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CHAPTER XV
LOST

Nort and Dick had heard and read so much about a cattle stampede, and heard such a calamity discussed at the ranch house so often, that they rather welcomed, than otherwise, the announcement that one was being staged near them. This was before they realized the full import of it, and saw the danger.

It was like a prairie fire – they had not realized it could be so terrible and menacing until they actually saw it. And see it they did.

There was needed but a quick backward glance to show that a great fear, or rage, which is almost the same, had entered into the three hundred steers (more or less) that were being driven onward.

At one moment the cattle had been progressing in what might be termed orderly fashion. Now and then a steer would try to break out of the line of march, only to be quickly hazed in again by one of the cowboys, or one of the trio of boy ranchers. But now the whole herd had suddenly been galvanized into action, and that action took the form of running forward at top speed.

It would not have been so bad, perhaps, if the stampede had started from in front. If the forward ranks of cattle had begun to race onward, those behind would simply have followed, and there would gradually have been a slackening up. Of course then there would have been some danger, for the front steers might have slowed down first, while those at the rear still came on, trampling under their sharp hoofs those who were unlucky enough to fall.

But, as it happened, the fright had first seized on the rear bunches of cattle and these had started to run, charging in upon those in front of them, who, in turn, were hurled forward until now, a few seconds after Bud had shouted the alarm, the whole herd was in wild motion.

"Come on!" yelled Bud. "Ride for it! Oh, zowie, boy! Ride for it! Ride like Zip Foster would!" and with voice, reins and spurs he urged his pony forward.

"What do you aim to do?" shouted Dick in his cousin's ear as the two thudded along side by side.

"We've got to get far enough ahead so we can try to turn 'em!" yelled

Bud. "It's our only chance. Ride straight ahead!"

Nort spurred up alongside of his cousin and brother, and, as he did so he yelled:

"What you s'pose started 'em off, Bud?"

"Haven't any time to do any s'posin' now!" was the grim answer. "Ride on and say your prayers that your pony doesn't step in a prairie dog's hole. If he does – and you fall – good night!"

The recent tenderfeet knew, without being told, what was meant. To go down before a herd of wild cattle, infuriated because they were frightened, would mean sure death and in horrible form.

As Nort looked back, to see what distance lay between himself and comrades, and the foremost of the herd, he saw several figures on horseback at one side of the running animals. At first he imagined these were Diamond X cowboys who had been in the rear of the steers, and he thought they had ridden up to help the boy ranchers turn the stampeded animals. But another look showed him the men who had been in the rear still in those positions, though they were spurring forward at top speed.

"Look, Bud!" cried Nort. He pointed to the four figures – there were no more than that – at the left of the galloping herd.

"Rustlers – Greasers!" shouted Bud. "They started this stampede!"

"What for?" Dick wanted to know. "They can't hope to run off any under our eyes, can they?"

"They're doing it to get fresh meat!" declared Bud, who never ceased, all this while, to urge his pony forward, an example followed by his cousins with their horses. "They think some steer, or maybe half a dozen, will fall and be trampled to death. Then they'll have all the beef they can eat – for nothing. They started this stampede, or I'll never speak to Zip Foster again."

By this time, knowing Bud as they did, Nort and Dick had ceased to ask about the mysterious Zip Foster. But Nort could not forego the question:

"How'd they do it?"

"Do what?" grunted Bud, as he skillfully turned his pony away from a prairie dog's hole.

"Start this stampede."

"Hanged if I know. They might have been lying in wait for us to come along – hidden out on the range, and they may have all jumped up with whoops, waving their hats, and setting the steers off that way, when we didn't happen to be looking. But that's where the disturbance came from all right!"

With snorts, bellows and heavy breathing the steers came on. Some were old Texas longhorns, but many of the cattle on the Diamond X ranch, and the adjacent possessions of Mr. Merkel, had been dehorned. It was found that more animals could be packed in a car when they had no interfering horns, and the practice is becoming general of taking the horns off western stock.

But even though some were without horns, this herd was sufficiently dangerous. The first thought of Bud and his cousins was to put all the distance possible between them and the foremost of the steers. This they had now done. And it was becoming evident that unless some of the leaders tripped and went down, there was to be no disastrous piling up of animals one on the other. The leaders ran well, and the others followed.

The rustlers, if such they were, seemed to realize that their desperate plan had failed, for, so far, not a beef had fallen. And the Greasers, off to one side, dared not try to cut out, and run off, any animals. To have ventured into the midst of that charging herd would have been madness.

"Come on! Let's see if we can turn 'em!" urged Bud, drawing his gun, an example followed by Nort and Dick. Led by the son of the owner of Diamond X, the boy ranchers charged down on the oncoming herd, from which they had just ridden away. But now they had the advantage. They stood a better chance. If they could turn the leaders, sending them in a circle, the other animals would follow, and soon the whole bunch would be "milling," which is the most desired way to stop a stampede.

"Come on! Come a ridin'! Whoop-ee!" shrilly cried Bud, yelling, waving his hat in one hand and firing in the air with his gun. Nort and Dick did likewise. Straight at the cattle they rode.

It was a desperate chance, but one that had to be taken. Bud knew, if the others did not, that about a mile beyond lay a gully, led up to by a cliff, and if the steers and cows reached this, the leaders unable to stop, while the rear ranks pushed on, there would be a mass of piled-up, dead cattle to tell the story.

"We've got to stop 'em!" shouted Bud.

And stop them, or, rather, turn them, the boy ranchers did. Just when it seemed that the wild animals would rush over, and trample down the three lads, the foremost of the steers turned at a sharp angle, their hoofs skidding in the soil, and swung around.

"Now we've got 'em!" cried Bud. "Make 'em mill! Make 'em mill!"

And this is what the cattle did. Around and around they ran, in a big, dusty circle, while the other Diamond X cowboys rode up.

"That was touch and go," said one of the older riders, when the herd was comparatively quiet. "What started 'em off, Bud?"

"Didn't you see that bunch of Greasers?" asked the rancher's son.

The cowboys had not, it developed, and now, when the three boys tried to point out the rascals the quartette was not in sight. However, something else took the attention of Bud and the older cowboys. This something was a small bunch of steers, galloping off by themselves, but not being hazed by any riders.

"We can't lose them!" shouted Bud. "They belong to dad! Got to get 'em back!"

"We'll go after 'em," offered Nort and Dick. "We can bring 'em back."

"Yes, I reckon you can, while we ride herd on these," said Bud. "I don't want to take any more chances with 'em. Haze the outlaws back this way, fellows!"

Eager to have this responsibility, and to do something "on their own," Dick and his brother spurred away. And before they realized it, Nort and Dick found themselves down in a depression, whence they could catch sight neither of the small knot of cattle they had started out to haze back, nor the main herd.

"Say, where are we?" asked Dick, slowing up his pony, and looking about him. He and Nort were down in a green valley, with hills all around, but no sign of life – animal or human. "Where are we?"

Nort paused a moment before replying. Then, as he drew rein and listened, he said:

"Lost, I reckon!"

CHAPTER XVI
THE VISION

Though Nort spoke with an appearance of calmness, there was something in his voice that made Dick catch his breath. It was not that the younger lad was exactly afraid, but he was on the verge of becoming so.

"Lost, eh?" repeated Dick. Then, as he saw a half smile on Nort's face, and looked about on what was really a beautiful scene, his little worry seemed to vanish as mists roll away in the sun. "Well, if we're lost it isn't such a bad place to be in, and I reckon we can easily find our way back. 'Tisn't like being lost in the woods, as we once were."

"No," agreed Nort, "it isn't." They had gone camping once, with their father, and had wandered off in a forest, being "lost" all night, though, as it developed later, not far from their own folks.

"And I don't see why we can't easily ride back the way we came," went on Dick.

"We can, if we find the way," agreed Nort. "But I seem all turned around. And I don't like to go back without those cattle. We offered to ride off after 'em and bring 'em back, and we ought to do it."

"But where are they?" asked Dick, "and where's the main herd? That isn't so small that you could hide it in one of these valleys!"

They were, as I have said, in the midst of a rolling country, where swales or valleys were interspersed with hills. One moment they had held in view the small bunch of steers that had wandered away from the main herd, but, in another instant, there was no sign of them.

"Listen, and see if you can hear anything," suggested Nort.

Quietly the boy ranchers sat on their horses; the only sounds being the creaking of the damp saddle and stirrup leathers as the animals moved slightly. But there was no sound of lowing cows or snorting steers, and there came to the ears of Nort and Dick no distant shouts of Bud and the cowboys, though the main herd, with the men in charge, could not have been more than two miles away. But, for all that, our heroes were as completely isolated as though a hundred miles distant from civilization.

"I can't understand it!" murmured Dick.

"Nor I," said Nort, "It's just as if those cattle had dropped out of sight in a hole in the ground. Maybe they did, Dick."

"What do you mean?" asked his brother.

"I mean maybe those mysterious professors have been digging big mining holes around here, and that bunch of steers we were chasing just naturally slipped into one. We'd better look out, or we'll drop out of sight ourselves!"

Though he spoke half jokingly, there was some seriousness in Nort's voice, and Dick realized it.

"Those professors sure are queer, with their digging operations," Dick agreed. "I'd like to know what they are after, and why they're hanging around Diamond X."

"Well, I'd like to know that, too," said Nort, "but first of all I'd like to know our way out of this place. There must be some way out, as we didn't have any trouble finding a way in."

"Of course we can get out," Dick answered. "There aren't any trees to amount to anything, and we aren't fenced in. We can ride in any direction we like, and I say let's ride somewhere."

"I'm with you," spoke his brother. "But the only trouble is we might be riding farther and farther away from Bud and the rest of the fellows. Why not try to locate that bunch of cattle we're after? They'll be heading directly away from the main herd, I take it, and if we locate them all we'll have to do will be to drive them right about face, and we'll get back where we belong."

"All right, let's find the steers," assented Dick.

They started their ponies, which, doubtless, had been glad of the little breathing spell. But it was one thing to say find the missing steers, and another to do it. One swale seemed to so melt in with an adjoining one, and one hill to merge with its mate, that they all looked alike to the boys, who, as it developed afterward, kept working their way farther and farther off from their friends.

"Hang those steers! Where are they, anyhow?" exclaimed Nort after half an hour of search, during which no signs had been seen.

"Let's try over this way," suggested Dick, turning to the left.

Though it might seem that in a fairly open country, composed of hills and vales, it would be hard to hide a bunch of cattle, still Nort and Dick, to their chagrin, did not find it difficult. They were completely baffled, and the longer they searched the more puzzled they were.

"Well, there's one thing about it," remarked Dick, when they drew rein, "we shan't starve right away, and if we have to stay out all night we have the same accommodations we have had before," and he tapped the tarpaulin which formed part of his saddle pack.

"Oh, yes, we can camp out if we have to," agreed Nort, "and I shan't mind that. But it's our failure to do the first job we tackled 'on our own' that gets my goat. Bud will sure think we're tenderfeet for fair!"

"Yes, that is bad," agreed Dick. "But it can't be helped. I never did see anything like the sudden way those cattle disappeared, and how we got lost."

For that they were now completely lost, amid the low hills, was an accepted fact to the boys. They had ridden here and there, until, in mercy to their ponies, they pulled reins. Yet they had gotten no farther on their way, nor had they seen sign of the cattle. It was growing late, too, and they realized that soon they must find a camping place for the night, unless they located the homeward trail.

Of course to Bud, or any of the older cowboys of Diamond X ranch, the problem that puzzled Nort and Dick would have been easy to solve. Knowing the country as they did, the cowboys could easily have sensed which way to ride, even though the bunch of cattle might have eluded them.

But the two easterners did not even know which way to head to get back to their friends. They were completely lost and turned about, and their situation was growing more desperate.

I say "desperate," yet that word is used only in a comparative sense. They were in no immediate danger, for they were in the clean, open country, and not in a tangled forest or jungle. There were no wild beasts near, only peaceful cows and steers. They had coverings for the night, and greasewood shrubs, as well as a tree here and there amid the foothills, offered fuel for a fire. They had a small amount of "grub" with them, and they had passed several springs of water, so they would not thirst, and they had the means of making coffee, though no milk was at hand. So, all in all, their situation was not at all "desperate," though it was perhaps annoying.

"Let's fire our guns!" exclaimed Nort suddenly. "We forgot all about them. Bud told us they were mainly used for signaling out here, and we might let him and the rest know where we are by firing a few shots."

"Sure! Go to it!" agreed Dick. "But don't fire too many cartridges," he added.

"Why not?"

"Well, there's no telling when we may want the shells, and we haven't any too many."

"That's so," agreed Nort. "Well, we'll each fire two, at intervals."

This they did, but such echoes were aroused amid the hills by the reverberations of the reports that the lads doubted whether Bud and the other cowboys could accurately determine whence the sound of the firing came.

"We've done our best," said Nort, after the fourth shot had gone echoing among the hills. "Now let's ride on a little, and if we don't get out, or find those cattle, we'll pick a good place to camp for the night."

This struck Dick as being the best thing to do and they urged their tired ponies forward. Dick was casting his looks about, seeking for a suitable place to make the night camp, when he was attracted by a shout from Nort, who was off to one side.

"Did you find 'em?" cried Dick, eagerly. "The cattle or our cowboys?"

"No, but look!" yelled Nort. "We're coming to a city!"

He pointed toward the east and there, on the far side of a green valley, amid green hills, was the vision of a small city, on the banks of a good-sized river. As the boys watched they saw a steamer come up to a dock and stop, though the scene was too far away to give them more details.

"Now we're all right!" yelled Dick.

But, even as he spoke the vision faded from the eyes of the startled boys. It melted from sight as do some moving pictures, when the "fade out" is used. It was as though a veil of mist came between the vision and the boys, or as if some giant hand had wiped it from a great slate with a damp sponge.

CHAPTER XVII
THE NIGHT CAMP

"Well, what do you know about that?" exclaimed Nort, as he turned to look at his brother, when the vision of the city on the river bank had disappeared.

"Were we dreaming, or did we really see something?" asked Dick, passing his hand over his eyes in dazed fashion.

"We saw something all right," asserted Nort, "and I'm wondering if I saw the same thing you did – a city – the steamer and – "

"I saw it, too," declared Dick, interrupting his brother's recital.

"But where did it go? A fog must have rolled up between us and it.

But now we know which way to ride. I don't know what town that was, but they can tell us how to get back to Diamond X ranch."

"It's queer," murmured Nort, as Dick urged his horse in the direction of the vision they had just beheld.

"What's queer?" asked Dick.

"Seeing that town," his brother went on. "Bud never said anything about the ranch being so near a place where they had a river steamer. There isn't a boat of that size on the river around here."

"No," assented Dick. "This must be farther down. Anyhow, let's hit the trail for there. We aren't lost any more, I reckon."

"Doesn't seem," murmured Nort. But, even as the two brothers urged their tired, broncos forward, another strange thing happened. In the very same place where they had seen the vision of the town and the steamer, only to witness it vanish, there appeared in sharp detail a large ranch, with its corrals, its bunk house and main buildings.

"There! Look!" cried Dick. "There's Diamond X!"

Nort shaded his eyes with his hands, and peered long and earnestly.

"Diamond X!" he murmured. "That isn't our ranch! Our bunk house isn't so near the corral, and, besides – "

Then, even as he spoke, this vision vanished as had the other, being wiped out of sight; fading slowly as if some unseen operator in a movie booth had cut off his light.

The brothers turned and stared at one another. Suddenly the truth dawned upon them.

"A mirage!" exclaimed Nort.

"That's what!" assented Dick. "Two mirages! We saw one after the other, a city and a ranch in the same place!"

And that is what the visions had been – mirages, those strange phenomena of the west – of desert places – natural occurrences in localities where the air is abnormally clear, and where conditions combine to transpose distant scenes.

Of course the explanation is simple enough. Of the mirage the dictionary says it is "an optical illusion arising from an unequal refraction in the lower strata of the atmosphere, causing images of remote objects to be seen double, distorted or inverted as if reflected in a mirror, or to appear as if suspended in the air."

The word comes from a Latin one, meaning "to look at," and that is about all you can do to a mirage – look at it. It is as unsubstantial as the air in which it is formed.

There are many varieties of mirages seen in the West, and if the boys had seen a double one, or had the vision of the city and ranch been inverted, they might have sooner guessed the secret of it. But the particular mirages they had viewed had, through some trick of air refraction, been imposed on their eyesight rightside up, and wonderfully clear.

I do not suppose all the stories that have been written of mirages are true, but it is certain that many strange tricks have been played on the eyesight of observers by these phenomena, and more than one luckless prospector, or cattleman, has followed these visions, only to be tantalized in the end by finding, just as Nort and Dick did, that they merely vanished, dissolving into nothing.

Telling of their experiences afterward, Nort and Dick declared that when they had visualized the steamer moving up to her dock, they had actually seen figures disembarking.

"That couldn't be!" declared Bud. "Your eyes must have been blinking and you thought you saw figures. I've been fooled by mirages myself, but though you might make out something as large as a steamer moving, I never yet saw one of these visions clear enough so that you could make out people moving about. You can see a town, or a ranch, sometimes right side up, and sometimes upside down, but you can't make out people. I won't say that it is impossible, but I've never seen it, nor heard of anyone who has," the boy rancher concluded.

"Well, it was wonderful enough as it was," declared Nort, and even those who have seen many mirages will agree with this, I think.

"Well, that sure was queer!" exclaimed Nort, rubbing his eyes again. "And to think we might have ridden off, and tried to get to that ranch, or city."

"I thought sure it was Diamond X," declared Dick.

"Well, I knew it wasn't, as soon as I saw how the buildings were located. But I thought it was some ranch. Bud told me about these mirages, though I never thought they were as plain as that."

"They sure do fool you!" laughed Dick. "And now, before we get led astray by any more, let's get settled for the night. It looks as if we'd have to stay here."

"Yes, it does," agreed Nort. He looked in the direction where the strange images had appeared in the air, seemingly suspended between the heaven and the earth. There were no more of the visions, the declining sun doubtless being in such a position as no longer to produce the necessary refraction, or bending of the light rays.

"Here's water," spoke Nort, pointing to a spring bubbling out of the side of the hill. "We'll make a fire, and cook what we have."

"But not all of it," stipulated Dick. "We've got to save some for to-morrow. No telling how long we may be out on our own."

"That's right," agreed Nort. "Though when our bacon and flour give out we can get one of those fellows – maybe," and he pointed to a big jack rabbit, almost as large as a dog, loping away.

"Yes, Bud says they're good eating," assented Dick. "The only thing is, can we knock one over with our guns?"

"I'm not much of a shot, yet, but then a fellow ought to hit one of those jacks – when he isn't running," qualified Nort, for the speed of these rabbits of the plains is almost beyond belief. Indeed they put the speediest horse on his mettle, and a greyhound, or a similar breed of dog, is the only canine that can compete with them.

"Yes, no use shooting when they start racing," agreed Dick.

The lads slipped from their ponies, taking off the saddles which, later, they would use as pillows. And immediately the cow horses were relieved of their back burdens, they started to roll. This is the ideal recreation for the steeds of ranch or plain, for they get little of the rubbing down or care bestowed on other horses. Their daily roll in the grass and dust keeps their coat in good condition.

The ponies were pegged out by means of the lariats, which allowed them to graze or roll as they pleased. They were tied near a water hole, formed below the spring, so the animals had the three most desirable requisites – food, water and a place to disport themselves.

Nort and Dick proceeded to make their camp. It was a simple operation. All they had to do was to gather some greasewood for the fire, and start to cook. Later they would roll in their tarpaulins, with their heads on the saddles, and get what rest they could.

Fortunately the two boys had with them some cooking utensils, and also some bacon and flour with a supply of coffee. The flour was of the "prepared" variety. Mixing it with water gave them batter for flapjacks, which were baked in the same skillet in which the bacon had first been fried. Water for the coffee was at hand, and they had sugar for that beverage, though no milk, which might seem strange so near a ranch on which were many cattle. But ranches are for the raising of beef, and are not dairies, so milkless coffee was no hardship to the boys, though at Diamond X milk was plentiful enough.

The smell of the burning greasewood, the aroma of the bacon and coffee, not to mention that of the flapjacks, added zest to the appetites of the boys, if zest were needed, and soon they were eagerly eating.

Then, as night settled down they gathered a quantity of wood for the fire, looked to the fastenings of their ponies and stretched out under the light of the bright stars. They were – except for their ponies – alone amid the foothills, how far from Diamond X ranch they could only guess.