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CHAPTER VI – THE ROPING CONTEST

With a chorus of “co-ees” and wild yells the cowboys of Silver Ranch dashed away on the race after the huge black and white steer. And Jane Ann, on her bay mustang, was right up with the leaders in the wild rush. It was indeed an inspiring sight, and the boys and girls from the East urged their own mounts on after the crowd with eagerness.

“See Nita ride! isn’t she just wonderful?” cried Helen.

“I don’t think there’s anything wonderful about it,” sneered The Fox, in her biting way. “She was almost born on horseback, you know. It’s as natural to her as breathing.”

“Bu – bu – but it shakes – you up – a good – bit more – than breath – breathing!” gasped Heavy, as her pony jounced her over the ground.

Tom and Bob had raced ahead after the cowboys, and Ruth was right behind them. She had learned to sit the saddle with ease now, and she was beginning to learn to swing a rope; Ike was teaching her. Tom could really fling the lasso with some success; but of course he could not enter into this mad rush for a single steer.

A twenty dollar gold piece was not to be scorned; and the cowboys were earnest in their attempt to make that extra twenty over and above their monthly stipend. But Jane Ann Hicks worked for the fun of it, and because she desired to show her Eastern friends how she excelled in horsemanship. There were so many other things which her friends knew, in which she was deficient!

She was up with the leaders when they came within casting distance of the big steer. But the steer was wily; he dodged this way and that as they surrounded him, and finally one of the punchers got in an awkward position and Old Trouble-Maker made for him. The man couldn’t pull his pony out of the way as the steer made a short turn, and the old fellow came head on against the pony’s ribs. It was a terrific shock. It sounded like a man beating an empty rainwater barrel with a club!

The poor pony was fairly lifted off his feet and rolled over and over on the ground. Luckily his rider kicked himself free of the stirrups and escaped the terrible horns of Old Trouble-Maker. The steer thundered on, paying no further attention to overturned pony or rider, and it was Jib Pottoway who first dropped a rope over the creature’s horn.

But it was only over one horn and when the galloping steer was suddenly “snubbed” at the end of Jib’s rope, what happened? Ordinarily Old Trouble-Maker should have gone down to his knees with the shock; but the Indian’s pony stumbled just at that anxious moment, and instead of the steer being brought to his knees, the pony was jerked forward by Old Trouble-Maker’s weight.

The cowboys uttered a chorus of dismal yells as Jib rose into the air – like a diver making a spring into the sea – and when he landed – well! it was fortunate that the noose slipped off the steer’s horn and the pony did not roll over the Indian.

Two men bowled over and the odds all in favor of the black and white steer! The other cowboys set up a fearful chorus as Jib scrambled up, and Old Trouble-Maker thundered on across the plain, having been scarcely retarded by the Indian’s attempt. Bellowing and blowing, the steer kept on, and for a minute nobody else got near enough to the beast to fling a rope.

Then one of the other boys who bestrode a remarkably fast little pony, got near enough (as he said afterward) to grab the steer by the tail and throw him! And it was too bad that he hadn’t tried that feat; for what he did do was to excitedly swing his lariat around his head and catch his nearest neighbor across the shoulders with the slack! This neighbor uttered a howl of rage and at once “ran amuck” – to the great hilarity of the onlookers. It was no fun for the fellow who had so awkwardly swung the rope, however; for his angry mate chased him half a mile straight across the plain before he bethought him, in his rage, that it was the steer, not his friend, that was to be flung and tied for the prize.

The others laughed so over this incident that the steer was like to get away. But one of the fellows, known to them all as “Jimsey” had been working cautiously on the outside of the bunch of excited horsemen all the time. It was evident to Ruth, who was watching the game very earnestly from the rear, that this Jimsey had determined to capture the prize and was showing more strategy than the others. He was determined to be the one to down Old Trouble-Maker, and as he saw one after the other of his mates fail, his own grin broadened.

Now, Ruth saw, he suddenly urged his pony in nearer the galloping steer. Standing suddenly in his stirrups, and swinging his lariat with a wide noose at the end, he dropped it at the moment when Old Trouble-Maker had just dodged another rope. The steer fairly ran into Jimsey’s noose. The puncher snubbed down on the rope instantly, and the steer, caught over the horns and with one foreleg in the noose, came to the hard plain like a ton of bricks falling.

“He’s down! he’s down!” shrieked Bob, vastly excited.

“Oh, the poor thing!” his sister observed. “That must have hurt him.”

“Well, after the way that brute tried to crawl into the automobile, I wouldn’t cry any if his neck was broken!” exclaimed Mary Cox, in sharp tones.

Jimsey’s horse was well broken and he swung his weight at the end of the rope in such a way that the huge steer could not get on his feet again. Jimsey vaulted out of the saddle and ran to the floundering steer with an agility that delighted the spectators from the East. How they cheered him! And his mates, too, urged him on with delight. It looked as though Jimsey had “called the trick” and would tie the struggling beast and so fulfill the requirements of the contest.

As the agile puncher sought to lay hold of the steer’s forefeet, however, Old Trouble-Maker flung his huge body around. The “yank” was too much for the pony and it was drawn forward perhaps a foot by the sheer weight of the big steer.

“Stand still, thar!” yelled Jimsey to the pony. “Wait till I get this yere critter tied up in a true lover’s knot! Whoa, Emma!”

Again the big steer had jerked; but the pony braced his feet and swung backward. It was then the unexpected happened! The girth of Jimsey’s saddle gave way, the taut rope pulling the saddle sideways. The pony naturally was startled and he jumped to one side. In an instant the big steer was nimbly on his feet, and flung Jimsey ten feet away! Bellowing with fear the brute tore off across the plain again, now with the wreck of Jimsey’s saddle bounding over the ground behind him and whacking him across the rump at every other jump.

If anything was needed to make Old Trouble-Maker mad he had it now. The steer sped across the plain faster than he had ever run before, and in a temper to attack anything or anybody who chanced to cross his trail.

CHAPTER VII – JANE ANN TURNS THE TRICK

“Oh, Ruth! that man is hurt,” cried Helen, as the chums rode as hard as they dared after the flying bunch of cattle punchers.

Jimsey lay on the ground, it was true; but when they came nearer they saw that he was shaking both fists in the air and spouting language that was the very reverse of elegant. Jimsey wasn’t hurt; but he was awfully angry.

“Come on! come on, girls!” called Tom. “That old steer is running like a dog with a can tied to its tail! Did you ever see the beat of that?”

“And Nita is right in with the crowd. How they ride!” gasped Madge Steele. “She’ll be killed!”

“I hope not,” her brother shouted back. “But she’s just about the pluckiest girl I ever heard of.”

“She’s swinging her rope now!” gasped Heavy. “Do you suppose she intends to try and catch that steer?”

That was what Jane Ann Hicks seemed determined to do. She had ridden so that she was ahead of the troop of other riders. Bashful Ike, the foreman, put spurs to his own mount and tried to catch the boss’s niece. If anything happened to Jane Ann he knew that Old Bill would call him to account for it.

“Have a care there, Jinny!” he bawled “Look out that saddle don’t give ye a crack.”

The saddle bounded high in the air – sometimes higher than Jane Ann’s head – and if she ran her mount in too close to the mad steer the saddle might knock her off her pony. Nor did she pay the least attention to Bashful Ike’s advice. She was using the quirt on her mount and he was jumping ahead like a streak of light.

Jane Ann had coiled her rope again and it hung from her saddle. She had evidently formed a new plan of action since having the field to herself. The others – all but Ike – were now far behind.

“Have a care thar, Jinny!” called the foreman again. “He’ll throw you!”

“You keep away, Ike!” returned the girl, excitedly. “This is my chance. Don’t you dare interfere. I’ll show those boys I can beat them at their own game.”

“Sufferin’ snipes! You look out, Jinny! You’ll be killed!”

“I won’t if you don’t interfere,” she yelled back at him.

During this conversation both their mounts were on the keen jump. The saddle was bounding high over the plain as the steer still bellowed and ran. Jane Ann urged her pony as close alongside the steer as she dared, leaned sideways from her saddle, and made a sharp slash in the air with the hunting knife that had hung from her belt in its sheath. The keen blade severed Jimsey’s best hair rope (there would be a postscript to Jimsey’s remarks about that, later) and the saddle, just then bounding into the air, caromed from the steer’s rump against Jane Ann’s pony, and almost knocked it off its legs.

But the girl kept her seat and the pony gathered his feet under him again and started after the relieved steer. But she did not use her rope even then, and after returning her knife to its sheath she guided her pony close in to the steer’s flank. Before that saddle had beaten him so about the body, Old Trouble-Maker might have made a swift turn and collided with the girl’s mount; but he was thinking only of running away now – getting away from that mysterious thing that had been chasing and thumping him!

Ike, who cantered along just behind her (the rest of the crowd were many yards in the rear) suddenly let out a yell of fear. He saw that the girl was about to try, and he was scared. She leaned from her saddle and seized the stiff tail of the steer at its base. The foreman drew his gun and spurred his horse forward.

“You little skeezicks!” he gasped. “If you break your neck your uncle will jest natcherly run me off’n this range!”

“Keep away, Ike!” panted the girl, letting the tail of the maddened steer run through her hand until she felt the bunch of hair – or brush – at the end.

Then she secured her grip. Digging her spurs into the pony’s sides she made him increase his stride suddenly. He gained second by second on the wildly running steer and the girl leaned forward in her saddle, clinging with her left hand to the pommel, her face in the pony’s tossing mane.

The next moment the tail was taut and the jerk was almost enough to dislocate her arm. But she hung on and the shock was greater to the big steer than to Jane Ann. The yank on his tail made him lose his stride and forced him to cross his legs. The next moment Old Trouble-Maker was on his head, from which he rolled over on his side, bellowing with fright.

It was a vaquero trick that Jane Ann had seen the men perform; yet it was a mercy that she, a slight girl, was not pulled out of her saddle and killed. But Jane Ann had done the trick nicely; and in a moment she was out of her saddle, and before Ike was beside her, had tied the steer’s feet, “fore and aft,” with Jimsey’s broken rope. Then, with one foot on the heaving side of the steer, she flung off her hat and shouted to the crowd that came tearing up:

“That double-eagle’s mine! Got anything to say against it, boys?”

They cheered her to the echo, and after them came the party of Jane Ann’s friends from the East to add their congratulations. But as Ruth and the others rode up Heavy of course had to meet with an accident. Hard luck always seemed to ride the stout girl like a nightmare!

The pony on which she rode became excited because of the crowd of kicking, squealing cow ponies, and Heavy’s seat was not secure. When the pony began to cavort and plunge poor Heavy was shaken right over the pommel of her saddle. Her feet lost the stirrups and she began to scream.

“My – good – ness – me!” she stuttered. “Hold him – still! Stop! Ho – ho – ho – ”

And then she slipped right over the pony’s rump and would have fallen smack upon the ground had not Tom and Bob, who had both seen her peril, leaped out of their own saddles, and caught the stout girl as she lost her hold on the reins and gave up all hope.

The boys staggered under her weight, but managed to put her upright on her feet, while her pony streaked it off across the plain, very much frightened by such a method of dismounting. It struck the whole crowd as being uproariously funny; but the good-natured and polite cowboys tried to smother their laughter.

“Don’t mind me!” exclaimed the stout girl. “Have all the fun you want to. But I don’t blame the pony for running away. I have been sitting all along his backbone, from his ears to the root of his tail, and I have certainly jounced my own backbone so loose that it rattles. I believe I’d better walk home.”

It was plain that Jennie Stone would never take a high mark in horsemanship; but they caught her pony for her and boosted her on again, and later she rode back to the ranch-house at an easy pace. But she declared that for the remainder of her stay at Silver Ranch she proposed to ride only in the automobile or in a carriage.

But Ruth was vastly enamored of this new play of pony riding. She had a retentive memory and kept in mind all that Bashful Ike told her about the management of her own Freckles. She was up early each morning and had a gallop over the prairie before her friends were out of their beds. And when Mr. Hicks stated one day that he had to ride to Bullhide on business, Ruth begged the privilege of riding with him, although the rest of the young folks did not care to take such a long trip in the hot sun.

“I’ve some business to attend to for my uncle,” Ruth explained to the ranchman, as they started from the ranch-house soon after breakfast. “And I want your advice.”

“Sure, Ruthie,” he said, “I’ll advise ye if I can.”

So she told him about Uncle Jabez’s mixup with the Tintacker mining properties. Bill Hicks listened to this tale with a frowning brow.

“Bless your heart, Miss!” he ejaculated. “I believe you’re chasin’ a wild goose. I reckon your uncle’s been stung. These wildcat mining properties are just the kind that greenhorn Easterners get roped into. I don’t believe there’s ten cents’ worth of silver to the ton in all the Tintacker district. It played out years ago.”

“Well, that may be,” returned Ruth, with a sigh. “But I want to see the records and learn just how the Tintacker Mine itself stands on the books. I want to show Uncle Jabez that I honestly tried to do all that I could for him while I was here.”

“That’s all right, Ruthie. You shall see the records,” declared Mr. Hicks. “I know a young lawyer in town that will help you, too; and it sha’n’t cost you a cent. He’s a friend of mine.”

“Oh, thank you,” cried Ruth, and rode along happily by the big cattleman’s side.

They were not far from the house when Bashful Ike, who had been out on the range on some errand, came whooping over the low hills to the North, evidently trying to attract their attention. Mr. Hicks growled:

“Now, what does that feller want? I got a list as long as my arm of things to tote back for the boys. Better have driv’ a mule waggin, I reckon, to haul the truck home on.”

But it was Ruth the foreman wished to speak to. He rode up, very red in the face, and stammering so that Bill Hicks demanded, with scorn:

“What’s a-troubling you, Ike? You sputter like a leaky tea-kettle. Can’t you out with what you’ve got to say to the leetle gal, an’ let us ride on?”

“I – I was just a thinkin’ that mebbe you – you could do a little errand for me, Miss,” stammered Bashful Ike.

“Gladly, Mr. Stedman,” returned Ruth, hiding her own amusement.

“It – it’s sort of a tick-lish job,” said the cowboy. “I – I want ye should buy a leetle present. It’s – it’s for a lady – ”

Bill snorted. “You goin’ to invest your plunder in more dew-dabs for Sally Dickson, Ike? Yah! she wouldn’t look at you cross-eyed.”

Bashful Ike’s face flamed up redder than ever – if that was possible.

“I don’t want her to look at me cross-eyed,” he said. “She couldn’t look cross-eyed. She’s the sweetest and purtiest gal on this range, and don’t you forgit that, Mr. Hicks.”

“Sho, now! don’t git riled at me,” grunted the older man. “No offense intended. But I hate to see you waste your time and money on a gal that don’t give two pins for ye, Ike.”

“I ain’t axin’ her to give two pins for me,” said Ike, with a sort of groan. “I ain’t up to the mark with her – I know that. But thar ain’t no law keepin’ me from spending my money as I please, is there?”

“I dunno,” returned Bill Hicks. “Maybe there’s one that’ll cover the case and send a feller like you to the foolish factory. Sally Dickson won’t have nothing to say to you.”

“Never mind,” said Ike, grimly. “You take this two dollar bill, Miss Ruthie – if you will. And you buy the nicest box o’ candy yo’ kin find in Bullhide. When you come back by Lem Dickson’s, jest drop it there for Sally. Yo’ needn’t say who sent it,” added the bashful cowboy, wistfully. “Jest – jest say one o’ the boys told you to buy it for her. That’s all, Miss. It won’t be too much trouble?”

“Of course it won’t, Mr. Stedman,” declared Ruth, earnestly. “I’ll gladly do your errand.”

“Thank you, Miss,” returned the foreman, and spurring his horse he rode rapidly away to escape further remarks from his boss.

CHAPTER VIII – WHAT WAS ON THE RECORDS

“Now, what can you do with a feller like that?” demanded Mr. Hicks, in disgust. “Poor old Ike has been shinning around Sally Dickson ever since Lem brought her home from school – from Denver. And she’s a nice little gal enough, at that; but she ain’t got no use for Ike and he ought to see it. Gals out here don’t like fellers that ain’t got sperit enough to say their soul’s their own. And Ike’s so bashful he fair hates hisself! You’ve noticed that.”

“But he’s just as kind and good-natured as he can be,” declared Ruth, her pony cantering on beside the ranchman’s bigger mount.

“That don’t help a feller none with a gal like Sally,” grunted Mr. Hicks. “She don’t want a reg’lar gump hanging around her. Makes her the laffin’ stock of the hull range – don’t you see? Ike better git a move on, if he wants her. ’Tain’t goin’ to be no bashful ’ombre that gets Sally Dickson, let me tell ye! Sendin’ her lollipops by messenger – bah! He wants ter ride up and hand that gal a ring – and a good one – if he expects to ever git her into double harness. Now, you hear me!”

“Just the same,” laughed Ruth, “I’m going to buy the nicest box of candy I can find, and she shall know who paid for it, too.”

And she found time to purchase the box of candy while Mr. Hicks was attending to his own private business in Bullhide. The town boasted of several good stores as well as a fine hotel. Ruth went to the railroad station, however, where there was sure to be fresh candies from the East, and she bought the handsomest box she could find. Then she wrote Ike’s name nicely on a card and had it tucked inside the wrapper, and the clerk tied the package up with gilt cord.

“I’ll make that red-haired girl think that Ike knows a few things, after all, if he is less bold than the other boys,” thought Ruth. “He’s been real kind to me and maybe I can help him with Sally. If she knew beans she’d know that Ike was true blue!”

Mr. Hicks came along the street and found her soon after Ruth’s errand was done and took her to the office of the young lawyer he had mentioned. This was Mr. Savage – a brisk, businesslike man, who seemed to know at once just what the girl wished to discover.

“You come right over with me to the county records office and we’ll look up the history of those Tintacker Mines,” he said. “Mr. Hicks knows a good deal about mining properties, and he can check my work as we go along.”

So the three repaired to the county offices and the lawyer turned up the first records of the claims around Tintacker.

“There is only one mine called Tintacker,” he explained. “The adjacent mines are Tintacker claims. The camp that sprang up there and flourished fifteen years ago, was called Tintacker, too. But for more than ten years the kiotes have held the fort over there for the most part – eh, Mr. Hicks?”

“And that crazy feller that’s been around yere for some months,” the ranchman said.

“What crazy fellow is that?” demanded Lawyer Savage, quickly.

“Why, thar’s been a galoot around Tintacker ever since Spring opened. I dunno but he was thar in the winter – ”

“Young man, or old?” interrupted Savage.

“Not much more’n a kid, my boys say.”

“You’ve never seen him?”

“No. But I believe he set the grass afire the other day, and made us a heap of trouble along Larruper Crick,” declared the ranchman.

The lawyer looked thoughtful. “There was a young fellow here twice to look up the Tintacker properties. He came to see me the first time – that was more than a year ago. Said he had been left his father’s share in the old Tintacker Mine and wanted to buy out the heirs of the other partner. I helped him get a statement of the record and the names of the other parties – ”

“Oh, please, Mr. Savage, what was his name?” asked Ruth, quickly.

“I don’t know what his name really was,” replied the lawyer, smiling. “He called himself John Cox – might have been just a name he took for the time being. There wasn’t any Cox ever had an interest in the Tintacker as far as I can find. But he probably had his own reasons for keeping his name to himself. Then he came back in the winter. I saw him on the street here. That’s all I know about him.”

“Tenderfoot?” asked Hicks.

“Yes, and a nice spoken fellow. He made a personal inspection of the properties the first time he was here. That I know, for I found a guide for him, Ben Burgess. He stayed two weeks at the old camp, Ben said, and acted like he knew something about minerals.”

Mr. Savage had found the proper books and he discovered almost at once that there had been an entry made since he had last looked up the records of Tintacker a year or more before.

“That fellow did it!” exclaimed the lawyer. “He must have found those other heirs and he’s got possession of the entire Tintacker Mine holdings. Yes-sir! the records are as straight as a string. And the record was made last winter. That is what he came back here for. Now, young lady, what do you want to know about it all?”

“I want a copy, please, of the record just as it stands – the present ownership of the mine, I mean,” said Ruth. “I want to send that to Uncle Jabez.”

“It is all held now in the name of John Cox. The original owners were two men named Symplex and Burbridge. It is Burbridge’s heirs this fellow seems to have bought up. Now, he told me his father died and left his share of the Tintacker to him. That means that ‘Symplex’ was this young Cox’s father. One, or the other of them didn’t use his right name – eh?” suggested the lawyer.

“But that doesn’t invalidate the title. It’s straight enough now. The Tintacker Mine – whether it is worth ten cents or ten thousand dollars – belongs to somebody known as John Cox – somebody who can produce the deeds. You say your uncle bought into the mine and took personal notes with the mine for security, Miss?”

“That is the way I understand it,” Ruth replied.

“And it looks as though the young man used the money to buy out the other owners. That seems straight enough. Your uncle’s security is all clear as far as the title of the mine goes – ”

“But according to what I know,” broke in Mr. Hicks, “he might as well have a lien on a setting of hen’s eggs as an interest in the Tintacker Mine.”

“That’s about it,” admitted Mr. Savage. “I don’t believe the mine is worth the money it cost the young fellow to have these records made.”

“Well,” said Ruth, with a sigh; “I’ll pay you for making the copy, just the same; and I’ll send it home to uncle. And, if you don’t mind, Mr. Savage, I’ll send him your name and address, too. Perhaps he may want you to make some move in the matter of the Tintacker property.”

This was agreed upon, and the lawyer promised to have the papers ready to send East in two or three days. Then Mr. Hicks took Ruth to the hotel to dinner, and they started for the ranch again soon after that meal.

When they came in sight of the Crossing, Ruth saw that the little red painted schoolhouse was open. All the windows were flung wide and the door was ajar; and she could see Sally Dickson’s brilliant hair, as well as other heads, flitting back and forth past the windows.

“Hi Jefers!” ejaculated Bill Hicks. “I reckon thar’s goin’ to be a dance at the schoolhouse Saturday night. I nigh forgot it. We’ll all hafter go over so that you folks from Down East kin see what a re’l Montany jamboree is like. The gals is fixin’ up for it now, I reckon.”

“I want to see Sally,” said Ruth, smiling.

“Huh!” grunted Bill, with a glance at the big box of candy the Eastern girl held so carefully before her. “You kin see her all right. That red head of hers shines like a beacon in the night. And I’ll speak to Lem.”

Ruth rode her pony close to one of the open windows of the little schoolhouse. She could see that the benches and desks had been all moved out – probably stacked in a lean-to at the end of the house. The floor had been swept and mopped up and the girls were helping Sally trim the walls and certain pictures which hung thereon with festoons of colored paper. One girl was polishing the lamp chimneys, and another was filling and trimming the lamps themselves.

“Oh, hullo!” said the storekeeper’s daughter, seeing Ruth at the window, and leaving her work to come across the room. “You’re one of those young ladies stopping at Silver Ranch, aren’t you?”

“No,” said Ruth, smiling. “I’m one of the girls visiting Jane Ann. I hope you are going to invite us to your party here. We shall enjoy coming, I am sure.”

“Guess you won’t think much of our ball,” returned Sally Dickson. “We’re plain folk. Don’t do things like they do East.”

“How do you know what sort of parties we have at home?” queried Ruth, laughing at her. “We’re not city girls. We live in the country and get our fun where we can find it, too. And perhaps we can help you have a good time – if you’ll let us.”

“Well, I don’t know,” began Sally, yet beginning to smile, too; nobody could be grouchy and stare into Ruth Fielding’s happy face for long.

“What do you do for music?”

“Well, one of the boys at Chatford’s got a banjo and old Jim Casey plays the accordion – when he’s sober. But the last time the music failed us, and one of the boys tried to whistle the dances; but one feller that was mad with him kept showing him a lemon and it made his mouth twist up so that he couldn’t keep his lips puckered nohow.”

Ruth giggled at that, but said at once:

“One of my friends plays the piano real nicely; but of course it would be too much trouble to bring Jane Ann’s piano away over here. However, my chum, Helen, plays the violin. She will bring it and help out on the music, I know. And we’d all be glad of an invitation.”

“Why, sure! you come over,” cried Sally, warming up to Ruth’s advances. “I suppose a bunch of the Silver outfit boys will be on hand. Some of ’em are real nice boys – ”

“And that reminds me,” said Ruth, advancing the package of candy. “One of the gentlemen working for Mr. Hicks asked me to hand you this, Miss Dickson. He was very particular that you should get it safely.” She put the candy into the red-haired girl’s hands. “And we certainly will be over – all of us – Saturday evening.”

Before Sally could refuse Ike’s present, or comment upon it at all, Ruth rode away from the schoolhouse.