CHAPTER XVII
OVER THUNDER MOUNTAIN RIDGE
“Look out, Frank, he’s coming after us!”
Bob was trying vainly to get a decent aim as he shouted these words ofwarning. He had spoken them in a mechanical way, and not because hefeared that his chum would not be on his guard.
Already were Bart and Scotty popping away with their guns, after thefashion of cowboys, quick on the trigger. Then Bob suddenly noticed aqueer thing. This was nothing more or less than that the grizzly, whilestill coming down the side of the mountain, and headed directly for thespot where they stood, seemed to have swerved more or less. In fact hewas coming down tail foremost!
It was this singular fact that gave Bob his first suspicion of thetruth. Then, quick on the heels of this he discovered that Frank wasacting in a most peculiar fashion for a boy who ought to be greatlyconcerned because a ferocious beast was about to attack them.
Frank seemed to double up like a hinge, and to the amazement of Bob hesaw that the other was laughing!
“Hold on, boys!” Frank managed to call out; “don’t waste yourammunition, because you may need it. That bear is dead!”
Of course, upon hearing this surprising and agreeable news, both Bartand Scotty stopped shooting.
“Did they kill him, or was it our first bullets that did the trick,Frank?” Bob asked, as the body of the monster became wedged against anuplifted spur of rock not ten feet away.
“We don’t take the credit, you understand,” announced Bart, positively,and with a rather foolish grin at the recent panic he and Scotty hadindulged in.
“I reckon we don’t need to,” remarked the other cowboy, energetically.“These here pop-guns don’t count much agin a grizzly. An’ when ye cometo look the critter over, I allow ye’ll find whar ye punctured his hideright back o’ the foreleg, both bullets enterin’ thar.”
It proved to be a fact, upon examination; and Bob felt particularly wellsatisfied to know that in such an emergency he had managed to acquithimself so well. Such results seemed to show that his nerve was allright.
“But we can’t let the old fellow lie here,” said Frank.
Bob looked surprised at this.
“Why, what harm can a dead bear do?” he asked. “I should think that allthe fight had gone out of him by now.”
“Sure it has,” answered his chum; “but you’d never get that skittishherd past this spot, let me tell you. They would scent that bear fiftyfeet away. Dead or alive, it wouldn’t make much difference to them, andwe’d be apt to have a stampede on our hands. How about that, Bart?”
“A dead certainty, Frank,” replied the foreman.
“Then how would it do to roll him over that precipice there?” suggestedBob. “I’m sorry we can’t get his hide; but it will have to go thistime.”
“Just the idea,” declared Frank; “and it was smart of you to think ofit, Bob.”
“Then all come, and take hold, while we yank him around. It’ll take theunited strength of the bunch to slew him out of that crotch,” said Bart,leading the way to the slain animal.
At any rate, the two boys were allowed to see just where their lead hadgone.
“Couldn’t ’a been better shots; no sir, not if it was the oldest b’arhunter of the Rockies!” declared Scotty, as he thrust a finger in theholes and turned a look of genuine admiration on both Frank and hischum.
Bob thought that praise was the limit. The memory of that excitinglittle event would follow him always. In imagination he would many timessee that grizzly heading down the slope, bent on questioning their rightto progress along the mountain trail; and the quick action which he andFrank had been compelled to take in order to meet the crisis.
“All together now, yo-heave-o! Here she goes, boys! Once more, and yetanother for good luck. Now, over with the old critter, ker-slam!” and asScotty spoke he led the last effort, by means of which the bulk waspushed over the edge of the little precipice.
There was a heavy thud as the bear brought up far below.
Once more they could start out. The affair with the bear had occupiedonly a few minutes, all told.
Scotty again took up the tracking of the marked hoof belonging to OldBaldy. The trail still ran upwards toward the crest of the ridge, andthere no longer remained a single doubt in the minds of the two boys butthat the clever old steer had made his final escape from the secretvalley in this way.
They even began to cast their eyes aloft in the hope and expectationthat soon they might figure on just where the break in the rocky wallwas to be found, with a passage leading over to the other side of theridge.
“I think I see where we’re bound to bring up,” Frank presently remarked.
“Then show me, please,” said Bob, eagerly, for his eyes, beingunaccustomed to the looks of wild places, had not up to then been ableto accomplish much.
“Seems to me there is some sort of break just between those two spursthat stand up yonder like sentries,” Frank declared.
“You’re correct, Frank!” cried Scotty; “I been watchin’ that same spotmyself for a while, now, and was just a-goin’ to mention it. That’s wharshe lies, Colonel, believe me! Frank’s got the eyes of a hawk, I dodeclare. ’Tain’t much escapes him, now.”
“Well, we’ll get up there in a few minutes, won’t we?” demanded Bob.
“Easy,” affirmed Bart. “And I say just the same as the others. That’sthe place our old steer quit the valley, when he yearned to git backhome, and broke out of the wire corral. Now you can see it plain, Bob.”
Indeed, as they progressed further it became a positive thing; even Bobwas able to note the fact that there was some sort of little passbetween those two rocky horns.
And so they found it shortly afterwards, when they entered the smallcanyon, to pass quickly through, and see how the trail started down theother side of the mountain.
“That settles it!” cried Colonel Haywood, showing that the strain hadeased up considerably in his mind. “We’ll be able to push the herd overhere. Trust some of the old steers for knowing that Baldy went ahead ofthem. And there’s hope, boys, of our being down there on the plain longbefore dark sets in.”
They turned back at once, and made all possible haste to arrive at thespot where their comrades were watching the cattle.
“Everything seems to be all right down there,” remarked the stockman,when at one point they managed to obtain a glimpse of the huddled herd,with the cowboys on foot circling constantly around, in order to makesure that no start was made toward a stampede.
“Hark! what does that mean?” cried Bob, as shots sounded in the valley.
“Somethin’ doin’ down by the camp, I reckon,” asserted Scotty. “P’rapsMendoza is a-tryin’ to break out, and the boys are givin’ the rustlers‘Hail Columbia.’”
After the few shots all was quiet again, a fact that seemed to satisfythe rancher that nothing serious had come of the effort.
“I reckon they saw some sign of a break, and just sent in a few shots tosort of remind the rustlers that they were still thar on the job,” Bartsuggested; but not being able to learn the facts they had to let thattheory stand.
Arriving at the place where the big herd awaited their coming, they weresoon busily employed getting the stock started. This was no easy task,there on the mountainside, with only a dim trail ahead.
But these men were old hands at the business. They knew all the tricksof the trade, and how to utilize the instincts of the cattle in carryingout their designs.
Once the herd started upward, they seemed to begin to understand. One ofthe big steers led the way, doubtless occupying much the same positionthat Old Baldy had been accustomed to filling. Possibly the animal couldcatch the scent of the preceding beast; though even Bob considered thissomewhat unlikely, since so much time had elapsed since Baldy passedover the ground.
But in climbing upward the latter had always unerringly chosen whatseemed to be the only possible route; so once the herd started, it couldnot easily
go wrong.
Colonel Haywood had sent a messenger down to the camp with new word forthose two daring cowboys who were shouldering the difficult task ofkeeping the rustlers penned up during the whole day.
They were to wait for night, and then slip secretly away. Their horseswould be left in a certain place for them, and they were ordered tofollow the broad trail of the herd until they overtook the main body ofdrivers.
Up the mountain the drive continued. Constant vigilance was required inorder to keep the herd intact. Any little break might prove a seriousmatter, with that precipitous slope below them, down which a frightenedanimal would plunge to what must surely prove to be a fatal conclusion.
“I’ve been through some drives in my time,” Bart remarked, after theyhad pushed along in this way for nearly two hours, and the crest of theridge was close at hand, “but this sure takes the cake. If we get thisherd safe down to level land again I’ll be mighty glad, I’m tellin’ ye,now.”
Bob was himself well pleased when the last of the steers had passedthrough the little canyon, and started down the outer slope.
The going here was better, somehow, as they all realized before they hadbeen ten minutes following the stock downward. Undoubtedly this was thetrail Old Baldy must have struck at the time he and several cows weremissing all winter. Following some instinct, he had thus discovered away into a Paradise of a valley, where the forage was fine through allthe winter months.
“The only thing that surprises me,” remarked Frank, later, when speakingof the matter, “is that Baldy never tried the same game again whenwinter came along. But perhaps there were reasons. He may have been shutin a corral at the time. Once I remember he was suffering from a soreleg, on account of tearing through a barbed wire fence. But things arelooking all right, dad, I should say.”
“Couldn’t be better, son,” replied the stockman, smilingly; “and all weneed now to make us happy is to feel our ponies under us.”
At those words every cowboy within hearing set up a shout. The verymention of a bronco acted on them as might a tonic. This business ofclimbing mountains on foot, and driving a herd the same way, was themost trying experience possible. It would haunt them for many a longday; and a mere mention of the trip over Thunder Mountain ridge from theLost Valley would be enough to make them content with their lot, nomatter what troubles they happened to be facing at the time.
Foreseeing that they would be slow about getting to the foot of thedescent, the stockman had sent a couple of men ahead to scurry around towhere they had left all their mounts.
If these could be waiting for them when they struck the level, it wouldsave considerable time, and add much to their comfort.
There were little accidents, to be sure, on the way down; but all thingsconsidered they did remarkably well. But it was certainly a used-upbunch of cowboys that, an hour or so before dusk, gave a screech as theyfound themselves on the level once more, with no more climbing ordescending mountains ahead.
“Never want to see a mountain again!” declared Scotty, as he limpedalong, his feet sore, and his lower limbs feeling as though they hadbeen scorched.
“But look there, isn’t that Jeff coming with the ponies?” asked Frank,pointing.
It turned out to be so; and from that moment every driver quite forgotall his aches in the wild desire to once more mount, and experience thedelight of being carried swiftly from place to place. Walking to acowboy is a waste of time and energy. And the saddle boys were also gladto get their favorites again.