CHAPTER XV – BRONCHO-BUSTING
IT WAS the morning following the big entertainment at the Shields ranch when Roderick and two other cowboy companions began the work of breaking some outlaw horses to the saddle. The corral where they were confined was a quarter of a mile away from the bunk house.
Grant Jones had remained overnight, ostensibly to pay Roderick a visit during the succeeding day. He was still sound asleep when Roderick arose at an early hour and started for the corral. Whitley Adams had also been detained at the ranch house as a guest. He had invited himself to the broncho-busting spectacle, and was waiting on the veranda for Roderick as the latter strolled by.
An unbroken horse may or may not be an outlaw. If he takes kindly to the bridle and saddle and, after the first flush of scared excitement is over with, settles down and becomes bridle-wise then he is not an outlaw. On the other hand when put to the test if he begins to rear up – thump down on his forefeet – buck and twist like a corkscrew and continues jumping sideways and up and down, bucking and rearing until possibly he falls over backward, endangering the life of his rider and continues in this ungovernable fashion until finally he is given up as unbreakable, why, then the horse is an outlaw. He feels that he has conquered man, and the next attempt to break him to the saddle will be fraught with still greater viciousness.
Bull-dogging a wild Texas steer is nothing compared with the skill necessary to conquer an outlaw pony.
Nearly all cowboy riders, take to broncho-busting naturally and good-naturedly, and they usually find an especial delight in assuring the Easterner that they have never found anything that wears hair they cannot ride. Of course, this is more or less of a cowboy expression and possibly borders on vanity. However, as a class, they are not usually inclined to boast.
Very excellent progress had been made in the work of breaking the bronchos to the saddle. It was along about eleven o’clock when Roderick had just made his last mount upon what seemed to be one of the most docile ponies in the corral. He was a three-year-old and had been given the name of Firefly. The wranglers or helpers had no sooner loosened the blindfold than Roderick realized he was on the hurricane deck of a pony that would probably give him trouble. When Firefly felt the weight of Roderick upon his back, apparently he was stunned to such an extent that he was filled with indecision as to what he should do and began trembling and settling as if he might go to his knees. Roderick touched his flank with a sharp spur and then, with all the suddenness of a flash of lightning from a clear sky, rider and horse became the agitated center of a whirling cloud of dust. The horse seemingly would stop just long enough in his corkscrew whirls to jump high in the air and light on his forefeet with his head nearly on the ground and then with instantaneous quickness rear almost upright Whitley Adams was terribly scared at the scene. The struggle lasted perhaps a couple of minutes, and then Roderick was whirled over the head of the pony and with a shrill neigh Firefly dashed across the corral and leaping broke through a six foot fence and galloped away over the open prairie. The two wranglers and Whitley hastened to Roderick’s side. He had been stunned but only temporarily and not seriously injured, as it proved.
“Oh, that’s all right,” he said presently as he rubbed his eyes.
“Are you hurt?” Whitley inquired. Roderick slowly rose to his feet with Whitley’s assistance and stretching himself looked about as if a bit dazed. “No, no,” he replied, “I am not hurt but that infernal horse has my riding saddle.”
“You had better learn to ride a rocking horse before trying to ride an outlaw, Warfield,” said Scotty Meisch, one of the new cowpunchers, sneeringly.
Roderick whirled on him. “I’ll take you on for a contest most any day, if you think you are so good and I am so poor as all that,” he said. “Come on, what do you say?”
“Well, I ride in the Frontier Day’s celebration that comes on in July at our local fair,” the cowboy said. “Guess if you want to ride in a real contest with me you’d better enter your name and we’ll see how long you last.”
“Very well, I’ll just do that for once and show you a little something about real roughriding,” said Roderick; “and Firefly will be one of the outlaws.”
Turning he limped off towards the bunk house with Whitley.
Whitley was greatly relieved that Roderick, although he had wrenched the tendons of his leg, had no broken bones. A couple of other cowboys mounted their ponies, and with lariats started off across the prairie to capture the outlaw and bring back the saddle. Whitley was assured that they were breaking horses all the time and now and then the boys got hold of an outlaw but no one was ever very seriously injured.
Reaching the lounging room of the bunk house, they learned that Grant was up and dressed. He had evidently gone up to the ranch house and at that very moment was doubtless basking in the smiles of Miss Dorothy.
The college chums, pipes alight, soon got to talking of old times.
“By the way,” remarked Whitley between puffs, “last month I was back at the class reunion at Galesburg and called on Stella Rain.”
Roderick reddened and Whitley went blandly on: “Mighty fine girl – I mean Stella. Finest college widow ever. I did not know you were the lucky dog, though?”
“What do you mean by my being the lucky dog?”
“Oh, you were always smitten in that quarter – everyone knew that. And now those tell-tale flushes on your face, together with what Stella said, makes it all clear. Congratulations, old man,” said Whitley, laughing good-naturedly at Roderick’s discomfiture.
As their hands met, Roderick said: “I don’t know, old chap, whether congratulations are in order or not. She don’t write as often as she used to. It don’t argue very well for me.”
“Man alive,” said Whitley, “what do you want with a college widow or a battalion of college widows when you are among such girls as you have out here? Great Scott, don’t you realize that these girls are the greatest ever? Grant Jones shows his good sense; he seems to have roped Miss Dorothy for sure. At first I thought I had your measure last night, when you were talking to Miss Barbara Shields – for the moment I had forgotten about Stella. Then you switched off and cut me out with the fair singer. Say, if somebody don’t capture Miss Gail Holden – ”
He paused, puffed awhile, then resumed meditatively: “Why, old man, down in Keokuk Gail Holden wouldn’t last a month. Someone would pick her up in a jiffy.”
“Provided,” said Roderick, and looked steadily at Whitley.
“Oh, yes, of course, provided he could win her.”
“These western girls, I judge,” said Roderick slowly – “understand I am not speaking from experience – are pretty hard to win. There is a freedom in the very atmosphere of the West that thrills a fellow’s nerves and suggests the widest sort of independence. And our range girls are pronouncedly independent, unless I have them sized up wrong. Tell me,” he continued, “how you feel about Miss Holden?”
“Oh,” replied Whitley, “I knew ahead that she was a stunning girl, and after that first waltz I felt withered all in a heap. But when I saw and heard you singing together at the piano, I realized what was bound to come. Oh, you needn’t blush so furiously. You’ve got to forget a certain party down at Galesburg. As for me, I’ve got to fly at humbler game. Guess I’ll have another look around.”
He laughed somewhat wistfully, as he rose and knocked the ashes from the bowl of his pipe.
Roderick had not interrupted; he was becoming accustomed to others deciding for him his matrimonial affairs. He was musing over the complications that seemed to be crowding into his life.
“You see I retire from the contest,” Whitley went on, his smile broadening, “and I hope you’ll recognize the devoted loyalty of a friend. But now those Shields girls – one or other of them – both are equally charming.”
“You can’t cut Grant Jones out,” interrupted Roderick firmly. “Remember, next to yourself, he’s my dearest friend.”
“Oh, well, there’s Miss Barbara left. Now don’t you think I would be quite irresistible as compared with either of those lawyer fellows?” He drew himself up admiringly.
“You might be liable to get your hide shot full of holes,” replied Roderick.
“What do you mean?”
But Roderick did not explain his enigmatic utterance.
“I think I’ll have a lay-down,” he said, “and rest my stiff bones.” He got up; he said nothing to Whitley, but the bruised leg pained him considerably.
“All right,” replied Whitley gaily. “Then I’ll do a little further reconnoitering up at the ranch house. So long.”
Warfield was glad to be alone. Apart from the pain he was suffering, he wanted to think things over. He was not blind to the truth that Gail Holden had brought a new interest into his life. Yet he was half saddened by the thought that almost a month had gone by without a letter from Stella Rain. Then Whitley’s coming had brought back memories of Uncle Allen, Aunt Lois, and the old days at Keokuk. He was feeling very homesick – utterly tired of the rough cow-punching existence he had been leading for over six months.
CHAPTER XVI – THE MYSTERIOUS TOILERS OF THE NIGHT
IN A day or two the excitement over the great evening party at the Shields ranch had passed and the humdrum duties of everyday life had been resumed. Whitley Adams had completed his business at Encampment and taken his departure with the solemnly renewed promise to Roderick that for the present the latter’s whereabouts would not be disclosed to the good folks at Keokuk although their anxiety as to his safety and good health would be relieved. Grant Jones had torn himself away from his beloved to resume his eternal – and as he felt at the moment infernal – task of getting out the next issue of his weekly newspaper. Gail Holden had ridden off over the foothills, the Shields sisters had returned to their domestic duties, and all the other beauties of the ballroom had scattered far and wide like thistledown in a breeze. The cowboys had reverted to chaps and sombreros, dress clothes had been stowed away with moth balls to keep them company, and the language of superlative politeness had lapsed back into the terser vernacular of the stock corral. Roderick was pretty well alone all day in the bunk house, nursing the stiff leg that had resulted from the broncho-busting episode.
Between embrocations he was doing a little figuring and stock-taking of ways and means. During his six months on the ranch most of his salary had been saved. The accumulated amount would enable him to clear off one-half of his remaining indebtedness in New York and leave him a matter of a hundred dollars for some prospecting on his own account during the summer months among the hills. But he would stay by his job for yet another month or two, because, although the words had been spoken in the heat of the moment, he had pledged himself to meet the cowboy Scotty Meisch in the riding contest at the Frontier Day’s celebration. Yes, he would stick to that promise, he mused as he rubbed in the liniment Gail Holden, when she had come to bid him good-by and express her condolence over his accident, had announced her own intention of entering for the lariat throwing competition, but he would never have admitted to himself that the chance of meeting her again in such circumstances, the chance of restoring his prestige as a broncho-buster before her very eyes, had the slightest thing to do with his resolve to delay his start in systematic quest of the lost mine.
Meanwhile Buell Hampton seemed to have withdrawn himself from the world. During the two weeks that had intervened between the invitation and the dance, he had not called at the ranch. Nor did he come now during the weeks that followed, and one evening when Grant Jones paid a visit to the Major’s home he found the door locked. Grant surveyed with both surprise and curiosity the addition that had been made to the building. It was a solid structure of logs, showing neither door nor window to the outside, and evidently was only reached through the big living room.
He reported the matter to Roderick, but the latter, his stiff leg now all right again, was too busy among the cattle on the ranges to bother about other things.
But Buell Hampton all this time had been very active indeed. During the winter months he had thought out his plans. Somehow he had come to look upon the hidden valley with its storehouse of golden wealth as a sacred place not to be trespassed on by the common human drove. Just so soon as the melting snows rendered the journey practicable, he had returned all alone to the sequestered nook nested in the mountains. He had discovered that quite a little herd of deer had found shelter and subsistence there during the months of winter. As he came among them, they had shown, themselves quite tame and fearless; three or four does had nibbled the fresh spring grass almost at his very feet as he had sat on the porphyry dyke, enjoying the beautiful scene, alone in his little kingdom, with only these gentle creatures and the twittering birds for companions.
And there and then Buell Hampton had resolved that he would not desecrate this sanctuary of nature – that he would not bring in the brutal eager throng of gold seekers, changing the lovely little valley into a scene of sordid greed and ugliness, its wild flowers crushed underfoot, its pellucid stream turned to sludge, its rightful inhabitants, the gentle-eyed deer, butchered for riotous gluttony. No, never! He would take the rich God-given gift of gold that was his, gratefully and for the ulterior purpose of spreading human happiness. But all else he would leave undisturbed.
The gold-bearing porphyry dyke stretching across the narrow valley was decomposed; it required no drilling nor blasting; its bulk could easily be broken by aid of sledge hammer and crowbar. Two or three men working steadily for two or three months could remove the entire dyke as it lay visible between mountain rock wall and mountain rock wall, and taking the assay value of the ore as already ascertained, from this operation alone there was wealth for all interested beyond the dreams of avarice. Buell Hampton debated the issues all through that afternoon of solitude spent in the little canyon. And when he regained his home he had arrived at a fixed resolution. He would win the treasure but he would save the valley – he would keep it a hidden valley still.
Next evening he had Tom Sun, Boney Earnest and Jim Rankin all assembled in secret conclave. While the aid of Grant Jones and Roderick Warfield would be called in later on, for the present their services would not be required. So for the present likewise there would be nothing more said to them – the fewer in the “know” the safer for all concerned.
It was agreed that Tom Sun, Jim Rankin and the Major would bring out the ore. Jim was to hire a substitute to drive his stage, while Tom Sun would temporarily hand over the care of his flocks to his manager and herders. Boney Earnest could not leave his work at the smelter – his duties there were so responsible that any sudden withdrawal might have stopped operations entirely and so caused the publicity all were anxious to avoid. But as he did not go to the plant on Sundays, his active help would be available each Saturday night. Thus the plans were laid.
But although Buell Hampton had allied himself with these helpers in his work and participants in the spoil, he yet guarded from them the exact locality of his find. All this was strictly in accordance with goldmining usage among the mountains of Wyoming, so the Major offered no apology for his precautions, his associates asked for or expected none. Each man agreed that he would go blindfolded to the spot where the rich ore was to be broken and packed for removal.
Thus had it come about that, while Buell Hampton seemed to have disappeared from the world, all the while he was very busy indeed, and great things were in progress. Actual work had commenced some days before the dance at the Shields’ home, and it continued steadily in the following routine.
The Major, Tom Sun and Jim Rankin passed most of the day sleeping. At night after dark, they would sally forth into the hills, mounted on three horses with three pack burros. A few miles away from Encampment the Major would blindfold his two assistants, and then they would proceed in silence. When they arrived near Spirit Falls the horses and burros would be tethered and Major Hampton would lead the way down the embankment to the river’s bank, then turn to the left, while Tom Sun, blindfolded, extended one hand on Buell Hampton’s shoulder and still behind was Jim Rankin with his hand extended on Tom Sun’s shoulder. Thus they would make their way to a point back of the waterfall, and then some considerable distance into the mountain cavern where the blindfolds were removed. With an electric torch the Major lighted the way through the grotto into the open valley.
A little farther on was the dyke of porphyry, quartz and gold. Here the sacks would be filled with the rich ore – their loads all that each man could carry. Footsteps were then retraced with the same precautions as before.
Placing the ore sacks on the backs of their burros, the night riders would climb into their saddles and slowly start out on the return journey, the Major driving the burros ahead along a mountain path, while Tom Sun and Jim Rankin’s horses followed. After they had gone on for a few miles Major Hampton would shout back to his assistants to remove the blindfolds, and thus they would return to the town of Encampment in the gray dawn of morning, unloading their burros at the door of Major Hampton’s house. Jim Rankin would take charge of the stock and put them in a stable and corral he had prepared down near the banks of the Platte River just over the hill. Tom Sun would show his early training by preparing a breakfast of ham and eggs and steaming coffee while the Major was placing the ore in one hundred pound sacks and carrying them back into the blockade addition he had built to his home. He would then lock the heavy door connecting the storehouse with the living room.
Usually the breakfast was ready by the time the Major had finished his part of the work and Jim Rankin had returned. After the morning meal and a smoke, these three mysterious workers of the night would lie down to sleep, only to repeat the trip the following evening. Each Saturday night, as has been explained, Boney Earnest was added to the party, as well as an extra horse and burro.
Buell Hampton estimated that each burro was bringing out one hundred pounds nightly, or about three hundred pounds every trip for the three burros, with an extra hundred pounds on Saturday night. If this ore yielded $114.00 per pound, the assay value already paid him, or call it $100.00, it meant that he was adding to his storehouse of treasure about $220,000.00 as the result of each week’s labors. Thus in three months’ time there would be not far short of $3,000, -000.00 worth of high grade gold ores accumulated. If reduced to tons this would make nearly a full carload when the time came for moving the vast wealth to the railroad.
One night in the midst of these operations, when Jim Rankin and Tom Sun supposed they were on the point of starting on the usual trip into the hidden valley, Buell Hampton filled his pipe for an extra smoke and invited his two faithful friends to do likewise. “We are not going tonight,” said he. “We will have a rest and hold a conference.”
“Good,” said Jim Rankin. “Speakin’ wide open like, by gunnies, my old bones are gettin’ to be pretty dangnation sore.”
“Too bad about you,” said Tom Sun. “Too bad that you aren’t as young as I am, Jim.”
“Young, the devil,” returned Jim. “I’m prognosticatin’ I have pints about me that’d loco you any time good and plenty. ‘Sides you know you are seven years older than me. Gosh ‘lmighty, Tom, you an’ me have been together ever since we struck this here country mor’n forty years ago.”
Tom laughed and the Major laughed.
It was arranged that when the carload was ready Jim Rankin was to rig up three four-horse teams and Grant Jones and Roderick Warfield would be called on to accompany the whole outfit to Walcott, the nearest town on the Union Pacific, where a car would be engaged in advance for the shipment of the ore to one of the big smelters at Denver. The strictest secrecy would be kept even then, for reasons of safety as well as to preserve the privacy desired by Buell Hampton. So they would load up the wagons at night and start for the railroad about three o’clock in the morning.
Thus as they smoked and yawned during their night of rest the three men discussed and decided every detail of these future plans.