Ruth Fielding at Silver Ranch; Schoolgirls Among Cowboys

“She’s a mighty white girl, that Sally Dickson,” declared Jane Ann Hicks (who hated her name and preferred to be called “Nita”). “She’s taught school here at the Crossing for one term, too. And she’s sweet in spite of her peppery temper – ”

“What could you expect?” demanded the stout girl, smiling all over her face as she looked back at the red-haired girl at the store. “She has a more crimson topknot than the Fox here – ”

There came a sudden scream from the front seat of the automobile. The car, under Helen Cameron’s skillful manipulation, had turned the bend in the trail and the chapparel instantly hid the store and the houses at the Crossing. Right ahead of them was a rolling prairie, several miles in extent. And up the rise toward the trail was coming, in much dust, a bunch of cattle, with two or three punchers riding behind and urging the herd to better pasture.

“Oh! see all those steers,” cried Ruth Fielding. “Do you own all of them, Mr. Hicks?”

“I reckon they got my brand on ’em, Miss,” replied the ranchman. “But that’s only a leetle bunch – can’t be more’n five hundred – coming up yere. I reckon, Miss Helen, that we’d better pull up some yere. If them cows sees us – ”

“See there! see there!” cried the stout girl in the back seat.

As she spoke in such excitement, Helen switched off the power and braked the car. Out of the chapparel burst, with a frantic bellow, a huge black and white steer – wide horned, ferocious of aspect – quite evidently “on the rampage.” The noise of the passing car had brought him out of concealment. He plunged into the trail not ten yards behind the slowing car.

“Goodness me!” shouted the big boy who sat beside Bill Hicks and his niece. “What kind of a beast is that? It’s almost as big as an elephant!”

“Oh!” cried the girl called “The Fox.” “That surely isn’t the kind of cattle you have here, is it? He looks more like a buffalo. See! he’s coming after us!”

The black and white steer did look as savage as any old buffalo bull and, emitting a bellow, shook his head at the automobile and began to cast the dust up along his flanks with his sharp hoofs. He was indeed of a terrifying appearance.

“It’s Old Trouble-Maker!” cried Jane Ann Hicks.

“He looks just as though his name fitted him,” said Tom Cameron, who had sprung up to look back at the steer.

At that moment the steer lowered his head and charged for the auto. The girls shrieked, and Tom cried:

“Go ahead, Nell! let’s leave that beast behind.”

Before his sister could put on speed again, however, the big boy, who was Bob Steele, sang out:

“If you go on you’ll stampede that herd of cattle – won’t she, Mr. Hicks? Why, we’re between two fires, that’s what we are!”

“And they’re both going to be hot,” groaned Tom. “Why, that Old Trouble-Maker will climb right into this car in half a minute!”

CHAPTER II – BASHFUL IKE

The situation in the big automobile was quite as serious as Tom and Bob believed, and there was very good reason for the girls to express their fright in a chorus of screams. But Ruth Fielding, and her chum, Helen, on the front seat, controlled themselves better than the other Eastern girls; Jane Ann Hicks never said a word, but her uncle looked quite as startled as his guests.

“I am sartainly graveled!” muttered the ranchman, staring all around for some means of saving the party from disaster. “Hi gollies! if I only had a leetle old rope now – ”

But he had no lariat, and roping a mad steer from an automobile would certainly have been a new experience for Bill Hicks. He had brought the party of young folk out to Montana just to give his niece pleasure, and having got Ruth Fielding and her friends here, he did not want to spoil their visit by any bad accident. These young folk had been what Bill Hicks called “mighty clever” to his Jane Ann when she had been castaway in the East, and he had promised their friends to look out for them all and send them home in time for school in the Fall with the proper complement of legs and arms, and otherwise whole as to their physical being.

Ruth Fielding, after the death of her parents when she was quite a young girl, had left Darrowtown and all her old friends and home associations, to live with her mother’s uncle, at the Red Mill, on the Lumano River, near Cheslow in York State. Her coming to Uncle Jabez Potter’s, and her early adventures about the mill, were related in the first volume of this series, entitled “Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill; Or, Jasper Parloe’s Secret.”

Ruth had found Uncle Jabez very hard to get along with, for he was a miser and his kinder nature had been crusted over by years of hoarding and selfishness; but through a happy turn of circumstances Ruth was enabled to get at the heart of her crotchety old uncle, and when Ruth’s dearest friend, Helen Cameron, planned to go to boarding school, Uncle Jabez was won over to the scheme of sending the girl with her. The fun and work of that first term at school is related in the second volume of the series, entitled “Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall; Or, Solving the Campus Mystery.”

For the mid-winter vacation Ruth accompanied Helen and other school friends to Mr. Cameron’s hunting camp, up toward the Canadian line. In “Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp; Or, Lost in the Backwoods,” the girls and some of their boy friends experience many adventures and endure some hardship and peril while lost in the snow-shrouded forest.

One of Ruth’s chums, Jennie Stone, otherwise known as “Heavy,” invited her to Lighthouse Point, with a party of young people, for part of the summer vacation; and although Uncle Jabez was in much trouble over his investment in the Tintacker Mine, which appeared to be a swindle, the old miller had allowed Ruth to accompany her friends to the seashore because he had already promised her the outing. In “Ruth Fielding at Lighthouse Point; Or, Nita, the Girl Castaway,” is narrated all the fun and delightful experiences the girl of the Red Mill and her friends had at the seaside; including the saving of a girl from the wreck of a lumber schooner, a miss who afterward proved to be Jane Ann Hicks, the niece of a very wealthy Montana ranch owner. The girl had run away from the ranch and from her guardian and calls herself Nita, “because the girl in the paper-covered novel was called Nita.”

That was just the sort of a romantic, foolish girl Jane Ann Hicks was; but she learned a few things and was glad to see her old uncle, rough as he was, when he came hunting for her. And Mr. Bill Hicks had learned a few things, too. He had never seen people spend money before he came East, and he had not understood Jane Ann’s longing for the delicate and beautiful things in life. He saw, too, that a girl could not be properly brought up on a cattle ranch, with nothing but cow punchers and Indians and Mexican women about, and Mr. Hicks had determined to give his niece “a right-down good time,” as he expressed it.

It was to give Jane Ann pleasure, and because of the kindness of Ruth and her friends to his niece, that Mr. Bill Hicks had arranged this trip West for the entire party, on a visit to Silver Ranch. But the old gentleman did not want their introduction to the ranch to be a tragedy. And with the herd of half-wild cattle ahead, and Old Trouble-Maker thundering along the trail behind the motor car, it did look as though the introduction of the visitors to the ranch was bound to be a strenuous one.

“Do go ahead, Helen!” cried Madge Steele, Bob’s elder sister, from the back seat of the tonneau. “Why, that beast may climb right in here!”

Helen started the car again; but at that her brother and Ruth cried out in chorus:

“Don’t run us into the herd, Helen!”

“What under the sun shall I do?” cried Miss Cameron. “I can’t please you all, that’s sure.”

“Oh, see that beast!” shrieked The Fox, who was likewise on the back seat. “I want to get out!”

“Then the brute will catch you, sure,” said Bob Steele.

“Sit still!” commanded Mr. Hicks. “And stop the car, Miss! Better to be bunted by Old Trouble-Maker than set that whole bunch off on a stampede.”

“Mercy me!” cried Mary Cox. “I should think it would be better to frighten those cows in front than to be horned to death by this big beast from the rear.”

“Sit still,” said Jane Ann, grimly. “We won’t likely be hurt by either.”

Old Trouble-Maker did look awfully savage. Bellowing with rage, he thundered along after the car. Helen had again brought the automobile to a stop, this time at Bill Hicks’ command. The next moment the girls screamed in chorus, for the car jarred all over.

Crash went a rear lamp. About half a yard of paint and varnish was scraped off, and the car itself was actually driven forward, despite the brake being set, by the sheer weight of the steer.

“If we could git the old cart turned around and headed the other way!” groaned the ranchman.

“I believe I can turn it, Mr. Hicks,” cried Helen, excitedly.

But just then the steer, that had fallen back a few yards, charged again. “Bang!” It sounded like the exploding of a small cannon. Old Trouble-Maker had punctured a rear tire, and the car slumped down on that side. Helen couldn’t start it now, for the trail was too rough to travel with a flattened tire.

The black and white steer, with another furious bellow, wheeled around the back of the car and then came full tilt for the side. Heavy screamed at the top of her voice:

“Oh, take me home! I never did want to go to a dairy farm. I just abominate cows!”

But the crowd could not laugh. Huddled together in the tonneau, it looked as though Old Trouble-Maker would certainly muss them up a whole lot! Jane Ann and her uncle hopped out on the other side and called the others to follow. At that moment, with a whoop and a drumming of hoofs, a calico cow pony came racing along the trail toward the stalled car. On the back of this flying pony was a lanky, dust-covered cowboy, swinging a lariat in approved fashion.

“Hold steady, boss!” yelled this apparition, and then let the coils of the rope whistle through the air. The hair line uncoiled like a writhing serpent and dropped over the wide-spread horns of Old Trouble-Maker. Then the calico pony came to an abrupt halt, sliding along the ground with all four feet braced.

“Zip!” the noose tightened and the steer brought up with a suddenness that threatened to dislocate his neck. Down the beast fell, roaring a different tune. Old Trouble-Maker almost turned a somersault, while Jane Ann, dancing in delight, caught off her very modern and high-priced hat and swung it in the air.

“Hurrah for Bashful Ike!” she shouted. “He’s the best little old boy with the rope that ever worked for the Silver outfit. Hurrah!”

CHAPTER III – IN WHICH THINGS HAPPEN

The cow puncher who had rescued them was a fine looking, bronzed fellow, with heavy sheepskin chaps on his legs, a shirt open at the throat, his sleeves rolled up displaying muscular arms, and twinkling eyes under the flapping brim of his great hat. While he “snubbed” the big steer to his knees again as the bellowing creature tried to rise, he looked down with a broad smile upon the sparkling face of the Western girl.

“Why, bless yo’ heart, honey,” he said, in a soft, Southern droll, “if you want me to, I’ll jest natwcher’ly cinch my saddle on Old Trouble-Maker an’ ride him home for yo’. It certainly is a cure for sore eyes to see you again.”