CHAPTER II.
THE LONG TOM RANCH.
Ted and Stella raised such a shout that Carl pulled his horses up justin time to keep them from trying to climb upon the veranda.
With the aid of his searchlight Ted had found the door and entered thehouse, followed by Stella.
In the big, front living room they found a lamp, which they lighted andlooked around.
The house had been left ready for occupancy, and in the great, widefireplace logs were piled high ready to be burned.
In a moment Ted had a fire leaping high up the chimney, then hastenedout to the carriage.
Carl had scrambled down from the seat of the carriage, and was so coldand numb that he couldn't walk, while Mrs. Graham had to be carried intothe house by Ted and placed before the fire to thaw out.
Soon the room was comfortable, and Ted, who had set out on a tour ofinspection, found that the kitchen was well stored with food.
He started a fire, and soon had coffee and bacon cooking.
Outside the storm continued to rage through the night, but all withinwas tight and warm, and Stella and her aunt retired to their comfortablebedrooms. But Ted sat up through the night.
He had considered starting back through the storm to the herd, butthought better of it, for Bud was perfectly capable of doing all thatcould be done with the cattle until daylight came to their rescue.
While daylight was struggling up through the leaden eastern sky the winddied down as suddenly as it had risen, and the snow ceased falling.
Ted had fallen into a doze in a chair in front of the fire, but a straysunbeam coming through a window fell upon his closed eyelids, and heawoke with a start. For a minute he could not think where he was. Thenthe cheery voice of Stella fell upon his ears. Somewhere in the distanceshe was singing, and he sprang to his feet and looked about him.
It came to him that he was at the Long Tom, and he remembered havingleft the Circle S herd out in the blizzard.
This stirred him to action, and he went back to the kitchen with theintention of lighting the fire and getting breakfast.
He stopped in the doorway in astonishment. Stella, with her sleevesrolled to the elbows, was busily engaged at the stove, singing as sheworked.
"Good morning," said Ted. "You beat me to it. Why didn't you wake me upand put me to work?"
"Hello!" said Stella cheerily. "You looked so tired sitting in thatchair that I thought I'd let you sleep. At any rate, cooking breakfastis no work for a boy in a house. Get ready. Breakfast will be on thetable in a minute. What do you think I found in the shed behind thehouse? A mountain sheep already dressed, and hung up for us. The fellowwho left this house for us certainly was a good one. He knew we'd comein hungry, and left everything ready for us."
"That was just like Fred Sturgis. He's one of the best fellows in theworld. He's the owner of the ranch. Young New York fellow. Wanted tospend the winter in the East. That's how I was able to get the ranch.But I'll bet he'll be back here before the snow melts. You couldn't keephim off the range for any length of time."
"He certainly has good taste. The house is almost as nice as the MoonValley house, but nothing is quite as nice as that."
Mrs. Graham and Carl were roused, and they were soon sitting down tochops from a mountain sheep and corn bread which Stella had made; andthey all voted that winter life in Montana promised to be a very jollything.
When Ted went outdoors the whole world was simply a glittering wastewhere the sun shone on, and was reflected back from the vast field ofsnow.
Sultan was in the sheltered corral, and as Ted threw the saddle on hisback he reared and jumped about like a playful kitten.
"Quit your cavorting about, you rascal," said Ted, as Sultan wheeledaway from the saddle with a playful snort, at the same time reachingaround and trying to nip Ted's shoulder with his teeth.
"My, but you're feeling gay this morning," said Ted. "Here, hold still,won't you? How do you suppose I'm ever going to get this saddle on youif you don't stand still?"
But the cold weather and the bright sunshine had filled Sultan withginger, and he was as full of play as a small boy when he wakes up someearly winter morning and sees the ground covered with the first snow,and remembers the sled that has lain in the woodshed all summer.
But at last the saddle was on, and then Ted had his hands full gettinginto it.
"Gee, but you're skittish this morning," said Ted, giving Sultan avigorous slap on the haunch. "But just you wait a few minutes until Iget on you. I'll take some of that out of you."
But when he tried to find the stirrup with his toe, Sultan wheeled awayfrom him with a little kick that was as dainty as that of a professionaldancer.
But at last Ted made a leap and landed safely upon Sultan's back, andgave him a slap with the loose end of his rein. The little horse gave aleap like a kangaroo, and dashed through the gateway of the corral andacross the white prairie, running like a quarter horse.
The herd was nowhere in sight, but in the far distance Ted saw a thinblue stream of smoke rising in the still, frosty air.
He knew it to be the camp fire of McCall, and that breakfast was goingforward at the cow camp in the snow.
Heading Sultan toward it, Ted rushed on through the stimulating air of aNorthern winter, and soon came in sight of the chuck wagon, and severalof the boys standing around a fire.
As he dashed forward he raised the long yell, which was gleefullyanswered, and soon he was at the camp.
This was where he and Stella had started from the night before.
Turning his eyes back in the direction he had come, Ted could see thesmoke rising from the chimney of the ranch house, although the houseitself was hidden behind a swell in the surface of the prairie.
Had he only known it, he might have driven the herd right up to theranch house during the night. As it was, he saw now that he and Stella,with the carriage, had ridden for almost two hours in the night,traveling in a circle, and by the merest chance had stumbled upon theranch house.
"Hello, fellows!" he shouted as he rode up. "Where are the dogies?"
"Oh, to blazes and gone!" exclaimed big Ben, who was trying to thaw outhis boots at the fire.
"Where?" asked Ted anxiously.
"Away off yonder." Ben pointed disconsolately toward the south.
"Are they all right?"
"All right, nothing. They're up to their bellies in snow in a coulee,and won't stir. They're the sickest-looking lot of beef critters youever saw. We've been working with them ever since daylight, then Budsent us along to thaw out and get some chuck into us, and hurry back sothat the other fellows could get limbered up some. Find the house?"
"Yes, accidentally stumbled on to it. Bully place, and the womenfolksare comfortably settled."
"Looks like it," grunted Ben, pointing to the north.
Ted looked in that direction and saw a spotted pony leaping toward them,and above it a dash of scarlet. It was Stella, riding like the wind onMagpie.
"Have any trouble with the critters in the night?" asked Ted.
"Did we? Well, I should howl. After you got under way they began todrift before the wind. We fought them all night, and if we'd let them gothey'd been plumb into Colorado by this time. I don't want any more suchnights in mine."
"That was only a starter, my friend. That was a picnic compared to whatyou may have to go up against before the daisies bloom again."
"Chuck!" yelled McCall, beating on the bottom of a griddle with a bigiron spoon.
The fellows left the fire in a hurry and, squatting in the snow with atin cup full of steaming coffee and a plate heaped with fried bacon andgriddle cakes, were soon too busy to remember their weariness.
Stella had ridden up, her cheeks glowing, and her eyes sparkling withthe frost and the exercise.
"Why didn't you wait for me?" she cried to Ted. "You're a mean thing.Thought you'd leave me behind, but here I am." She made a little face atTed.
"I thought you'd rather stay indoors to-da
y on account of the cold,"stammered Ted.
"Well, change your line of thought. There's going to be nothing to keepme indoors in this country, and don't you forget it. If I've got to stayindoors, I'll go South."
As soon as the boys had finished breakfast they were ready for anotherday's work.
"Come on, fellows," shouted Ted. "Let's hurry to where the critters are,and send the other boys back. Mac, cook up another breakfast for them."
They were in the saddle in a jiffy, and scurrying toward the south asfast as their ponies could carry them.
Ted found the herd bogged in a shallow coulee that was filled to the topwith snow, in which they stood up to their bellies, lowing from fright,hunger, and thirst.
They were packed in a solid mass, and could not get out on the otherside because the wall of the coulee was too steep for them to clamberup, as they might have done had it not been for the deep snow with whichit was drifted full.
As a matter of fact, though, the coulee had saved the herd from driftingmany miles in the night.
But how to get them out was the question that perplexed Bud, and withthe arrival of Ted he thankfully turned the task over to him.
"Hike for the chuck wagon, boys," shouted Ted, as he came up.
"Well, I should smile to ejaculate," said Bud, "we're as hollow an' coldas a rifle bar'l. I'll turn this leetle summer matinee over ter you, myfriend, not wishin' you any harm."
"Go ahead and enjoy yourselves," said Ted. "But as soon as you havefilled up and warmed up come back. As soon as we get the bunch out ofthis hole it will be a snap to get them near the ranch house. If we'donly known it, we could have made it in half an hour more last night."
When Bud had ridden away Ted took stock of the situation, and found thathe had a difficult problem to solve.
Under ordinary circumstances it would have been easy to snake the cattleout of the coulee by roping them around the horns and dragging them outwith the ponies, but it was utterly impossible to do that with a coupleof thousand of them.
While he was looking things over he became aware that Stella had riddenaway. He looked anxiously after her, for he knew her propensity forgetting into trouble when she rode alone. Soon she dropped out of sightbehind a swell in the prairie with a flash in the sunlight of herscarlet jacket.
Ted was still studying the situation, riding up and down the edge of thecoulee, trying to figure out some plan of rescue, and noting the cattlethat were down, and which were rapidly being trampled to death by theother beasts, or being smothered by the snow.
The prospect was not a pleasing one to the young cow boss, for he sawthe profits of the venture fading away hourly.
Suddenly a faint, shrill yell reached his ears, and he wheeled his ponyin the direction from which it came.
Stella's scarlet jacket was coming toward him in a whirlwind of flyingsnow, and he rushed toward her.
What could have happened to her? He looked in vain for whatever waspursuing her, and saw that she was not being followed, but was swingingher arm above her head with a triumphant gesture.
He slowed his pony down, and soon she dashed to his side.
"You fellows are certainly a bright lot of cow-punchers," she exclaimed.
"What's the matter now?" asked Ted gloomily.
"Didn't any of you think of scouting down the coulee?"
"I confess I didn't."
"You ought to be laid off the job for a week."
"Why?"
"You can get those cattle out of that hole in an hour."
"We can! How do you know?"
"The coulee runs out about a mile to the west, and straight to thenorth, up a wide swale, lies the ranch house in full view."
"Stella, you're all right. But the cattle are bogged, and they can'tmove even down the coulee."
"I believe they can."
"How?"
"When the other boys come back from breakfast all of you jump into thecoulee and tramp the snow down as much as you can ahead of the leaders.Then start them up."
"Bully for you, Stella; you're a better cow-puncher than any of us."
"No, I'm not, but because I don't know as much about it I go at it in awoman's way, which is a roundabout way, and nearly always foolish tolook at, but sometimes does the work."
This suggestion had the effect of taking a great load from Ted'sshoulders, for if he did not succeed in getting the herd out beforenight they would freeze solid in their molds of snow, and then he wouldnever get half of them out alive.
Presently Bud and the other boys came winging back from breakfast, andTed told them of the plan for releasing the cattle, at the same timepraising Stella and giving her all the credit for the idea.
"Peevish peppers, but I'm a tenderfoot," grunted Bud. "Why in Sam Hilldidn't I think o' that myself? I reckon I'm gettin' too old fer ther cowbusiness. I ought ter be milkin' cows at some dairy farm."
The boys followed Stella's suggestion, and, leaping into the coulee,wheeled their ponies about until they had a well-beaten road for severalhundred feet toward the west.
Then, cutting out a bunch of about fifty steers, led by a wise oldfellow, the herd leader, whom they called Baldy on account of the spotof white hair between his horns, drove them along the path. Aftergetting the bunch going well, the boys drove them with yells and thelashing of quirts into the deep snow ahead, and would not let them stop.
Another bunch was driven up, and soon there was a smooth road along thebottom of the coulee to the open ground, over which the cattle passed tosafety.
Stella's good common sense had saved the herd.