CHAPTER IV--THE FIRE FIGHT
The guests had followed Mr. Hicks and Jib out of the long window and hadheard the cow puncher's declaration. There was no light in the sky asfar as the girls could see--no light of a fire, at least--but there seemedto be a tang of smoke; perhaps the smoke clung to the sweating horse andits rider.
"You got it straight, Scrub Weston?" demanded Bill Hicks. "This ain't noburn you're givin' us?"
"Great piping Peter!" yelled the cowboy on the trembling pony, "it'll bea burn all right if you fellows don't git busy. I left Number Threeoutfit fighting the fire the best they knew; we've had to let the cattledrift. I tell ye, Boss, there's more trouble brewin' than you kin shakea stick at."
"'Nuff said!" roared Hicks. "Get busy, Ike. You fellers saddle and lightout with Scrub. Rope you another hawse out o' the corral, Scrub; you'veblamed near killed that one."
"Oh! is it really a prairie fire?" asked Ruth, of Jane Ann. "Can't wesee it?"
"You bet we will," declared the ranchman's niece. "Leave it to me. I'llget the horse-wrangler to hitch up a pair of ponies and we'll go overthere. Wish you girls could ride."
"Helen rides," said Ruth, quickly.
"But not our kind of horses, I reckon," returned Jane Ann, as shestarted after the cowboys. "But Tom and Bob can have mounts. Come on,boys!"
"We'll get into trouble, like enough, if we go to this fire," objectedMadge Steele.
"Come on!" said Heavy. "Don't let's show the white feather. These folkswill think we haven't any pluck at all. Eastern girls can be just ascourageous as Western girls, I believe."
But all the time Ruth was puzzling over something that the cowboy, ScrubWeston, had said when he gave warning of the fire. He had mentionedTintacker and suggested that the fire had been set by somebody whom Ruthsupposed the cowboys must think was crazy--otherwise she could notexplain that expression, "Bughouse Johnny." These range riders were veryrough of speech, but certainly their language was expressive!
This Tintacker Mine in which she was so deeply interested--for UncleJabez's sake--must be very near the ranch. Ruth desired to go to the mineand learn if it was being worked; and she proposed to learn the wholehistory of the claim and look up the recording of it, as well. Ofcourse, the young man who had gotten Uncle Jabez to invest in the silvermine had shown him deeds and the like; but these papers might have beenforged. Ruth was determined to clear up the mystery of the TintackerMine before she left Silver Ranch for the East again.
Just now, however, she as well as the other guests of Jane Ann Hicks wasexcited by the fire on the range. They got jackets, and by the time allthe girls were ready Maria's husband had a pair of half-wild ponieshitched to the buckboard. Bob elected to drive the ponies, and he andthe five girls got aboard the vehicle while the restive ponies were heldby the Mexican.
Tom and Jane Ann had each saddled a pony. Jane Ann rode astride like aboy, and she was up on a horse that seemed to be just as crazy as hecould be. Her friends from the East feared all the time that Jane Annwould be thrown.
"Let 'em go, Jose!" commanded the Silver Ranch girl. "You keep rightbehind me, Mr. Steele--follow me and Mr. Tom. The trail ain't good, but Ireckon you won't tip over your crowd if you're careful."
The girls on the buckboard screamed at that; But it was too late toexpostulate--or back out from going on the trip. The half-wild ponieswere off and Bob had all he could do to hold them. Old Bill Hicks andhis punchers had swept away into the starlit night some minutes beforeand were now out of both sight and hearing. As the party of young folkgot out of the coulie, riding over the ridge, they saw a dull glow fardown on the western horizon.
"The fire!" cried Ruth, pointing.
"That's what it is," responded Jane Ann, excitedly. "Come on!"
She raced ahead and Tom spurred his mount after her. Directly in theirwake lurched the buckboard, with the excited Bob snapping thelong-lashed whip over the ponies' backs. The vehicle pitched and jerked,and traveled sometimes on as few as two wheels; the girls were jouncedabout unmercifully, and The Fox and Helen squealed.
"I'm--be--ing--jolt--ed--to--a--jel--ly!" gasped Heavy. "I'll be--onesol--id bruise."
But Bob did not propose to be left behind by Jane Ann and Tom Cameron,and Madge showed her heartlessness by retorting on the stout girl:
"You'll be solid, all right, Jennie, never mind whether you are bruisedor not. You know that you're no 'airy, fairy Lillian.'"
But the rate at which they were traveling was not conducive toconversation; and most of the time the girls clung on and secretly hopedthat Bob would not overturn the buckboard. The ponies seemed desirous ofrunning away all the time.
The rosy glow along the skyline increased; and now flames leaped--yellowand scarlet--rising and falling, while the width of the streak of fireincreased at both ends. Luckily there was scarcely any wind. But thefire certainly was spreading.
The ponies tore along under Bob's lash and Jane Ann and Tom did notleave them far behind. Over the rolling prairie they fled and so rapidlythat Hicks and his aides from the ranch-house were not far in advancewhen the visitors came within unrestricted view of the flames.
Jane Ann halted and held up her hand to Bob to pull in the ponies whenthey topped a ridge which was the final barrier between them and thebottom where the fire burned. For several miles the dry grass, scrub,and groves of trees had been blackened by the fire. Light smoke cloudsdrifted away from the line of flame, which crackled sharply and advancedin a steady march toward the ridge on which the spectators were perched.
"My goodness me!" exclaimed Heavy. "You couldn't put _that_ fire out byspilling a bucket of water on it, could you?"
The fire line was several miles long. The flames advanced slowly; buthere and there, where it caught in a bunch of scrub, the tongues of firemounted swiftly into the air for twenty feet, or more; and in thesepillars of fire lurked much danger, for when a blast of wind chanced toswoop down on them, the flames jumped!
Toiling up the ridge, snorting and bellowing, tails in air and hornstossing, drifted a herd of several thousand cattle, about ready tostampede although the fire was not really chasing them. The danger layin the fact that the flames had gained such headway, and had spread sowidely, that the entire range might be burned over, leaving nothing forthe cattle to eat.
The rose-light of the flames showed the spectators all this--the blacksmooch of the fire-scathed land behind the barrier of flame, theflitting figures on horseback at the foot of the ridge, and the herd ofsteers going over the rise toward the north--and the higher foothills.
"But what can they do?" gasped Ruth.
"They're back-firing," Tom said, holding in his pony. Tom was a goodhorseman and it was evident that Jane Ann was astonished at his riding."But over yonder where they tried it, the flames jumped ahead throughthe long grass and drove the men into their saddles again."
"See what those fellows are doing!" gasped Madge, standing up. "They'reroping those cattle--isn't that what you call it, _roping_?"
"And hog-tieing them," responded Jane Ann, eagerly. "That's Jib--andBashful Ike. There! that's an axe Ike's got. He's going to slice up thatsteer."
"Oh, dear me! what for?" cried Helen.
"Why, the butchering act--right here and now?" demanded Heavy. "Aren'tthinking of having a barbecue, are they?"
"You watch," returned the Western girl, greatly excited. "There! they'vesplit that steer."
"I hope it's the big one that bunted the automobile," cried The Fox.
"Well, you can bet it ain't," snapped Jane Ann. "Old Trouble-Maker isgoing to yield us some fun at brandin' time--now you see."
But they were all too much interested just then in what was going onnear at hand--and down at the fire line--to pay much attention to whatJane Ann said about Old Trouble-Maker. Bashful Ike and Jib Pottoway hadsplit two steers "from stem to stern." Two other riders approached, andthe girls recognized one of them as Old Bill himself.
"Tough luck, boys," grumbled the ranchman. "Them critters is wort
h fivecents right yere on the hoof; but that fire's got to be smothered. Here,Jib! hitch my rope to t'other end of your half of that critter."
In a minute the ranchman and the half-breed were racing down the slope,their ponies on the jump, the half of the steer jumping behind them. Atthe line of fire Hicks made his frightened horse leap the flames, theyjerked the half of the steer over so that the cloven side came incontact with the flames, and then both men urged their ponies along thefire line, right in the midst of the smoke and heat, dragging thebleeding side of beef across the sputtering flames.
Ike and his mate started almost at once in the other direction, and bothteams quenched the fire in good shape. Behind them other cowboys drewthe halves of the second steer that had been divided, making sure of thequenching of the conflagration in the main; but there were still spotswhere the fire broke out again, and it was a couple of hours, and twomore fat steers had been sacrificed, before it was safe to leave thefire line to the watchful care of only half a dozen, or so, of the rangeriders.
It had been a bitter fight while it lasted. Tom and Bob, and Jane Annherself had joined in it--slapping out the immature fires where they hadsprung up in the grass from sparks which flew from the greater fires.But the ridge had helped retard the blaze so that it could becontrolled, and from the summit the girls from the East had enjoyed thespectacle.
Old Bill Hicks rode beside the buckboard when they started back for theranch-house, and was very angry over the setting of the fire. Cowpunchers are the most careful people in the world regarding fire-settingin the open. If a cattleman lights his cigarette, or pipe, he not onlypinches out the match between his finger and thumb, but, if he is afoot,he stamps the burned match into the earth when he drops it.
"That yere half-crazy tenderfoot oughter be put away somewhares, whar hewon't do no more harm to nobody," growled the ranchman.
"Do you expect he set it, Uncle?" demanded Jane Ann.
"So Scrub says. He seen him camping in the cottonwoods along LarruperCrick this mawnin'. I reckon nobody but a confounded tenderfoot wouldhave set a fire when it's dry like this, noways."
Here Ruth put in a question that she had longed to ask ever since thefire scare began: "Who _is_ this strange man you call the tenderfoot?"
"Dunno, Miss Ruth," said the cattleman. "He's been hanging 'round yere agood bit since Spring. Or, he's been seen by my men a good bit. Whenthey've spoke to him he's seemed sort of doped, or silly. They can'tmake him out. And he hangs around closest to Tintacker."
"You're interested in _that_, Ruth!" exclaimed Helen.
"What d'you know about Tintacker, Miss?" asked Old Bill, curiously.
"Tintacker is a silver mine, isn't it?" asked Ruth, in return.
"Tintacker used to be a right smart camp some years ago. Some likelysilver claims was staked out 'round there. But they petered out, andain't nobody raked over the old dumps, even, but some Chinamen, for tenyear."
"But was there a particular mine called 'Tintacker'?" asked Ruth.
"Sure there was. First claim staked out. And it was a good one--for awhile. But there ain't nothin' there now."
"You say this stranger hangs about there?" queried Tom, likewiseinterested.
"He won't for long if my boys find him arter this," growled Hicks."They'll come purty close to running him out o' this neck o' woods--youhear me!"
This conversation made Ruth even more intent upon solving the mystery ofthe Tintacker Mine, and her desire to see this strange "tenderfoot" whohung about the old mining claims increased. But she said nothing more atthat time regarding the matter.