CHAPTER XV
BALDY’S HOOF POINTS THE WAY
“It’s a bad outlook, but we’re not the kind to give up easily,” said thestockman, grimly.
Bob, who had been much dejected by the news which the cowboy trailerbrought, plucked up fresh hope at these words from the rancher.
Frank, too, was able to grasp at little rays of encouragement.
“At the worst,” he said resolutely, “we might hold the fort here, andsend for help. Some of the other stockmen, learning that we had Mendozacooped up, would rush assistance; and in time we might clean out thepass.”
“Bully!” cried Bob, impulsively.
“That’s true,” the Colonel remarked, “but lots of things could happenbefore that same help arrived, which would mean several days at least.And when dealing with Mendoza, you never can be sure that you can putyour finger on him when you think you’ve got him. Perhaps he mightmanage to slip out of that cabin to-night; and then there would be warmtimes around here.”
“One thing’s sure,” Scotty declared, with a shake of his head, “theymust ’a had a fierce lot of dynamite under that pass. You never did seesuch a piled-up lot o’ rocks in your born days. I had to rub my eyes,and pinch myself, to believe there ever had been an opening there,through which we came into this here valley, an’ all that stock, too.”
“Mendoza always had a reputation for doing things to the limit,”remarked the stockman. “He knew that it would be useless damaging thepass only a little; so he made the mine a big one. I never heardanything like that detonation before. But we’ll all try and think upsome way of beating the rustler at his own game.”
“If we only had the stuff,” remarked Bob, “perhaps we might clean outthe pass the same way he filled it!”
“By an explosion, you mean?” said Frank. “Well, I reckon that would onlymake bad worse, and do no good; for there isn’t any pass there now underthe rocks, if what Scotty tells us is true.”
“What the Colonel said goes with me,” remarked the foreman.
“You mean about holding the fort here, and sending for help?” asked thestockman.
“Yep, that’s the idea, sir,” replied Bart. “We might set to work andmake prisoners of the rustlers, you see, first of all. And once we gotthat crowd where they wouldn’t bother us any, we could stay here, andwait till help came.”
“If only there was some other way to get out of this queer littlevalley!” said Bob, dismally.
“Well, there isn’t, ’cause you see Mendoza would know about it; and healways used the pass that’s been blowed up,” Scotty argued.
“I’m not so sure about that, Scotty!”
All turned and looked at Frank when he said this. Even his father seemedsurprised to hear his words. And there was a faint smile on the boy’sface to indicate that some bright thought might be occupying his mind;something with which he may have been wrestling lately, while listeningto the conversation around him.
“How’s that, Frank?” Scotty demanded.
“Why, you seemed so positive about there not being any other way forcattle getting out of here, I just had to remark that perhaps you werewrong.”
“As how?” persisted Scotty, who always had to be shown.
“How about Old Baldy?” Frank remarked, quietly.
The Colonel uttered an exclamation.
“The boy may be right,” he remarked, with some little excitement. “Itnever occurred to me to remember that that smart old chap got out ofhere some way; and just as like as not he couldn’t get past that littleopening, which was kept closed most of the time, I reckon.”
“But he was brought in that way, an’ don’t it stand to reason thecritter’d try to get out by the same route?” asked the foreman.
“I suppose he would try,” admitted the stockman; “but finding the corkin the bottle, Old Baldy might take a turn in another direction. Andthat makes me think of something that happened years ago, when the oldfellow disappeared one bad winter, and was gone with a few cows for somemonths. We gave them up for dead; when early in Spring they turned up onthe range, looking sleek and fat, as if they’d wintered where there wasplenty of grass. See the point, boys?”
“Well, well, I wouldn’t put it past that Old Baldy to have found his wayinto this same fine valley, and stayed here till the winter was gone,with its Northers,” Frank declared, with exultation in his voice; forsuch a happening would add strength to his suggestion, strange as it hadat first appeared to the others.
“And if he happened to come in here and go out through some other pass,that even the rustlers never knew a thing about, doesn’t it stand toreason that such a sharp steer would be able to find the way again, evenif years had passed?” Colonel Haywood demanded.
Bart looked at Scotty, nodded his head, and observed:
“There never was such a critter as Old Baldy before, and I reckon he’deasy remember that trail. Course, though, it might be he went outthrough the regular way, for it might ’a been open at the time.”
“Well, let’s look at that closer,” said Frank. “When Bob and I first ranacross Old Baldy he was away off a direct line between the mouth of thecanyon and Circle Ranch. And, Bart, you must admit, that once he cameout of that pass, he would hit a bee-line for home!”
The foreman threw up his hands.
“I pass,” he declared. “When it comes to arguing I’m not in it with you,Frank.”
“But answer my question—wouldn’t Old Baldy be apt to head straight forhome?” insisted the boy.
“Sure he would, every time,” admitted Bart.
“And that’s a strong point you’ve made, son,” declared the stockman,with a proud glance at Frank. “The chances are three to one Old Baldygot out of this valley by some other trail than the one we took inentering, and which has just been blocked by the rustlers. Now, thequestion comes, can we find that other exit, and make use of it to takethe herd out this same way?”
He had already sent a messenger back to the camp to tell the two guardsof the bunk-house what had happened, so that they might not relax theirvigilance, and allow the prisoners a chance to escape during broaddaylight.
“And that same is going to tax us some, I opine,” grumbled Bart.
“Not if we can only find the trail of Old Baldy,” said Frank,cheerfully.
“His trail!” echoed Bob, in dismay, as he looked down at the ground,which just at that point had been torn up by scores of hoofs. “Well, Ishould say that would be a tough old job, just as Bart declared. How canyou do it, Frank?”
“Well, stop and think a minute,” replied the other. “Don’t you remembermy telling you that Old Baldy has a marked hoof, one so much longer thanany other steers, that a tracker could tell it anywhere at a glance?”
“Why, to be sure you did,” cried Bob; “and I remember that we thoughtperhaps Scotty might be able to follow his tracks back to where he camefrom; because we believed even then he must have been in the hands ofMendoza’s crowd, since his brand had been burned over.”
“Just what we did,” Frank remarked; “but before anything could be doneMendoza made his raid on our prize herd, and that brought us here on thejump. But if we could follow that marked trail over the plain and upinto the mountains, why not do as well here in the valley?”
“Scotty, you hear that?” asked the stockman.
“You bet I do, an’ I’m going to get some busy right off’n the handle. Nouse lookin’ away up here, is there?” the cowboy observed.
“Well,” the rancher went on to say, “let’s take it for granted that OldBaldy first tried to get out the regular way, and finding the passageblocked by rocks which a man might easily climb over, but a steer never,he turned around sharp, and put for that other exit, which he had neverforgotten in all these years. So, Scotty, take a turn around, and see ifyou can run across that marked hoof print.”
Frank was not the one to linger when anything of this sort was going on.After all, he might chance to find the track himself in the midst of th
emultitude that scoured the side of the valley.
“Head back toward the camp!” called out the stockman; “and if either onefinds the track, give a call to the rest. We’ll keep close by.”
Bob himself could not help getting down every little while to look atthe torn turf, where scores of hoofs had cut in, on the passage ofcattle back and forth. Each time he had to shake his head, and smile.
“If it depended on me to run Old Baldy down, I just reckon the herdwould stay in here till doomsday,” he admitted to the stockman.
“Well, of course, in most spots, the cattle coming after must havecrushed out all traces of Old Baldy’s hoof-mark,” declared ColonelHaywood; “but some place or other we hope that a single print may haveescaped. That’s all they need to tell the story, you know.”
“And of course,” pursued Bob, wisely, “they can easily settle which waythe steer was going at the time, because the mark will be pointing inthat direction.”
“Exactly, my boy. These things are all very simple, once you get thecue. To a trailer everything has its meaning. He reads signs as we doprint. And I’ve known Scotty there to spin a yarn that made the rest ofus think he was joshing, without ever seeing the people ahead; and yetwhen we came to prove it, everything was just as he had described.”
“It’s a wonderful science, sir, and I hope to master it some day; butseems to me I get on terribly slow,” Bob said, dismally.
“Everything that is worth while takes time,” remarked the stockman,encouragingly; “and tracking can’t be learned in a week, a month, noryet in a year. Truth to tell, most cowboys never do learn it worthwhile. It doesn’t run in the blood, you see. They can rope steers, breakbucking broncos, and do all such things; but only to a favored few doesthe trail give up all its wonderful secrets.”
“I hope Frank gets sight of the tracks first,” said Bob, as his eyesfollowed the stooping figure of his chum longingly.
“That must be a matter of chance,” remarked the other, smiling. “Frankis a pretty fair hand at this business, but of course not in the sameclass with Scotty. Still, he may be lucky enough to be the one to runacross the first track.”
“There he is, stooping down lower now, sir,” exclaimed Bob, with someexcitement in his voice; “and he seems to be a heap interested insomething. Do you think he will make a strike, sir?”
“He acts like it,” responded the stockman, himself deeply concerned inthe actions of his boy. “See, there he turns back this way, and waveshis hand. And now he calls, to let Scotty know. You can see him hurryingto Frank’s side; so it looks as if he’d made some sort of find.”
Together the ranch owner and Bob hurried forward, with Bart close attheir heels. They found the two trail hunters with their heads closetogether, evidently examining some track, which Frank had been fortunateenough to run across at a point where the herd had failed to wipe itout.
“What luck, boys?” asked the stockman, as he came up.
“Frank has found Old Baldy’s hoof-mark, all right,” declared Scotty,without the faintest trace of jealousy in his manner; for he was veryfond of his employer’s son, as indeed was every one connected withCircle Ranch.
Bob himself pushed in, because he wanted to satisfy his mind with regardto the direction in which the hoofprint pointed.
He had noted the peculiar mark at that other time, when Frank told himabout it, and readily recognized it now, plainly indented in theyielding soil, at a spot where, luckily, none of the other cattle hadhappened to tread, either in coming or going.
And Bob laughed to see how easily that one point was settled. Thefootprint undoubtedly pointed toward the camp; and it was evident thatOld Baldy had been heading in that quarter when the mark was impressedthere!