Produced by Al Haines
THE BOY RANCHERS AMONG THE INDIANS
OR
Trailing The Yaquis
By
WILLARD F. BAKER
Author of "The Boy Ranchers," "The Boy Ranchers In Camp," "The BoyRanchers on The Trail," etc.
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
THE BOY RANCHERS AMONG THE INDIANS
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I COMPANY COMING II THE TELEGRAM III "GET READY, BOYS!" IV ON THE TRAIL V ROSEMARY AND FLOYD VI PRISONERS VII INTO THE MOUNTAINS VIII SHOOTING STARS IX A LONE INDIAN X SHOTS FROM AMBUSH XI THE SURPRISE XII FORWARD AGAIN XIII WEARY CAPTIVES XIV SURROUNDED XV WITH THE TROOPERS XVI INDIAN "SIGN" XVII AN ALARM XVIII SEPARATED XIX THE FIGHT XX THE WHITE FLAG XXI THE TRICK DISCOVERED XXII ANXIOUS HOURS XXIII THE LAST STAND XXIV THE RUSE OF ROSEMARY XXV "ALL'S WELL!"
THE BOY RANCHERS AMONG THE INDIANS
CHAPTER I
COMPANY COMING
High and clear the sweet, western wind brought over the rolling hillsthe sound of singing. At least it was singing of a sort, for there wasa certain swing and rhythm accompanying the words. As the melodyfloated toward them, three young cowboys, seated at ease in theirsaddles, looked up and in the direction of the singer.
Thus the song.
"Oh, bury me out on th' lonesome prairie! Put a stone under my haid! Cover me up with a rope an' a saddle! 'Cause why? My true-love is daid * * * * * *"
It is impossible in cold print to indicate the mournful andlong-drawn-out accent on the word "dead," to rhyme with head.
"Here comes Slim!" exclaimed one of the youthful cow punchers to hiscompanions.
"As if we didn't know that, Dick!" laughed the slighter of two ladswho, from their close resemblance, could be nothing less than brothers.
"His voice doesn't improve with age; does it, Nort?" asked Bud Merkel,smiling at his cousins, Norton and Richard Shannon.
"But he means well," declared Nort with a chuckle. "Oh, you Slim!" heshouted, as a tall lanky individual, mounted on a pony of likeproportions, ambled into view, topping a slight rise of the trail."Oh, you Slim!"
The older cowboy--a man, to be exact--who had been about to break forthinto the second, or forty-second verse of his song (there being in allseventy-two stanzas, so it doesn't much matter which one isdesignated)--the older cowboy, I say, paused with his mouth open, and ablank look on his face. Then he grinned--that is the only word forit--and cried:
"Well, I'm a second cousin to a ham sandwich! Where'd you fellows comefrom?"
"We haven't come--we're just going!" laughed Bud. "We're going over tosee Dad and the folks. How are they all?"
"Oh, they're sittin' pretty! Sittin' pretty!" affirmed Slim Degnan,with a mingled smile and grin. "How'd you fellows come out with yourspring round-up?"
"Pretty fair," admitted Bud. "A few steers short of what we figuredon, but that's nothing."
"I should say not!" chuckled Slim. "Your paw was a heap sight worseoff'n that."
"Rustlers again?" asked Nort quickly, as he and his brother glanced atone another. They had not forgotten the stirring times when they wereon the trail of the ruthless men who had raided Diamond X ranch, andtheir own cattle range.
"No, nothin' like that," answered Slim easily. "Just naturaldepravity, so to speak. Some of 'em ate loco weed and others jest gottoo tired of livin' I reckon. But we come out pretty fair. Just gotth' last bunch shipped, an' I'm mighty glad of it."
"Same here!" spoke Dick. "That's why we came over here--on a sort ofvacation."
"I reckon some other folks is headin' this way on th' same sort ofideas," remarked Slim Degnan, as he rolled a cigarette with one hand, atrick for which the boys had no use, though they could but admire theskill of the foreman.
"What do you mean?" asked Bud. "Is Dad going to take a vacation? Ifhe does--"
"Don't worry, son! Don't worry!" laughed Slim, as he ignited a matchby the simple process of scratching the head with his thumb nail."Cattle will have to fetch a heap sight more'n they do now when hetakes a few days off," declared the foreman. "What I meant was thatsome tenderfeet individuals are headin'--"
Slim did not finish the sentence for he was nearly thrown from hissaddle (something most unusual with him) as his pony gave a sudden leapto one side, following a peculiar noise in a bunch of grass on whichthe animal almost stepped.
The noise was not unlike that made by a locust in a tree on a hot day,but there was in the vibrations a more sinister sound. And well didSlim's horse know what it indicated.
"A rattler!" yelled Bud, and close on the heels of his words followedaction.
He whipped out his .45, there was a sliver of flame, a sharp crack atwhich the three steeds of the trio of youthful cowboys jumped slightly,and there writhed on the trail a venomous rattle-snake, its head now ashapeless mass where the bullet from Bud's gun had almost obliteratedit.
"Whew! A big one!" exclaimed Slim, who had quickly gotten his ponyunder control again, and turned it back toward the scene of action. Itspoke well for his ability that he had not lost his cigarette, and waspuffing on it, though the sudden leap of his steed, to avoid a bitethat probably would have meant death, had jarred the words from hismouth.
"First of the season," added Bud, slipping his gun back into theholster.
"Are they more poisonous then than at other times?" asked Nort.
"Guess there isn't much difference, son," affirmed Slim. "I don't wantto be nipped by one at any time. Much obliged, Bud," he said, easilyenough, though there was a world of meaning in his voice. "I shoreplum would hate to have to shoot Pinto, and that's what I'd a done ifthat serpent had set its fangs in his leg."
"Why'd he shoot him?" asked Dick, for he and his brother, though farremoved from the tenderfoot class, were not wise to all western waysyet.
"There isn't much chance for a horse after it's been bit deep by arattler," Bud explained. "Of course I don't say every horse that'sbitten will die, but it's harder to doctor them than it is a man. AndSlim meant he wouldn't want to see Pinto suffer."
"You're right there, Bud!" drawled Slim Degnan. "They do say thisnew-fangled treatment is better'n whisky for snake bites, but I don'treckon I want to chance it."
"The permanganate of potash is almost a sure cure for the ordinarysnake bite, if you use it in time," declared Bud. "But I don't knowthat it would work after a _fer de lance_ set his fangs into you.Anyhow I'm glad we haven't anything worse than rattlers and copperheadsaround here."
"They're bad enough!" affirmed Slim, as he gave a backward glancetoward the still writhing form of the big rattler, which was now pastall power of doing harm.
The incident seemed to cause the foreman to forget what he had beenabout to say when his horse shied, and the boy ranchers, by which titleis indicated Bud, Nort and Dick, did not attach enough importance to itto cause them to question their companion. Yet what Slim had beenabout to say was destined to have a great influence on their lives inthe immediate future, and was to cause them to ride forward intodanger. But then danger was nothing new to them.
"Well, things are right peaceful since we got rid of Del Pinzo and hisgang of greasers," observed Slim, as he rode on with the boys down thetrail that led to Diamond X ranch, the property of Bud's father.
"But I'm always worrying for fear they'll come back, or we'll have somesort of trouble with our cattle," observed Dick. "It doe
sn't seempossible that over at our Happy Valley ranch we'll be let alone to doas we please."
"Don't cross a bridge until you hear the rattling of the planks!"paraphrased Nort to his brother. "We're all right so far."
"Yes, things are sittin' right pretty for the present," declared Slim."Well, here we are," he added, as a turn of the trail brought themwithin sight of the corrals and other parts of Diamond X ranch. "Andthere's your folks," he added, as a woman and girl, standing in theyard of a red ranch house, began to wave their hands to the boys.
"I see Dad!" exclaimed End.
"Where?" asked Nort.
"Over by the pony corral, talking to Yellin' Kid. Looks like Kid justcame in with the mail."
"He started after it when I rode out to look for a couple of strays,"said Slim. "Beckon he jest come back. You boys'll hear morepartic'lars now, I reckon."
"Particulars of what?" asked Nort. "Was that what you started to saywhen Bud shot the rattler?"
Slim did not answer, the reason being that a moment later he wassurrounded by a knot of laughing, pushing, jostling and shoutingcowboys, who seemed to want the foreman to settle some disputed point.
Bud and his two cousin chums rode on and greeted Mr. Merkel and hiswife, who was "Ma" to every cowboy within fifty miles, and Nell, whowas Bud's pretty sister.
"Hello, Dad! Hello, Uncle Henry!" was the greeting. "Hello, Sis!"
"Got any pie, Nell?" added Bud.
"For Nort and Dick--yes," the girl answered. "But you won't want piewhen you hear--"
"Say, what's all this mysterious news?" broke out Bud. "First Slimstarts to tell us and then--"
"Rosemary and Floyd are coming!" merrily cried Nell.
"Rosemary and Floyd?" questioned Bud.
"Your cousins, or, to be more exact, your second cousins," explainedMrs. Merkel. "We had a letter last week saying they might come on fromCalifornia, and now your father has just had a special delivery letter,saying they're on their way. They'll be here any time."
"Company's coming! Company's coming!" joyously sang Nell, for she wasdelighted with the news.
"Rosemary and Floyd," repeated Bud, "I don't seem--"
"You haven't seen them in some years," his mother said. "But I'm sureyou'll like them."
"Especially Rosemary," laughed Nort, and Nell stuck out her tongue athim.
"Well, I'm glad they didn't come until after the spring round-up,"spoke Mr. Merkel, looking at a letter he held. "We'll have more time,now, to be with 'em and show 'em around. I wonder--"
But, as in the case of Slim, he did not finish what he started to say,for there came an interruption, in its way almost as sinister as thewhirring of the rattle-snake's tail.
Toward the ranch buildings came the sound of rapidly galloping hoofs,and as they all looked in the direction of the sound they saw, ridingin toward them, one of the cowboys.
"It's Old Billee Dobb!" exclaimed Yellin' Kid in a voice that was, asusual, unnecessarily loud. "Looks like rustlers were after him!"
But none rode in pursuit of the veteran cowpuncher, though he wasspurring his steed to its utmost.
"They've broke out!" he yelled as soon as he was within hearingdistance. "They've broke out! Scatter my watermelon seeds, butthey've broke out!"
"What has?" demanded Mr. Merkel. "Our steers?"
"No! The Yaquis!"
"Indians!" snapped out Bud.
"That's them, son! They've broke out--left the reservation, andthey're headed this way! Oh, rattle-snakes! Get your guns ready! TheYaquis have broke out!"
The boy ranchers looked at each other and it can not be denied thatthere was a joyous light in their eyes. Nell shrank closer to herfather, and Mr. Merkel reached over and placed his hand in reassuringfashion on his wife's ample shoulder.
"Indians!" murmured Dick. "I wonder--"
"Sure we can help fight 'em!" exclaimed Nort, rightly guessing thatthis was his brother's question.