Ned led a lonely and discontented life all that winter. There were no boys with whom he could associate except his cousin, and Ned had come to the conclusion that he would much rather be alone than in George’s company. The latter did not suit him at all. He was much too industrious. He was in camp with his herdsman more than half the time, and when he was at home he was always busy. Ned had expected to see unbounded pleasure in living on the prairie and sleeping in the open air, as his cousin did more than six months in the year, and once he had spent two weeks with him in camp; but that was his first and last experience in cattle-herding, and as it was not at all to his liking, we must stop long enough to say something about it. This is a story of camp life, you know.
Ned had not been away from the ranche more than three days before he found, to his great surprise and disappointment, that life in the open air was not what his lively imagination had pictured it. Many a boy has been deceived on this point, just as others have been deceived in looking upon the life of a sailor as one of ease and romance. Ned thought that those who lived in camp had nothing to do but sit on the grass, under the spreading branches of some friendly tree, and dream away the days which would be all sunshine; and that when they grew hungry, some fat black-tail or antelope would walk up within easy range of their rifles just on purpose to be shot. The nights would be mild and pleasant, the fire would somehow keep itself burning all the time, whether the necessary fuel was supplied or not, and cook his meals for him without any care or exertion on his part. But one short week’s experience banished all these absurd ideas, and taught him what a cattle-herder’s camp-life really was. It was one of almost constant drudgery and toil. George had three hundred cattle to watch, and as he had only one herdsman to assist him, he was kept busy from morning until night. He and Zeke (that was the name of his herdsman, of whom we shall have a good deal to say by and by), were up and doing long before the sun arose, and while one cooked the breakfast and performed the necessary camp-duties, the other drove the cattle out to pasture and watched them to see that they didn’t stray away.
Ned, being inexperienced, and an invited guest beside, was not expected to do anything except to eat his share of the rations, and enjoy himself as well as he could. Sometimes he went out with the cattle-herder, and then he stayed with the camp-keeper; but he soon grew tired of both of them and of their way of life, too. George knew but little about the city and cared less. He took no interest whatever in his cousin’s glowing descriptions of the numerous “scrapes” he had been in, and neither did Zeke, who bluntly told him that he might have been in better business. Ned, on the other hand, cared nothing for the things in which George and Zeke were interested, so there was little they could talk about.
But there was plenty of hunting, and in this way Ned passed a portion of each day. He had no luck, however, for he never saw anything in the shape of game larger than Jack rabbits, and he never bagged one of them. The only thing he brought back to camp with him from these hunting excursions was a ravenous appetite, and he had to satisfy it with fried bacon, hard corn-cakes and coffee without any milk. The juicy venison steaks and other luxuries he had expected to fatten on were never served up to him. It rained, too, sometimes, and Ned could find no shelter under the dripping trees. There was no fun at all in going to bed in wet clothes, and Ned always shuddered and wished himself safe at the rancho when his cousin said to him, as he did almost every night—
“Don’t forget your lasso. The rattlers are tolerable plenty about here.”
Ned knew that, for he had seen two or three of them killed in the camp. George had told him that the neighborhood of a fire was a bad place for rattlesnakes, and Ned could hardly bring himself to believe that his hair lasso, laid down in a coil about the place where he made his bed, was a sure protection against these dangerous visitors.
A few days before he went home, Ned had an experience such as he had never had before, and which he fervently hoped would never be repeated. On this particular day he went out with George, whose turn it was to watch the cattle. He soon grew tired of talking to him, so he mounted his horse and set out in search of antelopes, which, so his cousin told him, were often seen in that neighborhood. He rode slowly in a circle around the place where the cattle were feeding, at distances varying from a half to three-quarters of a mile from them (there was small chance of finding an antelope so close to the herd, but Ned dared not go any farther away for fear of the Apaches, concerning whom he had heard some dreadful stories told by Zeke the night before), and he had been gone about an hour when he was suddenly startled by hearing the faint report of a rifle. Turning his eyes quickly in the direction from which the report sounded, he saw his cousin sitting in his saddle, and waving his hat frantically in the air. When he found that the sound of his rifle had attracted Ned’s attention, he beckoned him to approach.
“What’s up, I wonder?” thought Ned, not a little alarmed. “George must have shot at something, for I saw the smoke curling above his head. Are the Mexicans or Apaches about to make a raid on us?”
Ned, who had drawn rein on the summit of a high swell, looked all around but could see no signs of any horsemen. He did see something to increase his alarm, however. He saw that the cattle, which were quietly grazing the last time he looked toward them, were now all in motion, and that they were hurrying toward the belt of post-oaks in which the camp was located. That was enough for Ned. He put his horse into a gallop and hastened to join his cousin, who now and then beckoned to him with both hands as if urging him to ride faster.
“What’s the matter?” shouted Ned, as soon as he arrived within speaking distance of George. “Raiders?”