a great deal of warmth in sugar."
"I have found a lump. Will you have it, Nealie?" asked Ducky, groping inthe darkness for her elder sister, and feeling that, of them all, itwas Nealie who most needed comfort just then.
"I don't want it, thank you, dearie," answered Nealie, her anxietiesbeing too heavy for sugar to alleviate.
"Here is another; and--oh, I say, I have just put my fingers intosomething horribly sticky! What can it be?" and Ducky stuffed her fistin the face of Billykins, for it was so dark that she could not seewhere she was thrusting it.
"Look out!" he exclaimed in an offended tone, then suddenly changed to ashout of joy. "Oh, it is marmalade, and it is all over my mouth! Haveyou got any more of it, Nealie?"
"Of course. There was a pot in the grocery box, and I had forgottenabout it, or we would have had it to help out with supper, and then itwould not have been wasted in this fashion," replied Nealie, feelingthat she would like to indulge in a good cry over the ruin which hadcome upon them.
"It won't be wasted if only I can find where that pot is. Can you guidemy hand, Ducky, to find it?" asked Don eagerly.
"It seems to be all over me--the marmalade, I mean--but I don't knowwhere the pot is, and I am most horribly sticky!" cried Ducky, who was amost fastidious little maiden.
"Where is your fist? I will suck it clean for you," volunteered Don,with such an air of brotherly self-sacrifice that Nealie burst outlaughing, which was much better for her than the tears she longed toshed, and which had been smarting under her eyelids only a minutebefore.
For a few minutes there was great competition between Don and Billykinsfor the privilege of sucking Ducky's fists clean of marmalade, and, thecomical side of the picture presenting itself to the little girl, shelaughed as much as Nealie; then Sylvia joined in, and at length theywere all making the best of things, groping in the dark for lumps ofsugar and dabs of marmalade, until they lighted on some that haduncomfortably mixed itself up with the pepper, when a chorus of ohs! andahs! sounded from the group of explorers, and everyone immediatelydecided that they had had enough marmalade for the present.
The cattle had all gone, and the night was entirely silent again, whenRupert said anxiously: "I wonder where Rockefeller has gone? We shall bein a pretty bad case if anything happens to the old horse."
"I will go in search of him when morning comes; the worst that couldhappen would be that h
e would stampede with the cattle, and we shallhave the men in charge of the droves coming past presently," saidRumple, who had made a sort of shelter for himself and Rupert from thewreckage of the canvas which had been draped round the wagon.
"Perhaps the horse has not been upset at all by the panic of the cattle.It is not as if it had been a lot of horses rushing across theencampment in the middle of the night," said Sylvia, who had succeededin making Ducky so warm and comfortable that the little girl was fallingoff to sleep again, although the rest of them were very wide-awakeindeed.
"I wish that I knew what the time is, but I don't know where to find thematches, and it is too dark to see the face of my watch," said Rupert.He was feeling the situation rather keenly, because he could do so verylittle to help the others, when, by right of his position as eldest ofthe family, he ought to have done so much.
"Don't worry about the time, dear; try to get a little sleep if you can.You will need it so badly when the morning comes," said Nealie, moving alittle because she found that she was sitting in the frying pan, and sheremembered that it had only been rubbed with a bit of paper after beingused for frying bacon on the day before yesterday.
"I vote that we all go to sleep, seeing that we can do no good bykeeping awake. We can't even sort up this mess of marmalade and pepper,"said Rumple, whose tongue was still on fire from the last lick ofmarmalade which had been so liberally mixed with pepper.
"Someone is coming. I wonder if it is one of the cattle men?" saidRupert, thrusting his head farther out from the canvas and getting thefull benefit of the cold wind which came howling and moaning out of thesouth.
"There are two or three, judging by the noise. Shall we hail them, doyou think?" asked Nealie; but her voice had a nervous ring which gaveRupert a sudden inspiration and made him say sharply:
"No, no. If they are the cattle men they will most likely hail us, andif they are not it may be better that they should not take any notice ofus. Lie low, all of you, and don't make a sound while they go by."
"I am horribly afraid that I shall sneeze, for that pepper has got intomy nose!" gasped Don, then went off into a paroxysm of sneezing soviolent that Billykins gurgled with laughter, until Nealie found itnecessary to cover the pair of them with a cushion which she had foundby groping among fragments of broken cups, lumps of sugar, and debris ofall sorts.
The riders, of which there were two or three, checked their horses todescend the hill past the overturned wagon; but as they did not troubleto lower their voices, every word they said was perfectly audiblethrough the hush of the night.
"As neat a job of stampeding as ever I saw," said a hoarse voice.
"We got them away so quietly too. That was a bright idea of yours, Alf,to make friends with the watchman last night," said another, whose toneshad a boyish ring, as if he were hardly grown up as yet.
"Alf always did understand making friends at the right time, and if Iknow anything about it, there was something more than whisky in thatbottle from which you offered him a drink," said a third man, whosevoice had such a horrid ring that Nealie could not repress a shudder,and she pressed the cushion down with a warning air upon the two boys asthe beginning of another gurgle sounded from them.
"What is that in the hollow there?" demanded the first speaker, whom theothers had called Alf.
"It looks like a wagon that has come to grief and been deserted," saidthe third man in a casual tone, and then they put their horses to acanter again and swept past the wagon without troubling more about it.
"Cattle thieves!" murmured Nealie, and there was a shaky sound in hervoice which made Rupert reach up to grip her hand, as if he would giveher more courage that way.
"What a mercy that the cattle charged down upon us and upset us in thisfashion, or we might have had something even more unpleasant to bear,"whispered Sylvia, clasping Ducky closer in her arms and feeling gratefulfor what at first had seemed such an awful disaster.
"Cattle thieves? But how will they manage to get clear away without theproper drovers finding which way they have gone?" asked Rupert, who hadbeen straining his ears to discover the route taken by the men who hadjust ridden past.
"Here comes Rockefeller. I say, Nealie, let me ride a little way afterthose men and find out which way they have gone? It is a bit lighternow. I expect that the moon is getting up; there is the end of a moonthat shows somewhere near morning, I know," said Rumple, then he thrustout his head and called softly to a shape which he had seen faintlyoutlined against the dark hillside, and he was immediately answered by acheerful whinny, and a moment later Rockefeller shuffled up, his hobblesnot permitting much in the way of pace, although he could get aboutsufficiently to feed during the night.
"Oh no, indeed you must not! I should be so horribly frightened lestthey should shoot you or the horse!" cried poor Nealie, who hadprivately made up her mind that she could never let Rumple out of hersight again, because he was always getting into pickles.
"I would let him go, Nealie. He may be able to track those men and savethe drovers hours of vain searching; then in return, perhaps, they willhelp us right our wagon. And we shall want some help there; I can seethat plainly enough," said Rupert quietly. Then Nealie gave way at once,as she mostly did when Rupert undertook to advise her, for he certainlymade up in wisdom what he lacked in bodily strength.
She struggled out of the wreckage of the wagon, and, having caughtRockefeller, no difficult task, since she never went empty handed to thework, she hoisted Rumple on to his back, then, slipping the hobbles, sawthe two slink off in the darkness by the way the men had gone.