CHAPTER XXIX—PLENTY OF EXCITEMENT
The best laid plans are not always successfully, or satisfactorily, carried out. There was, as both boys knew, a big doubt as to whether they could drive the buffaloes in the way they desired; but, at least, there was a good chance that they would kill another of the big animals.
“Take a bull, Dig,” advised Chet, as they rode up the brook. “Don’t kill the cows or calves. If we should enclose any of the herd in our corral, besides the big fellow, I believe we’d have a mighty valuable catch.”
“Say! that would be great,” agreed Dig. “Mebbe we could sell ’em for as much as a hundred dollars.”
“And that’s better than selling a little old maverick for five dollars—eh?” laughed his chum.
The boys trotted their eager mounts up the valley and finally came to the last screen of bushes that stood between them and the buffalo herd. The animals were feeding down the valley, but the wind was not blowing directly in their faces. It was from the southwest; therefore, the odour of the young hunters would not be carried to the beasts.
Chet and Dig again saw the feeding ponies belonging to the two men who had caused them so much trouble. “And maybe we’ll put them in a hole before we get through,” muttered Dig vindictively.
The boys could be sure that the men were close by, when the ponies were so plainly visible. Neither of them would start back for that island camp on the distant river, afoot.
So the boys gave their full attention to the buffaloes. Their rifles were in trim and everything was ready for the charge. Chet had selected an opening in the thicket; he knew the value of a good start in attacking such nimble animals as the buffaloes had already proven themselves to be.
“Ready, Dig?” Chet asked.
“Let her go!” replied his friend, and at the same moment both horses dashed forward.
They appeared upon the plain at full speed. They were aimed at about the centre of the scattered herd. Could they have trusted the two men, they might have helped with the chase and bunched the whole herd. Instead, it split, and a part of the buffaloes went up the valley, while the others fled directly from the two boys, toward the stream.
The heavy rifles cracked almost simultaneously, Chet’s shot brought a vigorous young bull to his knees; but Dig missed his quarry. He came up and put a ball into Chet’s kill, however, while Chet himself put the third bullet through the wounded beast’s vitals.
“Come on! come on!” yelled Chet, excitedly, starting Hero on the jump after the part of the herd that was scrambling through the brook.
Dig was after him at once. The boys spread out and their horses took the water-jump splendidly. The mounts were as wildly excited as their masters.
The big bull that had inspired Chet and Dig with such enthusiasm was in the lead. This was a piece of luck that delighted the young trailers.
“We’ve got him! we’ve got him!” cried Digby.
“Don’t holler—till—you’re out—of the—woods!” panted Chet. “Goodness! that big beast looks as though he could go right through a brick wall. Suppose he turns on us?”
“Then you’ll see this boy take to his heels,” returned Dig, with conviction.
They did not follow the buffaloes too closely; and they kept on the water side of them, yet near enough so that the frightened animals did not fancy turning to run back along the foot of the southern wall of the valley.
The monster buffalo, head down and whip-like tail twirling, thundered straight on. The thicket of thorny trees was ahead. He couldn’t get through that, and he knew it.
Towards the brook, where was easy escape, was likewise a figure on horseback, waving both hands. That was Dig. The big buffalo did not want to go that way.
He wheeled and there, right in front of him, was the welcome opening of the grassy gulch. In a moment he galloped into it. After him galloped seven of the herd—all that had followed him in the stampede.
“Hurrah! We’ve got ’em!” shrieked Dig, spurring Poke up the hill.
“Keep right before the mouth of that pocket—but outside,” cried Chet, throwing himself from the saddle, with the axe in his hand. “Keep Poke moving. Don’t let the beasts catch you afoot. If they charge back on us, try to scare them into the gulch again.”
“Hot chance I’d have to do that,” muttered Dig.
But he held his ground while Chet struck steel to timber with much vigour. Cutting down a tree of this size was no easy task, and well the boy knew it; but he was determined to shut the buffaloes into the pocket in the hill. Once the big tree was felled across the mouth of the gulch he was very sure the herd would be secure.
Chet was no poor woodsman. He could swing an axe as well as a full-grown man, for his father owned a wood-lot near the Silent Sue mine, and Chet for two years had cut and sledded down to the Havens house the winter’s wood.
But to hammer at this big tree trunk with a short-handled hatchet was a more difficult task.
Dig had to laugh at him, despite the anxiety they both felt about the buffaloes. “Cricky, Chet! why don’t you use your pocketknife?” he demanded. “You’d get it down just as quick.”
“Can you suggest any better way?” asked Chet, stopping for breath.
“You might set fire to it,” grinned his chum.
“You keep still, or I’ll make you come here and spell me,” said Chet. “My goodness! but my hand is getting sore.”
“You’ll have some pretty blisters before you get through with that stunt,” said Dig.
And he was truly a prophet! Chet was more than an hour cutting down the tree, but he had used good judgment in placing it and when it fell the mouth of the gulch was so closed that no buffalo could get out. But Chet was lame, bruised, and blistered.
“I declare you had the worst half of the job,” Dig said. “But just think, old man! we’ve captured eight buffaloes, including the king of them all.”
“We have them cornered—yes. Now we’ve got to find somebody either to buy them just as they stand in there, or to help us get them out and to a market.”
“Whew! That’s so. We’ve only begun the job, eh?”
“That’s right, Dig,” Chet replied, nodding his head seriously.
“At any rate,” the other boy said, “it’s an ideal corral we have ’em in. There is that trickle of water, and plenty of grass and green bushes. ‘All the comforts of home.’ What buffalo wouldn’t be content in such quarters?”
The boys climbed up the hillside, after tethering their horses, and crept along over the rocks above the pocket until they could see the herd. Strangely enough the big buffalo and his seven companions were feeding quietly and whisking flies at the upper end of the gorge, their panic entirely departed.
“Say! did you ever see a more peaceful scene?” chuckled Digby. “They look as tame as barnyard cattle, don’t they?”
“That’s all right,” replied Chet, “but I’d hate to go down there and try to milk one of those bossies.”
The beasts were corralled. Chet wasted little time in congratulating his chum and himself. Luck and foresight had brought about the capture; but it would take something more to make it of any value to the chums. Both the boys realised that.
“We have to get to Grub Stake and interest somebody in our haul,” Dig said. “That’s the ticket for us.”
“And we have something else to do first,” Chet replied, as they got back to the horses. “We’ve left those two rascals, Steve and Tony, too long by themselves. I bet they’ve hiked out after those lost deeds already.”
“What? without their meat?”
“Come on! I reckon the condition of that buffalo we shot will surprise you,” said Chet.
And it did. Dig sputtered like an overfilled teakettle when they reached the place where they had dropped the young bull.
No animal had been drawn to the kill, although several timid coyotes sneaked out of sight behind the nearest thicket. But the robe was ruined. The body had been slashed right into, without any pains being taken to butcher it properly. The better parts of the carcass had been taken, and the mess that had been made of the remainder sickened the two boys. They cut off a few shoulder steaks, and got away from the spot as soon as possible.
“They got their meat and have hiked out for that island in the river,” Chet said, sternly. “That’s all they wanted, of course. Steve saw his chance to start now instead of to-night, and he took it.”
“We can follow their trail, Chet,” exclaimed Dig. “The nasty things! They ruined that buffalo.”
“We’ll do better than follow their trail,” Chet said quickly.
“How’s that?”
“I believe I can find that island they spoke of myself. We’ll see if we cannot beat them to it, Dig. Certainly we have the advantage of the best mounts, if we don’t know the country as well as Steve does.”
They recovered their outfit, built a fire, and cooked dinner while their horses rested; then they set out toward the east without paying any attention to the route followed by their two enemies, nor much to the course they had taken in coming to this sheltered valley.
Chet had his compass and he laid as direct a course as he knew for the shallow river in question.
The six remaining members of the buffalo herd were out of sight as the boys rode up the valley. Where they had gone to was a mystery.
“But you can bet Tony and that other fellow are not following them,” remarked Dig, in disgust.
“Quite right,” responded Chet. “Those scamps have got all they wanted.”
“I hope the time will come when we can ‘call quits’ with ’em,” said Dig.
“Hear! hear! Satisfaction is what we’re after—and those deeds.”
The boys crossed the divide and as they went down the slope, they struck another watercourse which, beginning as a small rill, increased in width and volume of water very rapidly. They were in sight of this stream through the rough country spreading eastward until past mid-afternoon.
By that time they had ridden many miles and were saddle-weary. The horses, too, showed the effect of hard work.
“We’d ought to breathe them awhile,” Dig urged, for he was very careful of horseflesh.
“Not yet. I’m sorry for them,” Chet said, “but we’ve got to keep moving just as long as daylight holds, at least. You know, we don’t know this country after dark, and that Steve evidently does.”
“But we must be travelling almost two miles to their one,” Dig said.
“Granted. But they may be going more directly to that island than we,” Chet told him. “Though I believe this stream we’re following empties into the very river we’re in search of.”
“We never saw this creek before.”
“No. It’s a good deal farther south than the way we came with those rascals.”
“Well! I reckon you know, Chet.”
“I know the points of the compass,” returned his friend. “The sun doesn’t fool us.”
“Of course—we’re going toward Silver Run again, not toward Grub Stake.”
“Quite right. And goodness!” added Chet, “we are spending a lot more time in this trip than I expected to. I wonder what father will say?”
“Say! It’s been a lot different from what I expected. Whew! but we have worked, Chet.”
“Aren’t you just right?” and Chet looked sadly at his blistered palms.
They rode hard and were weary and hungry long before sundown. The chums did not talk much—they seemed to be talked out. The uncertainty of the errand they rode on, and what they had already gone through, made both boys sober. There had been excitement enough, certainly, on this journey. They had been in peril and had taken part in sturdy adventure—enough in the past few days to satisfy most boys for a year.
“We were looking for a little fun on the trail,” Chet said reflectively. “But, my goodness, Dig! we certainly have got more than we bargained for.”
“Yes, and it isn’t ended,” responded his chum, shaking his head. “Wait till we meet up with that Steve and Tony again—if we do!”
“That doesn’t bother me so much as the chances, for and against, of our meeting up with those lost deeds. That’s what’s troubling yours truly,” said Chet.