The Pony Rider Boys in Texas; Or, The Veiled Riddle of the Plains

by Frank Gee Patchin

Tad knew he was a long way from camp and alone with the herd. After a time the animals seemed to him to be slackening their speed. Discovering this, he untied the slicker or rubber blanket from the saddle cantle, and, riding against the leaders again, flaunted the slicker in their faces, shouting and urging at the same time.

"If I had a gun I believe I could stop them right away," he said. "But I'm going to turn them if it's the last thing I ever do."

The fury of the storm was abating and the lightning flashes were becoming less frequent.

Now that he had succeeded in turning the point of the herd, it proved much easier to keep them under control. Besides, it gave both boy and pony a breathing spell. The hard riding was not now necessary.

Round and round young Butler kept the herd circling for nearly an hour. The steers, moving more and more slowly, Tad concluded wisely that they were growing tired of this and that they would quiet down. His judgment proved correct. The storm passed. He could hear it roaring off to the northwest where the lightning flamed up in intermittent flashes.

"Wonder what time it is," queried Tad aloud, searching about in his clothes for his watch.

"Pshaw, I've lost it," he exclaimed. "Well, it is not so much of a loss after all. I paid only a dollar for it and I've had more than a dollar's worth of fun to-night. I wonder what I look like. I must be a sight."

It now lacked only an hour of dawn, but, of course, the boy did not know this. In the darkness preceding the dawn he had no idea of the size of the bunch of cattle that he had led out over the plain. He knew it must be large, however.

At last daybreak was at hand, the landscape and the herd being faintly outlined in the thin morning light. Tad was surprised to find that he had milled the cattle into a compact bunch. Now the boy began galloping around the herd, speaking words of encouragement to the animals as he went, whistling and trying to sing, until finally he was rewarded by seeing some of them begin to graze.

"I've done it," shouted Tad gleefully. "I've bagged the whole bunch. I wonder what Mr. Stallings will say to that. I don't believe Big-foot Sanders could beat that. The next question is, where am I? I don't know. I guess I'm lost for sure. But I've got lots of company."