The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians Read online

  The fires were made, grub cooked and as night settled down all prepared for much-needed rest.

  "Well, another day or two and we ought to catch up to 'em," observed

  Bud, as he prepared to turn in with the others.

  "That's right," agreed Yellin' Kid. "They can't have traveled any faster than we did, and we took a shorter trail."

  The night passed without any incidents of moment, though Nort nearly gave a needless alarm when he sprang up, declaring that he was being "roped" in the darkness.

  But a light revealed that only a harmless snake was crawling over his neck, an unpleasant enough sensation as you doubtless will admit, but one not necessarily disastrous.

  "Burr-r-r-r!" shuddered Nort, when he saw that it was a snake, and not a lariat that had rasped him. "I'd almost rather it was a lasso! I hate snakes!"

  Then sleep was resumed.

  The gray, cold and somewhat cheerless dawn was breaking over the temporary camp when, as Buck Tooth toddled over to replenish the fire for breakfast, there came sharp cracks of rifles from the surrounding rocks and scrub underbrush, and the old Indian fell.

  "Yaquis!" yelled Nort, springing for his gun.

  "Ambushed!" cried Bud.

  "Steady, everybody!" shouted Yellin' Kid and his strenuous voice, rumbling and echoing through the silent morning, seemed to calm them all. "Get down on your faces! Drop!" commanded the cowboy, while puffs of smoke, flashes of fire and nerve-racking reports told that the attack from ambush was in some force.

  CHAPTER XI

  THE SURPRISE

  Camp had been made by the boy ranchers and their friends in a little glade, amid rocks and stunted brush, a natural fortification as it were, with only one side open. And it was from this one side that the shots from the ambushers were pouring in.

  Though Yellin' Kid and Snake Purdee had said nothing to the boys about it, the place had been purposely selected with an eye to its possible defense.

  "You can't tell what will happen in this country," Snake had said to Yellin' Kid, and the latter agreed, lowering his voice, for once at least, so Bud and his cousins could not hear.

  "We've got to be on our guard," Snake had added, and so, while Bud, Nort and Dick would have been willing to slump down almost anywhere, and camp as soon as they found water, this secluded site was selected.

  The wisdom of this was now apparent, since, had there been no natural shelter available, several casualties might have resulted from the opening of a fusillade at dawn.

  As it was, however, so quickly had the cowboys (and with them I now include Buck Tooth) taken to shelter, that, aside from a few minor wounds on the part of two or three, no one was badly hit.

  "What's it all about?" called Bud from behind his sheltering stone to Snake. Bud's gun was hot, for he had emptied the magazine, and with little effect, as was afterward learned.

  "Who's attacking us?" added Nort. He, as had Dick, had also fired rapidly and with equal non-effect.

  "Search me," succinctly replied Snake. "All I know is that there's somebody out there anxious to fill us full of lead—more anxious than I am to be filled," he added grimly. "Lay low everybody!" he shouted, as another burst of firing succeeded the calm that had followed the first attack.

  Bullets "zinged" in amid the rocks, striking the hard stone with vicious "pings!" and leaving grim, gray marks on the boulders; marks that would have brought spots of vital redness had they found a human target.

  Bud refilled the magazine of his gun, and started a return fire when Snake threw a piece of stone that fell near the boy rancher, thus attracting his attention. There was little use in shouting above the din. A voice could be heard only in the lulls of shooting.

  "What's the matter?" yelled Bud, scarcely making himself heard.

  Snake motioned for him to cease firing, an example followed by Nort and

  Dick. As for the older cowboys they had wisely witheld their fire.

  Explanation was made by Snake a moment later when he crawled over to Bud, keeping well hidden amid the rocks, and speaking in his ear, though yelling at the top of his voice as he did so, said:

  "What's the use of shootin' when you can't see your mark? Save your powder and lead!"

  It was good advice. Bud could not help but laugh at the conclusion of Snake's advice. For the cowboy had started to give it in tones that Yellin' Kid might have been proud to own. This was necessary because those in ambush were firing in full force it seemed. But they stopped suddenly, in the midst of Snake's remarks, so that the end of the cowboy's advice fell amid a silence, and, being delivered at full power must have been heard by the enemy.

  Bud's laughter at this little incident was echoed by the others, and, for the moment, relieved the grim tension. But its grip tightened on all of them a moment later, as a bullet, viciously "zinging" its way amid the rocks, clipped a little from the lobe of the ear of one of the cowboys.

  He uttered an exclamation, partly of disgust at his own carelessness in exposing himself, and Snake yelled:

  "I told you to keep down, you tenderfoot!"

  It was the harshest expression that could have been used.

  Following that single shot, after the fusillade that had been in play during Snake's advice to Bud, silence fell, and Snake and Yellin' Kid at once began to make preparations for what might be a prolonged fight. The two veteran cowboys in virtual charge of the relief expedition managed to crawl together to the shelter of a big rock, and there held a consultation, the while cautioning the others to remain behind the protection of boulders they had picked out after the first rush.

  Fortunately the horses had all been well picketed in a glade back of the rocky fastness in which our friends had made fires and slept for the night, so the outfit from Diamond X was between its steeds and the enemy. The horses, though at first startled by the firing, had soon settled down to a quiet cropping of such scanty herbage as grew in that desolate place. The animals were accustomed to the noise of guns, which formed an important part of every roundup, and, fortunately none had strayed.

  I say fortunately with good reason, for in that wild country a man without a horse was worse off than one without a country, all patriotic reasons aside, of course. It was impossible for a man on foot to successfully make his way from water hole to water hole, and an automobile would have been worse than useless. Therefore it was with a feeling of thankfulness that Bud and his friends realized the horses were safe—at least for the time being.

  "Fellows, listen to me," Snake said in a low, clear voice, after he and the Kid had talked in half whispers for a time. "We've got to do something, and maybe prepare for quite a fight. Now those whose names I call come with me. The others stay here with the Kid."

  Thereupon Snake named half the force, including in it the three boy ranchers, to their great delight. For they rightly guessed this was to be a skirmish party, to sally out and see who were the attackers—perhaps to wipe them out.

  "Crawl over to the left and wait for me," went on Snake. "Don't move until you can have shelter all the way. The firing's coming from only one direction as yet—guard against that. Get together and wait for me."

  Sharp are the wits of those who live in the west, especially in the cattle country where snap judgment is often needed. Thus it took but a moment for Snake's plan to make itself plain to Bud and the others.

  One by one they crawled, or ran half crouched, from their original places of safety to the angle where a great rock, jutting out from the side of the glen in which they had camped, offered shelter for all. There they stood, with ready guns, waiting for the next move in the grim game.

  Snake had remained in consultation with Yellin' Kid until now, and then, seeing his force waiting for him, the veteran cowboy made a dash to join them.

  I call it a dash, but Snake was not foolhardy, and the advice he gave he took himself. Advantaging himself of every natural cover, the leader of the second party dodged this way and that, stooping over half double, until he was withi
n ten feet of the shelter. Then since along the route where he came from, there was an open, unprotected space, he tried to cross this in two jumps.

  He succeeded, but as he landed, and half fell amid his comrades, a gun barked, somewhere out in the ambush, and by the convulsive movement of his body Snake gave evidence of having been hit.

  "Are you hurt?" cried Bud, as he caught the reeling cowboy.

  "Guess not—much!" grunted Snake, but his voice was labored.

  "Where was it?" snapped out one of the cowboys. "Let's have a look."

  "Here!" Snake placed his hand over his heart. The boy ranchers gasped—they knew what it meant to lose one of their leaders at a time like this.

  In an instant Snake's coat was flung open, and his shirt half torn to expose his chest. And then there fell out, from next his skin on which it had made an ugly bruise, a partly flattened bullet.

  "Whew!" whistled Nort.

  "Close call, that!" added Dick.

  "Doggone!" voiced Snake, as he reached his hand to the inside pocket of his vest. "They spilled half of it!"

  "What?" asked Bud, relief showing itself in his voice.

  "My tobacco!" answered Snake. "I had some packed away there to keep it moist—some new kind of plug chewin' I got last week. Doggoned if they ain't put a bullet clean through it!"

  "And lucky for you they did," grunted Tar Soap Mullin, who had earned this name from the kind of lather he used in shampooing himself every Saturday night. "If that bullet hadn't happened to hit your plug it would have plugged you."

  And this was evident when Snake took out the tobacco in question. The lead missile had struck the hard and pressed cake of tobacco, striking a tin tag fastened to it, and thus the force of the bullet had been neutralized, giving Snake no more than a severe shock and bruise.

  "Well, it might have been worse," the cowboy grimly said, as he tucked back his shirt, and put the tobacco in another pocket. "Now we got to get busy! This is getting serious!" Bud and his chums thought he might have said it was serious from the start, as indeed it was.

  "What I picked you fellows out for," went on Snake, "is to take a sort of scurry out there and see who's doin' all this shootin'." He clipped letters off his words in his haste. "We're goin' out there an' see if we can take 'em in the rear, while Yellin' Kid holds their attention in front."

  "Do you reckon they're Yaquis?" asked Tar Soap.

  "Might be, then ag'in might not. If they aren't I don't see why in the name of all the rattlers of Forked Rover [Transcriber's note: River?] they're pickin' on us."

  The method of procedure was simple and quickly agreed upon. Snake was to lead the boy ranchers and his half of the party, by as safe and devious a route as possible, out of the natural fort, to try and take the enemy in the rear. If they could be placed between two fires—that of Snake's party and of Yellin' Kid's—a surrender might be compelled.

  "And don't take too many chances," advised Snake, as the sally forth was started. "Watch yourselves."

  They all knew enough to do this.

  "When do we start?" asked Bud in a low voice, as Snake seemed to be delaying for some reason.

  "Soon as the Kid and his lads start firing," was the answer. "They're to hold the Indians' attention in front while we come at 'em from the flank and rear. Get ready—it may come at any moment now!"

  It did, a second or two later—the signal. Amid a burst of shots from Yellin' Kid and his force, Snake led the way with his men, all of them crouching down to keep as much as possible behind the rocks.

  "Don't shoot until you see something to shoot at," Snake had ordered.

  "Save your lead."

  Bud, Nort and Dick were together, leaping, crawling, crouching and stumbling. Suddenly Dick, who had gone a little ahead of his two chums, looked through an opening of the rocks. What he saw caused him to gasp in surprise, and as he pointed he cried:

  "Del Pinzo! Del Pinzo and his crowd! It isn't the Yaquis at all! It's

  Del Pinzo!"

  CHAPTER XII

  FORWARD AGAIN

  Time was when the mention of Del Pinzo's name would have brought forth a yell of anger from the cowboys of Diamond X ranch. He was an enemy at once to be feared and loathed, for he did not fight fair, and he was of the detested, half-breed Mexican type.

  But now, when the cry of Dick apprised the others of the presence of this ruthless cattle rustler, thief and all-around bad man, there was no answering shout. One reason for this was that caution was necessary, so that the presence of the skirmishing party be not disclosed, and another was that the information that it was Del Pinzo, and presumably his gang who had ambushed our friends, came as a great surprise.

  "Del Pinzo?" half gasped Snake Purdee as he ran to Dick's side.

  "Yes, there he is! See!"

  The boy rancher pointed to a figure standing near a stunted bush.

  There was no doubt about it—Del Pinzo it was, and at his usual business, firing on some one, for he had a rifle raised, in the act of taking aim.

  "I'll spoil one shot for him, anyhow," announced Snake.

  He whipped out his .45, there was a sharp crack, and the gun of the Mexican half breed dropped to the ground, discharging as it fell, but harmlessly. And then the outlaw, with a yell of rage, gripped his right hand in his left. For Snake had fired at the man's trigger member, thus disabling him for the time.

  And, as he turned, and beheld who had thus "winged" him, Del Pinzo gave another cry—as filled with surprise as had been the exclamation of Dick on beholding the Mexican renegade who, it was supposed, was safely locked up in penalty for many crimes.

  "That your bunch down there?" called Del Pinzo to Snake, and he waved his uninjured hand toward the camp amid the rocks.

  "You said something, Del Pinzo," grimly answered the cowboy. "What you all up to now? Be careful—I have you covered!" he warned. "And if your men want to bask in the sweet sunshine of your presence from now on, tell 'em to chuck down their guns. Also, up with your hands!"

  There was a stinging menace in the tones that Del Pinzo knew well enough to obey. His hands, one dripping blood, were raised over his head, and he called something in Spanish to his followers, as yet unseen by the boy ranchers and their friends.

  Instantly the scattered firing on the part of the outlaws ceased, and, catching this air of silence, Yellin' Kid gave an order that silenced his guns.

  "Now, what's the game?" demanded Snake, holding the whip hand as it were. "What do you mean by firing on us?"

  "I did not know it was you," declared the half breed. "We set out to look for the Yaquis—"

  "The Yaquis?" interrupted Snake.

  "Sure! They have risen, it is said, and I and my men are on their trail!"

  This was news indeed—another surprise, in fact. That Del Pinzo was speaking the truth could scarcely be believed. In the first place this was almost an unknown accomplishment with him, and in the second place the Yaquis were of his own kind—reckless outlaws who would stop at nothing to get booty, either in cattle or money. It was more likely that Del Pinzo and his gang were seeking an opportunity to join forces with the band of up-rising Yaquis.

  "Oh, you're after the Yaquis; are you!" asked Snake.

  "Sure, senor Purdee!" Del Pinzo spoke fairly good English, and he could be polite when it suited him. "We saw that some one was encamped in the rocks, and I took them for the Yaquis. So we opened fire—it is with sadness that I know now it was your friends whom I shot at."

  "Um! Maybe so—maybe not," grimly retorted the cowboy. "Anyhow it's us, and it seems to be you. I thought you were somewhere else," he added referring to the fact that Del Pinzo had been arrested. It was not the first time the half breed had been in the toils of the law, following cattle raids on Diamond X or other ranches.

  In the previous books of this series I have related some of Del Pinzo's outrages. He was concerned in the water fight that so nearly ended disastrously for Bud and his cousins.

  "Oh, I get out!" said Del Pi
nzo, easily, and with a shrug of his shoulders which might mean that coming forth from a jail was nothing in his life.

  "So I see," observed Snake with a grin. "By hook or crook, I reckon. Well, I don't know as we have anything against you and your bunch just at present. If you're after the Yaquis you're on the same errand as us. But, if you'll excuse me sayin' so, I'd rather travel my own road."

  This was a delicate hint to which Del Pinzo was not oblivious.

  "Surely, senor," he answered, grinning. "You go your way and I go mine. Only let the fighting cease. As you say—there is nothing against me—now."

  "Which isn't saying that there won't be, or hasn't been," spoke Snake. "File out your men—without guns, you understand!" he snapped. "And then you can hit your own trail. Looks like there'd been a mistake all round. We thought you the Yaquis."

  "Oh, Senor Purdee!" There was false injury in the tones.

  "And I'm not so sure but what it will turn out that way in the end," added the cowboy grimly. "However, we'll give the benefit of the doubt for the time being. File out!"

  Del Pinzo gave an order, and his band of disreputable half breeds like himself, including several Indians, though not of the Yaquis tribe, marched out, hands above their heads, while Snake and his men, the boy ranchers in the van, watched.

  "Is that all?" asked Snake, when the outlaws stood in a row amid the rocks. He was taking no chances on leaving a hidden, lurking foe to fire behind their backs.

  "All, Senor Purdee. Shall we go?"

  "When I tell you to, yes. Now, Del Pinzo, you know I don't trust you, and there's no use soft soaping the situation. I wouldn't trust you with a Mexican dollar. So here's what you've got to do.

  "March over there," and he indicated a bunch of scrub about half a mile away. "Stay there until we get breakfast and are on our way. When we're far enough off I'll fire a shot, and that'll mean you can come over here again, get your horses and guns, and take after the Yaquis, if it suits you."