The Pony Rider Boys in Texas (8 page)

"I reckon he is," was the brief answer.

"Then you think we are going to have a storm?"

"Ever been through a Texas storm?" asked Big-foot by way of answering the
boy's question.

"No."

"Well, you won't call it a storm after you have. There ain't no name in the
dictionary that exactly fits that kind of a critter. A stampede is a Sunday in a
country village as compared with one of them Texas howlers. You'll be wishing
you had a place to hide, in about a minute after that kind of a ruction
starts."

"Are they so bad as that?"

"Well, almost," answered the cowman. "I've heard tell," he continued, "that
they've been known to blow the horns off a Mexican cow. Why, you couldn't check
one of them things with a three inch rope and a snubbing post."

Tad laughed at the quaintness of his companion's words. The sky near the
horizon was a dull, leaden hue, though above their heads the stars twinkled
reassuringly.

"It doesn't look very threatening to me," decided Tad Butler, gazing intently
toward the heavens.

"Well, here's where we split," announced the cowboy, riding off to the left
of the herd, Tad taking the right. Shortly after the lad heard the big cowman
break out in song:

Tad pulled up his pony and listened until the song had been finished. It was
the cowpuncher's way of telling the herd that he had arrived and was on hand to
guard them against trouble.

"Big-foot seems to have a new song to-night," mused Tad.

Now the lad noticed that there was an oppressiveness about the air that had
not been present before.

A deep orange glow showed on the southern horizon for an instant, then
settled back into the prairie, leaving the gloom about the young cowboy even
more dense than it had been before.

"Feels spooky," was Tad's comment.

Not being able to sing to his own satisfaction, Tad shoved his hands deep
into his trousers pockets and began whistling "Old Black Joe." It was the most
appropriate tune he could think of.

"Kind of fits the night," he explained to the pony, which was picking its way
slowly about the great herd. Then he resumed his whistling.

The guards passed each other without a word, some being too sleepy; others
too fully occupied with their own thoughts.

The night, by this time, had grown intensely still, even the insects and
night birds having hushed their weird songs.

A flash more brilliant than the first attracted the lad's attention.

"Lightning," he muttered, glancing off to the south. "I guess Mr. Stallings
was right about the storm." Yet, directly overhead the stars still sparkled. In
the distance Tad saw the comforting flicker of the camp-fire, about which the
cowmen were sleeping undisturbed by the oppressiveness of the night.

"I guess the foreman knew what he was talking about when he said we were
going to have a storm," repeated Tad. "I wonder how the cattle will behave if
things get lively."

As if in answer to his question there came a stir among the animals on the
side nearest him.

Tad began whistling at once and the cows quieted down.

"They must like my whistling. It's the first time anything ever did," thought
the lad.

Far over on the other side of the herd Big-foot crooned to his charges the
song of the "Two little niggers upstairs in bed."

"Sanders' stock must be walking in their sleep, too. I wonder"

A brilliant flash lighted the entire heaven, causing Tad Butler to cut short
the remark he was about to make.

A deep rumble of thunder, that seemed to roll across the plain like some
great wave, followed a few seconds later.

The lad shivered slightly.

He was not afraid. Yet he realized that he was lonely, and wished that some
of the other guards might come along to keep him company.

Glancing up, Tad made the discovery that the small spot of clear sky had
disappeared. By now he was unable to see anything. He made no effort to direct
the pony, leaving it to the animal's instinct to keep a proper distance from the
herd and follow its formation.

The thunder gradually became louder and the flashes of lightning more
frequent. The herd was disturbed. He could hear the cattle scrambling to their
feet. Now and then the sound of locking horns reached him as the beasts crowded
their neighbors too closely in their efforts to move about.

Tad tried to sing, but gave it up and resumed his whistling.

"I'm glad Chunky is not out on this trick," thought the boy aloud. "I am
afraid he would be riding back to camp as fast as his pony could carry him."

No sooner had the words left his mouth than a flash, so brilliant that it
blinded Tad for the moment, lighted up the prairie. A crash which, as it seemed
to him, must have split the earth wide open, followed almost instantly.

Another roar, different from that caused by the thunder, rose on the night
air, accompanied by the suggestive rattle of meeting horns and the bellowing of
frightened cattle.

By this time Tad had circled around to the west side of the herd. The instant
this strange, startling noise reached him he halted his pony and listened.

Off to the north of him he saw the flash of a six-shooter. Another answered
it from his rear. Then a succession of shots followed quickly one after the
other.

The lad began slowly to understand.

He could hear the rush and thunder of thousands of hoofs.

"The cattle are stampeding!" cried Tad.

"Whoa-oo-ope! Whoa-oo-ope!"

The long soothing cry echoed from guard to guard.

It was the call of the cowman, in an effort to calm the frightened animals.
Here and there a gun would flash as the guards shot in front of the stampeding
herd, hoping thereby to turn the rush and set the animals going about more in a
circle in order to keep them together until they could finally be quieted.

It was all a mad chaos of noise and excitement to the lad who sat in his
saddle hesitatingly, not knowing exactly what was expected of him under the
circumstances.

Off toward the camp a succession of flashes like fireflies told the
cowpunchers on guard that their companions were racing to their assistance as
fast as horseflesh could carry them.

The storm had disturbed the herd from the instant of the first flash of
lightning, and, as other flashes followed, the excitement of the animals
increased until, at last, throwing off all restraint, they dashed blindly for
the open prairie.

Desperately as the guards struggled to turn the herd, their efforts had no
more effect than if they had been seeking to beat back the waves of the sea.

Tad was recalled to a realization of his position when, in a dazzling flash
of lightning, he caught a momentary glimpse of Big-foot Sanders bearing down on
him at a tremendous speed. Tad saw something else, tooa surging mass of
panic-stricken cattle, heads hanging low, horns glistening and eyes protruding,
sweeping toward him.

"Ride! Ride!" shouted Big-foot.

"Whwhere?" asked Tad in as strong a voice as he could command.

"Keep out of their way. Work up to the point as soon as you can and try to
point in the leaders. We've got to keep the herd from scattering. I'll stay in
the center and lead them till the others get here. Bob will send along some of
the fellows to help you as soon as possible."

While delivering his orders Big-foot had turned his pony, and, with Tad, was
riding swiftly in advance of the cattle, in the same direction that they were
traveling. To have paused where they were would have meant being crushed and
trampled beneath the hoofs of the now maddened animals.

"Now, git!"

Tad pulled his pony slightly to the right.

"Use your gun!" shouted Big-foot. "Burn plenty of powder in front of their
noses if they press you too closely!"

He had forgotten that the lad did not carry a gun, nor did he realize that he
was sending the boy into a situation of the direst peril.

Tad, by this time, had a pretty fair idea of the danger of the task that had
been assigned to him. But he was not the boy to flinch in an emergency.

Pressing the rowels of his spurs against the flanks of the reaching pony and
urging the little animal on with his voice, Tad swept obliquely along in front
of the herd.

Now and then a flash of lightning would show him a solid mass of cattle
hurling themselves upon him. At such times the lad would swerve his mount to the
left a little and shoot ahead for a few moments, in an attempt to get sufficient
lead of them to enable him to reach the right or upper end of the line.

In this way Tad Butler soon gained the outside of the leaders. By dropping
back and working up the line, he pointed them in to the best of his ability.

The lightning got into his eyes as he strained them wide open to take account
of his surroundings. He would pass a hand over his face instinctively, as if to
brush the flash away, groping for an instant for his bearings after he had done
so.

He remembered what Bob Stallings had said in speaking of a stampede.

"Keep them straight and hold them together. That's all you can do. You can't
stop them," the foreman had said.

The lad was doing this now as best he could, yet he wondered that none of the
cowmen had come to his assistance.

Again and again did Tad Butler throw his pony against the great unreasoning
wave on the right of the line, and again and again was he buffeted back, only to
return to the battle with desperate courage.

All at once the lad found himself almost surrounded by the beasts. A
lightning flash had shown him this at the right time. Had it been a few seconds
later Tad must have gone down under their irresistible rush.

The pony, seeming to realize the danger fully as much as did its rider, bent
every muscle in its little body to bear itself and rider to safety.

Yet try as they would, they were unable to get back to the right point to
take up the turning work again.

The cattle had closed in about the lad in almost a crescent formation, Tad's
position being about the center of it.

"Whoa-oo-ope! Whoa-oo-ope!" shouted Tad, taking up the cry that he had heard
the cowboys utter earlier in the stampede.

His voice was lost in the roar of the storm and the thunder of the rushing
herd.

Tad realized that there was only one thing left for him to do. That was to
keep straight ahead and ride. He would have to ride fast, too, if he were to
keep clear of the long-legged Mexican cattle.

They were descending a gradual slope that led down into a broad, sandy arroyo
where still stood the rotting stumps of oak and cottonwood trees that once lined
the ancient water course.

By this time the main herd lay to the rear nearly two miles, the cattle
having separated into several bands. However, the lad was unaware of this.

Suddenly, in the darkness, rider and pony crashed into a dense mesquite
thicket.

There was not a second to hesitate, for they were already in. The leading
cattle tore in after Tad with a crashing of brush and a rattle of hornssounds
that sent a chill up and down his spine in spite of all the lad's sturdy
courage.

The herd was closing in on him, leaving the boy no alternative but to go
through the thicket himself, and to go fast at that.

Tad formed his plan instantly. He made up his mind to ride it out and let his
pony have its own way. Yet the boy never expected to come through the mesquite
thicket without being swept from his pony and trampled under the feet of the
savage steers.

He gave the pony a free rein, clutched both cantle and pommel of the saddle
and braced himself for the shock that he was sure would come. The cow pony tore
through the growth at a fearful pace, while the boy's clothes hung in shreds
where they had been raked by the mesquite thorns.

All at once Tad felt himself going through the air with a different motion.
He realized that he was falling. The pony had stumbled and with its rider was
plunging headlong to the ground. The cattle were thundering down upon them.

"That settles me!" said the lad bitterly.

The next instant he hit the ground with a force that partially stunned him.
His pony, whose nose had ploughed the ground, was up like a flash. Realizing its
danger, the little animal gave a snort and plunged into the mesquite, leaving
its rider lying on the ground with a fair prospect of being crushed to death
beneath, the hoofs of the stampeding steers.

Tad recovered himself almost instantly. His first instinct was to run, in the
hope of overtaking the fleeing pony.

"That'll be sure death," he told himself.

The cattle were almost upon him. If he were to do anything to save himself he
would have to act quickly.

It came to him suddenly that what the pony had fallen over might be made to
act as a shield for himself. The boy sprang forward, groping in the dark amid
the roaring of the storm and the thunder of the maddened herd. His hands touched
a log. He found that it had so rotted away on one side as to make a partial
shell. It was not enough to admit a human body, but it served as a sort of
screen for him. Tad burrowed into it as far as he could get.

"I hope there are no snakes in here," he thought, snuggling close.

Yet between the two he preferred to take his chances with snakes, at that
moment, rather than with the crazy steers.

The leaders of the steers cleared the log, just grazing it with their hind
feet as they went over, sending a shower of dust and decayed wood over Tad.