THE VIGIL ON THE PLAINS
"I wish I had a drink of water," said Tad after some hours had passed. Instead of drifting away, the fog had become more dense. He could see only part of the herd now. However, as they showed no disposition to run, Tad felt no concern in that direction. He was obliged to ride around the herd more frequently than would otherwise have been the case, in order to keep the straying ones well rounded in.
The hours passed slowly, and with their passing Tad's appetite grew. He sat on his pony, enviously watching the cattle filling their stomachs with the wet grass.
"I almost wish I were a steer," declared Tad. "I could at least satisfy my hunger."
Then the lad once more took up his weary round.
Off to the eastward, all was still excitement. The herd had broken up into many parts during the stampede and the cowmen were having a hard time in rounding up the scattered bunches.
A few of them had succeeded in working some of the animals back to the bedding ground of the previous night, where the animals were left in charge of one man.
With the coming of the morning and the fog, which blanketed everything, their work became doubly difficult. The storm had wiped out almost all traces of the trail made by the different herds in their escape, until even an Indian would have been perplexed in an effort to follow them.
"Who is missing?" asked Stallings, riding into camp after a fruitless search for his cattle.
"Tad Butler, for one," answered Walter Perkins.
"Let's see. He was on guard with Big-foot Sanders," mused the foreman. "Big-foot has not shown up, so the young man probably is with him. No need to worry about them. Big-foot knows this country like a book. You can't lose him. Then there's Curley Adams and Lumpy Bates to come in yet. I can see us eating our Thanksgiving dinner on the trail if this thing keeps up much longer."
Yet, despite these discouragements, the foreman kept his temper and his head.
"Is there nothing we can do toward finding the boy?" asked Professor Zepplin anxiously.
"Does it look like it?" answered Stallings, motioning toward the fog that lay over them like a dull, gray, cheerless blanket.
Late in the afternoon Curley and Lumpy came straggling into camp with the remnants of the herd, with which they had raced out hours before. An hour afterwards, Big-foot Sanders drove in with a bunch of two hundred more.
"Where's the Pinto?" asked Stallings as Big-foot rode up to the trail wagon and reported.
"The Pinto? Why, I haven't seen the kid since the bunch started on the rampage last night. I thought he was with me on the other end of the herd. Hasn't he come in yet?"
"No."
"Then the kid's lost. All the cows back?"
"I don't know. I'll look over the herd and make an estimate. You come along with me."
Together the foreman and the big cowman rode out to the grazing ground, where they circled the great herd, glancing critically over them as they rode.
"What do you think?" asked Big-foot as they completed the circuit of the herd.
"I should say we were close to five hundred head short," decided the foreman. "How does it look to you?"
"I reckon you're about right. Suffering cats, but that was a run! Never saw a bunch scatter so in my life."
"Couldn't be helped. The night was so dark you couldn't tell whether you had a hundred or a thousand with you. Did you strike any cross trails while you were coming in!"
"Nary a one—not in the direction I came from. If I'd kept on last night, at the rate I was going, I'd have rounded up in Wyoming some time to-day I reckon. Sorry the Pinto's strayed away. He'll have a time of it finding his way back. Reckon we won't see the kid again this trip," decided Big-foot.
"We've got to," answered the foreman sharply. "We don't move from this bed till he's been picked up, even if it takes all summer."
"You—you don't reckon he's with that other bunch, do you?"
"I shouldn't be surprised. The boy has pluck and I have an idea that if he got in with a lot of cows he'd stick to them till the pony went down under him."
"More'n likely that's what happened. I'll tell you what we had better do——"
"Get all the boys together who are not needed on guard," interrupted Stallings. "Let them circle out to the west and southwest and shoot. Have each man fire a shot every five minutes by the watch as they move out. That will keep them in touch with each other, and will act as a guide to the kid if he happens to be within hearing."
"How far shall we go?"
"Half an hour out. It's not safe to leave the herd any longer unless the fog clears away. As soon as that goes we'll organize a regular search. I want those cows, and I want to find the boy."
The men quickly mounted their ponies and disappeared in the fog, following the orders given by the foreman. After a time those in camp could faintly hear the distant cracks of the cowpunchers' pistols as they fired their signals into the air.
In the meantime Tad Butler was keeping his lonely vigil on the fogbound plains many miles away.
The fog was still hovering over the herd as the afternoon waned, and the lad's body was dripping wet from it. Occasionally he brushed a hand across his face, wiping away the moisture.
Darkness settled down earlier than usual that night. Yet, to the boy's great relief, the fog lifted shortly afterwards and the stars came out brightly.
With the skill of an old cowman Tad had bedded down the herd and began to ride slowly about them, whistling vigorously. His face ached from the constant puckering of his lips, and his wounds gave him considerable pain. Yet he lost none of his cheerfulness.
At times Tad found himself drooping in his saddle as his sleepiness overcame him. But he fought the temptation to doze by talking to himself and bringing the quirt sharply against his legs.
"Tad Butler, don't you dare to go to sleep!" he warned himself. "It's the first real duty you have had to perform, so you're not going to make a mess of it. My, but I'm hungry!"
From that on the boy never allowed his eyelids to drop, though at times they felt as if weighted down with lead.
After what seemed an eternity, the gray dawn appeared on the eastern horizon. Immediately Tad began routing out the cows that they might have an opportunity to graze before the rising of the sun. It was his intention to point them toward where he believed the camp to be the moment they had grazed to their satisfaction. Until then it would not be wise to start the animals on their course.
About six o'clock, deciding that they had eaten enough, Tad began galloping up and down, shouting and applying his quirt here and there to the backs of the cows. It was slow work for one lone horseman to start five hundred cattle on the trail. Yet, after half an hour of effort, he had the satisfaction of seeing them begin to move.
"Whoop!" shouted the boy. "I'm a real cowboy this time!"
Yet his task was more difficult than he had imagined it could be. While he was urging on one part of the herd, the others would lag by the wayside and begin to graze.
Constant effort and continual moving about at high speed on his part, were necessary to keep up any sort of movement among the cattle.
The lad headed as nearly as possible for the southeast, believing that he had come from that direction.
At the same time a party had set out from the camp in search of young Butler. They had laid their course more toward the southwest. Holding these directions the two parties would not come within some miles of each other.
Tad's eyes were continually sweeping the plains in hope of discovering a horseman or some signs of the main herd, which he was sure must have been rounded up long before. Not a trace of them could he discover.
Once the boy straightened up in his saddle believing he had heard the report of a gun. After listening for some time he came to the conclusion that he had been in error.
"I guess it's my stomach imagining things," grinned Tad Butler.
He had now been out for two nights, and was now well along on the second day. During all that time he had not had a mouthful to eat. His lips were dry and parched; his throat burned fearfully. Still, he kept resolutely on. About two o'clock in the afternoon the herd came upon a clump of trees. Tad at sight of it, spurred his pony on, attracted by the greenness of the grass about the place, hoping that he might find a spring.
But he was doomed to disappointment. There was no sign of water to be found. With almost a sob in his throat the boy swung himself into his saddle again.
"Barney, you and I ought to be camels. Then we could carry all the water we need," he told the pony. "If we don't find some pretty soon I reckon we'll dry up and blow away. Gid-ap, Barney!"
Once more the lad began his monotonous pounding back and forth along the side of the herd which was now spread out over a full half mile of territory, urging with all his strength in order to get the animals to quicken their pace.
In the camp, Stallings and the others had begun to show their worriment. Not a trace had been found of boy or herd. The main hope of the foreman was that Tad might come upon a ranch or a town somewhere, in his course, and in that way get help to direct him back to camp. As for the cattle, he feared that they had become so split up that it would be well-nigh impossible to get them together again.
During the whole afternoon, Bob Stallings had been riding about his own herd, sweeping the plain with a pair of field glasses.
A speck of dust far to the northwest suddenly attracted his attention. Stallings halted his pony, and, sitting in his saddle almost motionless, gazed intently at the tiny point that had come within range of his vision.
"I wonder what that is," mused the foreman. "It can't be any of our party, for they would not be likely to be away off there—that is, unless they have rounded up the bunch."
Stallings, after a while, wheeled his pony and dashed back to camp.
"If any of the men come in, tell them to head northwest and come on as fast as they can."
"Do you see anything?" asked the Professor anxiously.
"I don't know. I hope I do," answered the foreman, leaping into his saddle and putting spurs to his mount. "It may be some other herd crossing the state," he muttered, keeping his eyes fixed on the speck that was slowly developing into a miniature cloud.
The foreman urged his pony to its best pace, and, in the course of half an hour he was able to make out a herd of cattle. That was all he could tell about it. However, it was not long before he discovered a lone horseman working up and down the herd.
Stallings was in too great a hurry to use his glasses now. He was driving his pony straight at the yellow mark off there on the plain, without swerving or appearing to exert any pressure at all on the bridle rein.
"It's the Pinto, as I'm alive!" he breathed.
The horseman with the herd saw him now, and rising in his saddle, waved a hand at the foreman.
In a few moments Stallings came rushing up with a shout of joy.
