Читать книгу The Boy Scouts On The Range - Goldfrap John Henry - Страница 6

The next morning before breakfast Rob recounted to his chums the conversation he had overheard the night before. The story of the ghost of the ancient cliff dwellings was, it appeared, no new thing on the Harkness ranch, which accounted for its owner's apathy in regard to it. Successive batches of cow-punchers doing duty in the far pasture at night professed to have seen the grisly object on its nightly rounds, but nobody had ever had the courage to investigate it.

After the morning meal had been dispatched, Mr. Harkness announced that he expected to be busied about the ranch for the morning.

"But, Harry, you take the boys down to the corral," he said, "and have one of the men catch up some horses for them. You boys know best the kind of stock you want, so I'll let you choose them."

The boys thanked him, and a few moments afterward he left the room. A short time later he galloped off to make a round of the different sections of the range and to prosecute inquiries about the renegade Moquis.

The corral was, as was usually the case, full of ponies of all colors and grades of disposition, from mild beasts to fiery, half-broken bronchos. As the boys neared the enclosure, a stout little cowboy in a huge hairy pair of "chaps" approached them, airily swinging a lariat. His eyes opened and shut as rapidly as a loose shutter slat in a breeze. Cowboys have nick-names for everybody. His was of course "Blinky."

"Good mornin', Master Harry. Want some cattle this a. m.?" he inquired.

"Yes, Blinky. Have you got some good ones caught up?"

"Why, yes, you can have White Eye, and what kind of stock does your friends fancy?"

There was a twinkle in Blinky's fidgety optics as he asked this, for the boys, although they had donned regular ranch clothes, still bore about them that mysterious air which marks a "tenderfoot," as if they bore a brand.

"How about you, Rob?" asked Harry, also smiling slightly. "Want a bronc, or something more on the rocking-horse style?"

Now, although Rob could ride fairly well, and both Tubby and Merritt had had some practice on horseback, none of the boys were what might be called rough riders. But something in Blinky's tone and Harry's covert smile aroused all Rob's fighting blood.

"Oh, I want something with some life in it," he said boldly.

"Um-hum! The same will do for me, but not too much life, if you please," chimed in Tubby, somewhat dubiously.

"Anything I don't need to use spurs on," ordered Merritt, following up the general spirit.

"All right, young fellers," said the cow-puncher, opening the corral gate. "Come on in while I catch 'em up for you."

The instant the rawhide began whirling about Blinky's head the ponies evidently realized that something was up, for they began a wild race round and round the corral, heads up and heels lashing out right and left. The three tenderfeet regarded this exhibition with some apprehension, but they were too game to say anything.

"I'll rope my own," said Harry, picking up a lariat which hung coiled over a snubbing post near the gate. The ranch boy stood by the post, leisurely whirling his rawhide and just keeping the loop open till a small bay pony, with a big patch of white round each eye, came plunging by with the rest of the stampede. The lariat suddenly became imbued with life. Faster it whirled and faster, the loop finally sailing through the air gracefully and landing in a rawhide necklace round White Eye's neck.