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 roiled 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 ranchhouse 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 ranchhouse 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," fie 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.