CHAPTER XVII--A MYSTERY
Chet Havens had been an apt pupil of old Rafe Peters, the hunter who wasnow mine foreman at the Silent Sue; nor had he missed much that had beentold him by other plainsmen. Trailing and hunting was a hobby with theboy, and each vacation for several years past he had spent the most ofhis time on hunting trips.
With Digby Fordham he had taken many short trips around Silver Run; butthey had seldom encountered big game or gone many miles from their home.This trip to Grub Stake was by far the longest the chums had ever takenalone.
It was Chet's trained eye that discovered the fact that a marauder otherthan the wolves had been at their camp. Had it been left to Dig, who wasnot observant, the presence of any other enemy than that which hadannoyed them in the evening probably would never have been discovered.
"Could it have been those Indians, Chet?" asked Dig, as his chum bent toexamine the ground closely.
"What Indians?"
"John Peep's dog soldiers."
"Nonsense! Those boys wouldn't play us such a trick. Nor did they followus."
"Huh! Didn't know that anybody else was following us," said Dig.
"Perhaps this fellow wasn't on our trail. Maybe he stumbled on thiscamp. The fire--or the wolves themselves--might have drawn him."
Chet was thinking hard, however. At once, when he had discovered thefootprint which proclaimed a white marauder, he remembered what Amoshee,the lame Cheyenne boy, had told him.
There was a strange man who was interested in the old Crayton mine andtherefore was interested in this trip to Grub Stake. This stranger hadjoined forces with the discharged Tony Traddles. Chet had heard Tonyhimself threaten Mr. Havens and declare he would "get square" with hisformer employer.
Chet looked at the print of the large boot in the soft soil. TonyTraddles might stand in boots like that. And if Tony was here, the manwho was trying to get hold of the old Crayton mine was very likely here,too.
The condition looked serious to Chet Havens. He did not want to sayanything yet to his chum; but he did propose to keep a sharp watchthereafter.
He was desirous, too, of learning all he could about the midnightmarauder. If the mysterious person had stolen only some of the deermeat, why had he taken it?
And if he had come as near the camp as this, why hadn't he come nearer?
"With both of us sound asleep," thought Chet, with disgust, "they mighthave come in and taken anything they liked. It puzzles me!"
He placed his hand upon the bosom of his shirt and could feel the stiffpacket of papers he carried in its accustomed place. His apprehensionwas immediately relieved.
"Pshaw!" Chet muttered. "This might not have been Tony or that otherfellow at all. Just some tramp or the like on the trail, who wasattracted to our camp. Probably needed meat and helped himself.
"But it was funny he didn't wait till daylight and come and ask for it."
While he was turning these thoughts over in his mind he was movingthrough the thicket, turning aside bushes, looking under bunches ofgrass, peering here and there, to trace the tracks of the stranger.
And they were easy to follow--even for a youthful trailer like ChetHavens. A spoor made in the night must be less carefully laid down thana track by daylight. Not much chance to hide footprints while stumblingthrough the dark.
Chet saw how the stranger had come into the thicket, and how he hadleft. He had not gone near the camp and the place where the sleepingboys lay. Chet was so sure of this that he did not attempt to examinevery closely the camp itself.
He was sure, however, the marauder had robbed them of the bulk of theirmeat. The in trace and the out trace led directly up the slope from thebrook beside which they were encamped, to the trail they were followingto Grub Stake.
There, as near as Chet could make out, two horses had stood. He couldnot discover, the sod was so cut up, whether both, or only one, of theriders had dismounted.
He could picture the possible happening, however. In the night the tworiders had come along from the east. They were following the trail inthe same direction as the boys.
Hearing the noise made by the wolves over their dead brother, thestrange trailers stopped, and one of them had gone down to investigate.The wolves had been frightened away by the coming of this person.
The stranger must have found the camp, but had circled about it--as hisfootprints showed. Finding the meat, he had helped himself and returnedto the trail, then he and his partner had ridden on.
"The mystery of it is," said Chet to his chum, when he returned to thecamp to find breakfast started, "why the fellow robbed us of meat anddidn't try to take anything more valuable. I hope you see the value ofkeeping watch now, Dig?"
"Yes, I do!" agreed his chum, with more seriousness than he usuallydisplayed. "I'll take my medicine for that break last night, old man. IfI had kept my watch and waked you, nobody would have sneaked up on ourcamp and stolen our meat."
"Glad they left us this piece," Chet said, slicing off steaks with hishunting knife.
They seasoned the meat highly and rubbed tallow on both sides. Then theybroiled the steaks over the clear fire on one of the "contraptions"which Dig had laughed at his chum for packing. They had coffee; but thepancake flour was gone, and there were only a few "hard-breads."
Hearty boys, however, do not need tempting dishes for breakfast. Therewas still milk for the coffee, and as Dig said, they fairly "wolfed" thevenison steaks. The sun was not an hour high when they abandoned thecamping place and started for the trail.
Chet was particularly eager to reach the trail, for he wished to followthe trace of the strangers who had robbed them; and when he saw Digfussing with Stone Fence, he exclaimed:
"For pity's sake! don't delay us to-day by fooling with that calf, Dig.Do be reasonable."
"What do you think he is--a race horse?" demanded the other boy, infeigned amazement. "Can't expect him to trot like Maud S., orYellow-dock. You surprise me!"
"I'll surprise you if I ride off on Hero and leave you and your plagueycalf to bring up the rear," threatened Chet.
"You couldn't be so heartless," declared Dig. "I know you couldn't. Wehave been in peril together--Stone Fence and I. We came pretty nearbeing drowned, and then, there were the wolves. I feel toward him justlike a brother--Get out, you beast! want to butt me over again?"
They got under way and Chet set as brisk a pace as possible. He did notwant to leave his chum and the maverick behind; yet he was a littlevexed at Dig for being so obstinate.
The morning was delightful, however; nobody could hold anger at such anhour. The boys whistled and sang and skylarked; the horses snorted andstepped "high, wide and handsome," as Dig called it; and even StoneFence trotted along the trail without much urging.
They had not to be on the watch for game this day, for they had enoughof the deer meat left to last them until over breakfast the followingmorning. Yet Chet's glance was ever roving over the plain as they wenton. No trace of the venison thieves was to be found.
The hills were behind them; the mountains were so far in advance that ablue haze masked them. Nearby groves of small trees marked water-holes;but there was no stream in sight.
They fairly "wolfed" the venison steaks.]
"Plain" did not mean in this case a perfectly flat surface. There werecoulies to break the monotony of the level trail, or ancientwatercourses to descend into and climb out of. Once they came to theedge of a steep sand-bluff, after having ridden up a gradual ascent tothis eminence. From the spot they could see vastly farther than before.
It was from here that Chet spied something far to the north thatinterested him. He carried a pair of field-glasses in a case slung fromone shoulder. He opened these and focused them on the round, blackobjects that had attracted his attention.
With the naked eye they looked like beehives, and they did not seem tomove. But through the glass they were not conical, and they weretravelling toward the northeast. They all moved together, but slowly;th
ere could be no doubt of that.
"What's got you now?" demanded Dig, finally noticing that his chum wasfixed in one position for a long time.
"Look here," Chet said, offering him the glasses.
"Well, look out for Stone Fence," returned Dig, and urged Poke nearer tothe bay mount, while he reached for the glasses.
"Fix them on those dots over yonder," advised Chet. "Now, look good."
Dig did so. In a minute he exclaimed:
"Cattle grazing!"
"Think so?"
"Sure. Maybe Stone Fence belongs to that herd."
"But to whom does the herd belong?" demanded Chet. "We know well enoughthat there is no ranch nearer than the Ogallala. Those are not straysfrom the cattle trail. Weak and crippled cattle that are abandoned onthe march fall an easy prey to wolves and lions."
"What do you make of it, then?" demanded Dig.
"Look at the round backs of them; the size of them, too. No cattle thatI ever saw are built like those. They certainly are not Texans or thesun would flash on their horns now and then when they toss their heads.It doesn't look as though those creatures have any horns."
"Oh, say!" cried Dig. "That's going too far! We couldn't see their hornsfrom here, if they had 'em a mile wide!"
"That's stretching it some," said Chet, laughing and reaching for theglasses again.
"But what do you really think they are?" demanded Dig, growing more andmore excited.
"Going to find out," announced Chet.
"Oh, goodness, Chet! You don't think--"
"I'm going to find out what they are," repeated the other lad firmly.
"By _all_ the hoptoads that were chased out of Ireland! you don't meanto say that you think those are buffaloes? Oh, Chet!"
"I certainly don't think they are hoptoads," grinned his chum. "I'm notsure what they are, but I'm going to find out." He slipped out of thesaddle, to ease it on Hero's back and then cinch it up for a hard ride.
"Whew! you're not going to leave me alone?" gasped Dig. "Why, it's milesand miles over yonder."
"Come on, then."
"But what'll I do with Stone Fence?" blurted out Dig.
"Say, boy!" said Chet shortly, "this is the parting of the ways for youand that red dogy. You've had your fun. Now this is business."
"Have I got to decide between a perfectly good yearling calf and apossible buffalo? Seems a hard case," groaned Dig. "I bet I could sellhim for five dollars."
"We've got to turn back a little on our trail to follow those beastsyonder," Chet said. "It's likely we'll hit the trail again about here.Turn Stone Fence loose down in this sandy bottom. There's enough grassto feed him a year and I see a trickle of water yonder. He'll be allright. If he's learned to love you, Dig, he'll be waiting for you whenwe return."
"I'll do just that," cried Dig eagerly, and he urged the obstinatemaverick down the slope.
He was back in ten minutes after abandoning the surprised calf at thefoot of the bluff. The creature gazed after his human companions and thehorses with plain surprise in his bovine countenance.
Finally, as Dig and the black horse surmounted the rise, Stone Fencespread all four of his legs and blatted after him like a cosset calf.
"What do you know about that? I hate to leave him in the lurch,"declared Dig. "Some beast'll get him, sure as shooting, Chet."
"He was exempt from trouble long before you met him, Dig," said Chet,smiling. "I'm not sure that he considers you, even yet, his guardianangel."
They rearranged their outfit, tightened cinches, and remounted. Theblack specks were quite visible to the naked eye; but they were movingslowly northeast. The boys shook the reins and let Hero and Poke pointinto the wind at an easy canter.