Ruth Fielding at Silver Ranch; Schoolgirls Among Cowboys. Emerson Alice B.

me!” cried Mary Cox. “I should think it would be better to frighten those cows in front than to be horned to death by this big beast from the rear.”

      “Sit still,” said Jane Ann, grimly. “We won’t likely be hurt by either.”

      Old Trouble-Maker did look awfully savage. Bellowing with rage, he thundered along after the car. Helen had again brought the automobile to a stop, this time at Bill Hicks’ command. The next moment the girls screamed in chorus, for the car jarred all over.

      Crash went a rear lamp. About half a yard of paint and varnish was scraped off, and the car itself was actually driven forward, despite the brake being set, by the sheer weight of the steer.

      “If we could git the old cart turned around and headed the other way!” groaned the ranchman.

      “I believe I can turn it, Mr. Hicks,” cried Helen, excitedly.

      But just then the steer, that had fallen back a few yards, charged again. “Bang!” It sounded like the exploding of a small cannon. Old Trouble-Maker had punctured a rear tire, and the car slumped down on that side. Helen couldn’t start it now, for the trail was too rough to travel with a flattened tire.

      The black and white steer, with another furious bellow, wheeled around the back of the car and then came full tilt for the side. Heavy screamed at the top of her voice:

      “Oh, take me home! I never did want to go to a dairy farm. I just abominate cows!”

      But the crowd could not laugh. Huddled together in the tonneau, it looked as though Old Trouble-Maker would certainly muss them up a whole lot! Jane Ann and her uncle hopped out on the other side and called the others to follow. At that moment, with a whoop and a drumming of hoofs, a calico cow pony came racing along the trail toward the stalled car. On the back of this flying pony was a lanky, dust-covered cowboy, swinging a lariat in approved fashion.

      “Hold steady, boss!” yelled this apparition, and then let the coils of the rope whistle through the air. The hair line uncoiled like a writhing serpent and dropped over the wide-spread horns of Old Trouble-Maker. Then the calico pony came to an abrupt halt, sliding along the ground with all four feet braced.

      “Zip!” the noose tightened and the steer brought up with a suddenness that threatened to dislocate his neck. Down the beast fell, roaring a different tune. Old Trouble-Maker almost turned a somersault, while Jane Ann, dancing in delight, caught off her very modern and high-priced hat and swung it in the air.

      “Hurrah for Bashful Ike!” she shouted. “He’s the best little old boy with the rope that ever worked for the Silver outfit. Hurrah!”

      CHAPTER III – IN WHICH THINGS HAPPEN

      The cow puncher who had rescued them was a fine looking, bronzed fellow, with heavy sheepskin chaps on his legs, a shirt open at the throat, his sleeves rolled up displaying muscular arms, and twinkling eyes under the flapping brim of his great hat. While he “snubbed” the big steer to his knees again as the bellowing creature tried to rise, he looked down with a broad smile upon the sparkling face of the Western girl.

      “Why, bless yo’ heart, honey,” he said, in a soft, Southern droll, “if you want me to, I’ll jest natwcher’ly cinch my saddle on Old Trouble-Maker an’ ride him home for yo’. It certainly is a cure for sore eyes to see you again.”

      “And I’m glad to see you, Ike. And these are all my friends. I’ll introduce you and the boys to them proper at the ranch,” cried the Western girl.

      “Git that bellowin’ critter away from yere, Ike,” commanded Mr. Hicks. “I ’low the next bunch that goes to the railroad will include that black and white abomination.”

      “Jest so, Boss,” drawled his foreman. “I been figurin’ Old Trouble-Maker better be in the can than on the hoof. He’s made a plumb nuisance of himself. Yo’ goin’ on, Boss? Bud and Jimsey’s got that bunch out o’ the way of your smoke-waggin.”

      “We’ve got to shift tires, Mr. Hicks,” said Tom Cameron, who, with his chum, Bob Steele, was already jacking up the rear axle. “That steer ripped a long hole in this tire something awful.”

      Bashful Ike – who didn’t seem at all bashful when it came to handling the big black and white steer – suddenly let that bellowing beast get upon his four feet. Then he swooped down upon the steer, gathering up the coils of his rope as he rode, twitched the noose off the wide horns, and leaning quickly from his saddle grabbed the “brush” of the steer’s tail and gave that appendage a mighty twist.

      Bellowing again, but for an entirely different reason, the steer started off after the bunch of cattle now disappearing in the dust-cloud, and the foreman spurred his calico pony after Old Trouble-Maker, yelling at the top of his voice at every jump of his pony:

      “Ye-ow! ye-ow! ye-ow!”

      “I declare I’m glad to see those cattle out of the way,” said Helen Cameron, with a sigh.

      “I believe you,” returned Ruth, who was still beside her on the front seat. “I just didn’t realize before that cattle on the range are a whole lot different from a herd of cows in an eastern pasture.”

      Tom and Bob got the new tire in place and pumped up, and then the automobile started again for the ranch house. Jane Ann was quite excited over her home-coming; anybody could see that with half an eye. She clung to her uncle’s hand and looked at him now and again as though to assure the old fellow that she really was glad to be home.

      And Bill Hicks himself began to “fill into the picture” now that he was back in Montana. The young folks had seen many men like him since leaving Denver.

      “Why, he’s just an old dear!” whispered Ruth to Helen, as the latter steered the car over the rough trail. “And just as kind and considerate as he can be. It’s natural chivalry these Western men show to women, isn’t it?”

      “He’s nice,” agreed Helen. “But he never ought to have named his niece ‘Jane Ann.’ That was a mean trick to play on a defenseless baby.”

      “He’s going to make it up to her now,” chuckled Tom, who heard this, being on the front seat with the two chums. “I know the ‘pinanner’ has gone on ahead, as he promised Nita. And carpets and curtains, too. I reckon this ranch we’re coming to is going to ‘blossom like the rose.’”

      When they came in sight of Silver Ranch, just before evening, the guests from the East were bound to express their appreciation of the beauty of its surroundings. It was a low, broad verandahed house, covering a good deal of ground, with cookhouses and other outbuildings in the rear, and a big corral for the stock, and bunkhouses for the men. It lay in a beautiful little valley – a “coulie,” Jane Ann, or Nita, called it – with green, sloping sides to the saucer-like depression, and a pretty, winding stream breaking out of the hollow at one side.

      “I should think it would be damp down there,” said Madge Steele, to the ranchman. “Why didn’t you build your house on a knoll?”

      “Them sidehills sort o’ break the winds, Miss,” explained Mr. Hicks. “We sometimes git some wind out yere – yes, ma’am! You’d be surprised.”

      They rode down to the big house and found a wide-smiling Mexican woman waiting for them on the porch. Jane Ann greeted her as “Maria” and Hicks sent her back to the kitchen to hurry supper. But everybody about the place, even Maria’s husband, the “horse wrangler,” a sleek looking Mexican with rings in his ears and a broken nose, found a chance to welcome the returned runaway.

      “My! it’s great to be a female prodigal, isn’t it?” demanded Heavy, poking Jane Ann with her forefinger. “Aren’t you glad you ran away East?”

      The Western girl took it good-naturedly. “I’m glad I came back, anyway,” she acknowledged. “And I’m awfully glad Ruth and Helen and you-all could come with me.”

      “Well, we’re here, and I’m delighted,” cried Helen Cameron. “But I didn’t really expect either Ruth or Mary Cox would come.