boys applauded from the veranda. There was at least a dozen of the ranchman’s employes at the home corral just then. Altogether Mr. Hicks paid wages to about sixty punchers and horse wranglers. They were coming and going between the home ranch and the ranges all the time.
The girls from the East gave the Silver Ranch cowboys a nice little concert, and then Jane Ann urged Jib Pottoway to come to the piano. The half-breed was on the veranda in the dusk, with the other fellows, but he needed urging.
“Here, you Jibbeway!” exclaimed Mr. Hicks. “You hike yourself in yere and tickle these ivories a whole lot. These young ladies ain’t snakes; an’ they won’t bite ye.”
The backward puncher was urged on by his mates, too, and finally he came in, stepping through the long window and sliding onto the piano bench that had been deserted by Madge. He was a tall, straight, big-boned young man, with dark, keen face, and the moment Tom Cameron saw him he seized Bob by the shoulder and whispered eagerly:
“I know that fellow! He played fullback with Carlisle when they met Cornell three years ago. Why, he’s an educated man – he must be! And punching cattle out on this ranch!”
“Guess you forget that Theodore Roosevelt punched cattle for a while,” chuckled Bob. “Listen to that fellow play, will you?”
And the Indian could – as Mr. Hicks remarked – “tickle the ivories.” He played by ear, but he played well. Most of the tunes he knew were popular ditties and by and by he warmed the punchers up so that they began to hum their favorite melodies as Jib played them.
“Come on, there, Ike!” said the Indian, suddenly. “Give us that ‘Prayer’ you’re so fond of. Come on, now, Ike!”
Bashful Ike evidently balked a little, but Jib played the accompaniment and the melody through, and finally the foreman of Silver Ranch broke in with a baritone roar and gave them “The Cowboy’s Prayer.” Ike possessed a mellow voice and the boys hummed in chorus in the dusk, and it all sounded fine until suddenly Jib Pottoway broke off with a sudden discordant crash on the piano keys.
“Hel-lo!” exclaimed Bill Hicks, who had lain back in his wicker lounging chair, with his big feet in wool socks on another chair, enjoying all the music. “What’s happened the pinanner, Jib? You busted it? By jings! that cost me six hundred dollars at the Bullhide station.”
But then his voice fell and there was silence both in the room and on the veranda. The sound of galloping hoofs had shut the ranchman up. A pony was approaching on a dead run, and the next moment a long, loud “Ye-ow! ye-ow!” announced the rider’s excitement as something extraordinary.
“Who’s that, Ike?” cried Hicks, leaping from his chair.
“Scrub Weston,” said the foreman as he clumped down the veranda steps.
Jib slipped through the window. Hicks followed him on the jump, and Jane Ann led the exodus of the visitors. There was plainly something of an exciting nature at hand. A pony flashed out of the darkness and slid to a perilous halt right at the steps.
“Hi, Boss!” yelled the cowboy who bestrode the pony. “Fire’s sweeping up from Tintacker way! I bet it’s that Bughouse Johnny the boys have chased two or three times. He’s plumb loco, that feller is – oughtn’t to be left at large. The whole chapparel down that a-way is blazin’ and, if the wind rises, more’n ha’f of your grazin’ll be swept away.”
CHAPTER IV – THE FIRE FIGHT
The guests had followed Mr. Hicks and Jib out of the long window and had heard the cow puncher’s declaration. There was no light in the sky as far as the girls could see – no light of a fire, at least – but there seemed to be a tang of smoke; perhaps the smoke clung to the sweating horse and its rider.
“You got it straight, Scrub Weston?” demanded Bill Hicks. “This ain’t no burn you’re givin’ us?”
“Great piping Peter!” yelled the cowboy on the trembling pony, “it’ll be a burn all right if you fellows don’t git busy. I left Number Three outfit fighting the fire the best they knew; we’ve had to let the cattle drift. I tell ye, Boss, there’s more trouble brewin’ than you kin shake a stick at.”
“‘Nuff said!” roared Hicks. “Get busy, Ike. You fellers saddle and light out with Scrub. Rope you another hawse out o’ the corral, Scrub; you’ve blamed near killed that one.”
“Oh! is it really a prairie fire?” asked Ruth, of Jane Ann. “Can’t we see it?”
“You bet we will,” declared the ranchman’s niece. “Leave it to me. I’ll get the horse-wrangler to hitch up a pair of ponies and we’ll go over there. Wish you girls could ride.”
“Helen rides,” said Ruth, quickly.
“But not our kind of horses, I reckon,” returned Jane Ann, as she started after the cowboys. “But Tom and Bob can have mounts. Come on, boys!”
“We’ll get into trouble, like enough, if we go to this fire,” objected Madge Steele.
“Come on!” said Heavy. “Don’t let’s show the white feather. These folks will think we haven’t any pluck at all. Eastern girls can be just as courageous as Western girls, I believe.”
But all the time Ruth was puzzling over something that the cowboy, Scrub Weston, had said when he gave warning of the fire. He had mentioned Tintacker and suggested that the fire had been set by somebody whom Ruth supposed the cowboys must think was crazy – otherwise she could not explain that expression, “Bughouse Johnny.” These range riders were very rough of speech, but certainly their language was expressive!
This Tintacker Mine in which she was so deeply interested – for Uncle Jabez’s sake – must be very near the ranch. Ruth desired to go to the mine and learn if it was being worked; and she proposed to learn the whole history of the claim and look up the recording of it, as well. Of course, the young man who had gotten Uncle Jabez to invest in the silver mine had shown him deeds and the like; but these papers might have been forged. Ruth was determined to clear up the mystery of the Tintacker Mine before she left Silver Ranch for the East again.
Just now, however, she as well as the other guests of Jane Ann Hicks was excited by the fire on the range. They got jackets, and by the time all the girls were ready Maria’s husband had a pair of half-wild ponies hitched to the buckboard. Bob elected to drive the ponies, and he and the five girls got aboard the vehicle while the restive ponies were held by the Mexican.
Tom and Jane Ann had each saddled a pony. Jane Ann rode astride like a boy, and she was up on a horse that seemed to be just as crazy as he could be. Her friends from the East feared all the time that Jane Ann would be thrown.
“Let ’em go, Jose!” commanded the Silver Ranch girl. “You keep right behind me, Mr. Steele – follow me and Mr. Tom. The trail ain’t good, but I reckon you won’t tip over your crowd if you’re careful.”
The girls on the buckboard screamed at that; But it was too late to expostulate – or back out from going on the trip. The half-wild ponies were off and Bob had all he could do to hold them. Old Bill Hicks and his punchers had swept away into the starlit night some minutes before and were now out of both sight and hearing. As the party of young folk got out of the coulie, riding over the ridge, they saw a dull glow far down on the western horizon.
“The fire!” cried Ruth, pointing.
“That’s what it is,”
