CHAPTER XVII—A MYSTERY
Chet Havens had been an apt pupil of old Rafe Peters, the hunter who was now mine foreman at the Silent Sue; nor had he missed much that had been told him by other plainsmen. Trailing and hunting was a hobby with the boy, and each vacation for several years past he had spent the most of his time on hunting trips.
With Digby Fordham he had taken many short trips around Silver Run; but they had seldom encountered big game or gone many miles from their home. This trip to Grub Stake was by far the longest the chums had ever taken alone.
It was Chet’s trained eye that discovered the fact that a marauder other than the wolves had been at their camp. Had it been left to Dig, who was not observant, the presence of any other enemy than that which had annoyed them in the evening probably would never have been discovered.
“Could it have been those Indians, Chet?” asked Dig, as his chum bent to examine the ground closely.
“What Indians?”
“John Peep’s dog soldiers.”
“Nonsense! Those boys wouldn’t play us such a trick. Nor did they follow us.”
“Huh! Didn’t know that anybody else was following us,” said Dig.
“Perhaps this fellow wasn’t on our trail. Maybe he stumbled on this camp. The fire—or the wolves themselves—might have drawn him.”
Chet was thinking hard, however. At once, when he had discovered the footprint which proclaimed a white marauder, he remembered what Amoshee, the lame Cheyenne boy, had told him.
There was a strange man who was interested in the old Crayton mine and therefore was interested in this trip to Grub Stake. This stranger had joined forces with the discharged Tony Traddles. Chet had heard Tony himself threaten Mr. Havens and declare he would “get square” with his former employer.
Chet looked at the print of the large boot in the soft soil. Tony Traddles might stand in boots like that. And if Tony was here, the man who was trying to get hold of the old Crayton mine was very likely here, too.
The condition looked serious to Chet Havens. He did not want to say anything yet to his chum; but he did propose to keep a sharp watch thereafter.
He was desirous, too, of learning all he could about the midnight marauder. If the mysterious person had stolen only some of the deer meat, why had he taken it?
And if he had come as near the camp as this, why hadn’t he come nearer?
“With both of us sound asleep,” thought Chet, with disgust, “they might have come in and taken anything they liked. It puzzles me!”
He placed his hand upon the bosom of his shirt and could feel the stiff packet of papers he carried in its accustomed place. His apprehension was immediately relieved.
“Pshaw!” Chet muttered. “This might not have been Tony or that other fellow at all. Just some tramp or the like on the trail, who was attracted to our camp. Probably needed meat and helped himself.
“But it was funny he didn’t wait till daylight and come and ask for it.”
While he was turning these thoughts over in his mind he was moving through the thicket, turning aside bushes, looking under bunches of grass, peering here and there, to trace the tracks of the stranger.
And they were easy to follow—even for a youthful trailer like Chet Havens. A spoor made in the night must be less carefully laid down than a track by daylight. Not much chance to hide footprints while stumbling through the dark.
Chet saw how the stranger had come into the thicket, and how he had left. He had not gone near the camp and the place where the sleeping boys lay. Chet was so sure of this that he did not attempt to examine very closely the camp itself.
He was sure, however, the marauder had robbed them of the bulk of their meat. The in trace and the out trace led directly up the slope from the brook beside which they were encamped, to the trail they were following to Grub Stake.
There, as near as Chet could make out, two horses had stood. He could not discover, the sod was so cut up, whether both, or only one, of the riders had dismounted.
He could picture the possible happening, however. In the night the two riders had come along from the east. They were following the trail in the same direction as the boys.
Hearing the noise made by the wolves over their dead brother, the strange trailers stopped, and one of them had gone down to investigate. The wolves had been frightened away by the coming of this person.
The stranger must have found the camp, but had circled about it—as his footprints showed. Finding the meat, he had helped himself and returned to the trail, then he and his partner had ridden on.
“The mystery of it is,” said Chet to his chum, when he returned to the camp to find breakfast started, “why the fellow robbed us of meat and didn’t try to take anything more valuable. I hope you see the value of keeping watch now, Dig?”
“Yes, I do!” agreed his chum, with more seriousness than he usually displayed. “I’ll take my medicine for that break last night, old man. If I had kept my watch and waked you, nobody would have sneaked up on our camp and stolen our meat.”
“Glad they left us this piece,” Chet said, slicing off steaks with his hunting knife.
They seasoned the meat highly and rubbed tallow on both sides. Then they broiled the steaks over the clear fire on one of the “contraptions” which Dig had laughed at his chum for packing. They had coffee; but the pancake flour was gone, and there were only a few “hard-breads.”
Hearty boys, however, do not need tempting dishes for breakfast. There was still milk for the coffee, and as Dig said, they fairly “wolfed” the venison steaks. The sun was not an hour high when they abandoned the camping place and started for the trail.
Chet was particularly eager to reach the trail, for he wished to follow the trace of the strangers who had robbed them; and when he saw Dig fussing with Stone Fence, he exclaimed:
“For pity’s sake! don’t delay us to-day by fooling with that calf, Dig. Do be reasonable.”
“What do you think he is—a race horse?” demanded the other boy, in feigned amazement. “Can’t expect him to trot like Maud S., or Yellow-dock. You surprise me!”
“I’ll surprise you if I ride off on Hero and leave you and your plaguey calf to bring up the rear,” threatened Chet.
“You couldn’t be so heartless,” declared Dig. “I know you couldn’t. We have been in peril together—Stone Fence and I. We came pretty near being drowned, and then, there were the wolves. I feel toward him just like a brother—Get out, you beast! want to butt me over again?”
They got under way and Chet set as brisk a pace as possible. He did not want to leave his chum and the maverick behind; yet he was a little vexed at Dig for being so obstinate.
The morning was delightful, however; nobody could hold anger at such an hour. The boys whistled and sang and skylarked; the horses snorted and stepped “high, wide and handsome,” as Dig called it; and even Stone Fence trotted along the trail without much urging.
They had not to be on the watch for game this day, for they had enough of the deer meat left to last them until over breakfast the following morning. Yet Chet’s glance was ever roving over the plain as they went on. No trace of the venison thieves was to be found.
The hills were behind them; the mountains were so far in advance that a blue haze masked them. Nearby groves of small trees marked water-holes; but there was no stream in sight.
They fairly “wolfed” the venison steaks.
“Plain” did not mean in this case a perfectly flat surface. There were coulies to break the monotony of the level trail, or ancient watercourses to descend into and climb out of. Once they came to the edge of a steep sand-bluff, after having ridden up a gradual ascent to this eminence. From the spot they could see vastly farther than before.
It was from here that Chet spied something far to the north that interested him. He carried a pair of field-glasses in a case slung from one shoulder. He opened these and focused them on the round, black objects that had attracted his attention.
With the naked eye they looked like beehives, and they did not seem to move. But through the glass they were not conical, and they were travelling toward the northeast. They all moved together, but slowly; there could be no doubt of that.
“What’s got you now?” demanded Dig, finally noticing that his chum was fixed in one position for a long time.
“Look here,” Chet said, offering him the glasses.
“Well, look out for Stone Fence,” returned Dig, and urged Poke nearer to the bay mount, while he reached for the glasses.
“Fix them on those dots over yonder,” advised Chet. “Now, look good.”
Dig did so. In a minute he exclaimed:
“Cattle grazing!”
“Think so?”
“Sure. Maybe Stone Fence belongs to that herd.”
“But to whom does the herd belong?” demanded Chet. “We know well enough that there is no ranch nearer than the Ogallala. Those are not strays from the cattle trail. Weak and crippled cattle that are abandoned on the march fall an easy prey to wolves and lions.”
“What do you make of it, then?” demanded Dig.
“Look at the round backs of them; the size of them, too. No cattle that I ever saw are built like those. They certainly are not Texans or the sun would flash on their horns now and then when they toss their heads. It doesn’t look as though those creatures have any horns.”
“Oh, say!” cried Dig. “That’s going too far! We couldn’t see their horns from here, if they had ’em a mile wide!”
“That’s stretching it some,” said Chet, laughing and reaching for the glasses again.
“But what do you really think they are?” demanded Dig, growing more and more excited.
“Going to find out,” announced Chet.
“Oh, goodness, Chet! You don’t think—”
“I’m going to find out what they are,” repeated the other lad firmly.
“By all the hoptoads that were chased out of Ireland! you don’t mean to say that you think those are buffaloes? Oh, Chet!”
“I certainly don’t think they are hoptoads,” grinned his chum. “I’m not sure what they are, but I’m going to find out.” He slipped out of the saddle, to ease it on Hero’s back and then cinch it up for a hard ride.
“Whew! you’re not going to leave me alone?” gasped Dig. “Why, it’s miles and miles over yonder.”
“Come on, then.”
“But what’ll I do with Stone Fence?” blurted out Dig.
“Say, boy!” said Chet shortly, “this is the parting of the ways for you and that red dogy. You’ve had your fun. Now this is business.”
“Have I got to decide between a perfectly good yearling calf and a possible buffalo? Seems a hard case,” groaned Dig. “I bet I could sell him for five dollars.”
“We’ve got to turn back a little on our trail to follow those beasts yonder,” Chet said. “It’s likely we’ll hit the trail again about here. Turn Stone Fence loose down in this sandy bottom. There’s enough grass to feed him a year and I see a trickle of water yonder. He’ll be all right. If he’s learned to love you, Dig, he’ll be waiting for you when we return.”
“I’ll do just that,” cried Dig eagerly, and he urged the obstinate maverick down the slope.
He was back in ten minutes after abandoning the surprised calf at the foot of the bluff. The creature gazed after his human companions and the horses with plain surprise in his bovine countenance.
Finally, as Dig and the black horse surmounted the rise, Stone Fence spread all four of his legs and blatted after him like a cosset calf.
“What do you know about that? I hate to leave him in the lurch,” declared Dig. “Some beast’ll get him, sure as shooting, Chet.”
“He was exempt from trouble long before you met him, Dig,” said Chet, smiling. “I’m not sure that he considers you, even yet, his guardian angel.”
They rearranged their outfit, tightened cinches, and remounted. The black specks were quite visible to the naked eye; but they were moving slowly northeast. The boys shook the reins and let Hero and Poke point into the wind at an easy canter.