In a few minutes the horses were brought in and saddled, the blankets rolled up and strapped to the saddles, and the five men chosen, after eating a hasty meal, started for the point named, which was some twenty-five miles distant.
"Now you are going to see some fun, Hugh," Bill Royce, who had got the nickname of Chunky from his short, square figure, remarked as they rode along.
"Yes," Broncho Harry put in, "you will have to look out sharp, Hugh. I tell you it is pretty lively work when you get hold of a six months' calf, and the old savage of a mother is trying her best to hook you. Thar ain't a day that some fellow don't get hurt; but as long as you don't let a cow jam you against the posts it don't much matter. That is what you have got to look to special. A chuck in the air don't much matter, nor being knocked a dozen yards or so, but if you get jammed by one of those brutes against a fence, there ain't nothing to do but to bury you."
Three hours' riding brought them to the forks. Two or three large herds of cattle could be made out far on the plains: another mob could be seen not far from the wooded hollow that marked the course of the stream. Horsemen were hovering round them, and there was a confused mass of animals in what looked to Hugh like a strong stockade near it. A short distance away twelve waggons were drawn up in regular order some fifty yards apart. Columns of light smoke rising near them showed that cooking was going on at each waggon. Quickening the speed of their horses the cow-boys rode on until they drew up at the waggon of the
ranche.
"Howdy, Pete," Broncho Harry said as he leapt from his horse, to a negro who, with a Mexican assistant, was engaged in cooking.
"Howdy, Broncho Harry."
"Where are the boys, and what's new?"
"Dey is out dar," the negro said, waving his hand in the direction of the corral. "Some of dem is working in de herd; some of dem is inside. Irish is in de waggon: him leg broken. New York John got killed three days back."