The Outdoor Chums After Big Game Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness

CHAPTER XXIII

THE STAM­PEDE

“What d'ye call this, any­way?” ex­claimed Bluff, pant­ing with his ex­er­tions.

“I'd say it was crowd­ing the mourn­ers, for these things to chase each oth­er so fast, and the el­ements to make play­things out of four con­fid­ing chums,” said Frank.

“Tell me about that, will you! First a scorch­ing, then put to soak, af­ter which comes an­oth­er hot ex­pe­ri­ence, and now treed by a flood! Up­on my word, things are hap­pen­ing a lit­tle too rapid even for me,” put in Jer­ry.

“There!” re­marked Will, with a sat­is­fied chuck­le. “I think you three fel­lows will make a splen­did show­ing, perched along that limb like a lot of crows, and the wa­ter rolling along be­low.”

“Talk to me about the in­dus­tri­ous pho­tog­ra­pher! If that chap hasn't tak­en our pic­tures in this ridicu­lous at­ti­tude! Why, they'll be­lieve we've gone back to the old days, when our an­ces­tors used to live in trees.”

“Speak for your­self, Jer­ry. I refuse to ad­mit that I am de­scend­ed from a mon­key,” de­clared Bluff in­dig­nant­ly.

“How long do you sup­pose we may have to hang out here?” asked Will.

“Oh, a day or so, I sup­pose,” replied Jer­ry, keep­ing a straight face.

“A day or so! Lis­ten to him say that with­out a show of feel­ing! Why, long be­fore that time elapsed I'd grow so weak from fa­tigue that I'd have to be strapped to my limb to keep from falling in­to the treach­er­ous wa­ter,” stam­mered Will.

“And what of me?” burst out Bluff. “I'd waste away to a mere shad­ow from hunger. Soon­er than sub­mit to that, I'd try swim­ming ashore.”

“Do you think the wa­ter will get any high­er? Could it pos­si­bly over­whelm us in this tree? We could climb up twen­ty feet if nec­es­sary.”

“Well, I hard­ly think that emer­gen­cy is go­ing to arise, Will; not at this time, at least. To tell the truth, the wa­ter is al­ready re­ced­ing,” an­nounced Frank, tak­ing pity on Jer­ry's vic­tims, both of whom looked wor­ried.

“Oh! do you re­al­ly think so?” cried Will. “Then Jer­ry is on­ly up to some of his old fool­ish­ness. Yes, I can see that it does not quite come up to the wet mark on the trunk of the tree. Then per­haps we won't have to stay up here all night.”

“Well, I guess not. I ex­pect that in less than twen­ty min­utes we'll be once more afoot, and on our way to camp. This must have been a gen­uine cloud­burst, and they tell me those sort of things, while se­vere at the time, are quick­ly over.”

“Bul­ly for you, Frank! You al­ways look on the bright side of things, while Jer­ry tries to dash a fel­low's spir­its. Things have come out pret­ty well, af­ter all. We've had some strange ex­pe­ri­ences, come through them all in de­cent shape, and to cap the whole thing I've cap­tured some dandy views. I can hard­ly wait to de­vel­op them.”

“Go ahead, then. Plen­ty of wa­ter at hand for wash­ing off the hy­po,” sug­gest­ed Jer­ry wicked­ly.

By the time the twen­ty min­utes had ex­pired the wa­ter had sub­sid­ed so far that the im­pris­oned chums were able to low­er them­selves from the tree and once more re­sume their jour­ney.

Of course, they were an un­com­fort­able lot, be­ing soaked to the skin, and, as Will de­clared, look­ing like a lot of hoboes. Brisk ex­er­tion kept them from feel­ing cold, how­ev­er; but they were one and all de­light­ed to set eyes on the fa­mil­iar tents of the home camp.

Their wel­come was a warm one, for Mr. Ma­bie had been more or less wor­ried con­cern­ing them, ow­ing to the for­est fire and the fierce cloud­burst.

“We hoped you were safe, and tried to be­lieve it, boys; but at the same time, even a vet­er­an hunter in these parts might have been caught nap­ping, and I tell you we're mighty glad to see you back safe and sound. Now, tell us how it hap­pened,” was Mr. Ma­bie's greet­ing as he squeezed a hand of each.

“If you mean the fire, sir, we know noth­ing about it. We have not struck a match since leav­ing here, and on­ly Bluff shot once. The fire came from an en­tire­ly dif­fer­ent quar­ter, I as­sure you,” said Frank.

“I nev­er doubt­ed that, my lad. I've seen enough of you boys to know that af­ter all I've said none of you would be care­less enough to en­dan­ger things. But per­haps, af­ter all, the fire was more of a bless­ing than oth­er­wise, for it prob­ably helped to hur­ry that rain­storm along, and that has saved our pas­tures.”

Of course, the boys were for get­ting in­to dry clothes at once. The fire was heaped high with fresh fu­el, so that a de­light­ful warmth would be dif­fused around the im­me­di­ate vicin­ity, af­ter which there was a gen­er­al change of gar­ments.

“I feel bet­ter than I thought I would af­ter all that rum­pus,” ad­mit­ted Bluff, as he ca­pered about, try­ing to keep his mus­cles from get­ting stiff.

“We'll look back to this day as one of the strangest in all our ex­pe­ri­ence,” re­marked Frank, hang­ing his wet gar­ments where the sun would fall up­on them, for the clouds had passed away, leav­ing a clear sky over­head.

“How much longer do we stay here?” asked Will, who had been do­ing some fig­ur­ing. “Be­cause my films are get­ting low. I have three rolls still at the ranch house, and when they're ex­haust­ed my busi­ness is done.”

“Sor­ry to tell you, lads, that I had word from the house while you were gone, and it's ab­so­lute­ly nec­es­sary for me to start back in the morn­ing. Now, if you would like to re­main a lit­tle longer in camp, why, Red­dy and Bil­ly will keep you com­pa­ny. Don't give up un­less you're sat­is­fied with what fun you've had,” said the stock­man just then.

The boys looked at each oth­er.

“I think we've seen enough of this life, and that there are dozens of things about the ranch we ought to know more about. So I vote that we re­turn with Mr. Ma­bie,” was Frank's sug­ges­tion.

“Count me in that,” echoed Jer­ry.

“And I'm just wild to print a few of the re­mark­able pic­tures I've made up here, which I can't do un­til we get back to the house; so I'm on­ly too will­ing to say yes to the propo­si­tion,” put in Will.

“And I'm just as hap­py one place as the oth­er, so long as the cook doesn't strike, or put us on short ra­tions,” added Bluff.

In this spir­it of hu­mor it was there­fore de­cid­ed that on the fol­low­ing morn­ing they would break camp and re­turn to the ranch.

“I feel that I'm cheat­ing you out of some of your ex­pect­ed fun, boys,” apol­ogized the stock­man that evening, as they were pack­ing some of their stuff, so as to light­en the la­bor in the morn­ing.

“Why, I don't know what else we could do here. Seems to me we've about ex­haust­ed the list of ex­cite­ments. We've shot elk, griz­zlies, a pan­ther, a wolf, met up with In­di­ans, been chased by a for­est fire, soaked in the riv­er and treed by a cloud­burst. There could hard­ly be any­thing more, sir,” laughed Frank.

“Well, I ad­mit that you have made hay while the sun shone; and such a push­ing lot of boys al­ways will get all the fun there is go­ing. It's been the hap­pi­est event of my last ten years of life to have you with me, and when you see my old side part­ner of long ago just tell him that I'll nev­er get over be­ing thank­ful to him for hav­ing sent you up here to break the dread­ful monotony of ex­is­tence on a stock ranch.”

They passed a de­light­ful evening. The boys sang many of their school songs, and Bluff was in­duced to give a recita­tion, which called forth vo­cif­er­ous ap­plause from the cow­boy au­di­ence.

“I can see very plain­ly that you are go­ing to make a wor­thy suc­ces­sor to that lawyer fa­ther of yours, Bluff,” de­clared Mr. Ma­bie as he clapped his hands.

“And I ex­pect to live to see him on the Supreme Bench yet,” said Jer­ry se­ri­ous­ly.

In the morn­ing prepa­ra­tions for their de­par­ture were soon com­plet­ed. The tents, and all ma­te­ri­al con­nect­ed with the camp, went in the wag­on, while the boys, to­geth­er with Mr. Ma­bie and Red­dy, rode horse­back. It was an in­vig­orat­ing gal­lop back to the ranch house, and on the way the chums in­dulged in a num­ber of lit­tle races. But Will would not al­low him­self to en­ter as he was afraid that some­thing might hap­pen to his pre­cious cam­era, which he car­ried by a strap over his shoul­der.

Once back in their old quar­ters, for sev­er­al days the boys took life easy, each be­ing busi­ly en­gaged in some fa­vorite pur­suit. Will de­vel­oped all his films, and made co­pi­ous prints of the same, which kept him in a fever­ish state of mind. When one turned out es­pe­cial­ly fine he was in the sev­enth heav­en of de­light; and if he met with dis­ap­point­ment, which was sel­dom the case, his laments were dis­mal in­deed.

Thus a week more passed, and the boys were be­gin­ning to think of turn­ing their faces to­ward the East again. They would leave the ranch with many re­grets, for Mr. Ma­bie had cer­tain­ly quite won their youth­ful hearts by his ge­nial ways.

Frank was the last one to meet with an ad­ven­ture on this oc­ca­sion, which was fat­ed to be writ­ten down in his log­book as wor­thy of re­mem­brance.

He had been out rid­ing, and his horse, step­ping in­to a go­pher hole, threw him. Frank was not se­ri­ous­ly hurt, but the horse went lame, so that he could not be rid­den. As this hap­pened miles away from the house, and night was com­ing on, with a storm threat­en­ing, Frank knew he was in for an ex­pe­ri­ence; but even then he did not dream of all that was down on the bills for that spe­cial oc­ca­sion.

Through the dark­ness he went, lead­ing his limp­ing horse. Then the storm broke, and the crash of thun­der, as well as the vivid light­ning, was some­thing such as he could not re­mem­ber ev­er meet­ing be­fore.

He was just think­ing that the pony had re­cov­ered enough to en­able him to mount and make his way slow­ly along, as the ranch house was not more than a mile off, when some­thing came to his ears that ar­rest­ed his at­ten­tion. For half a minute he won­dered what it might be, sound­ing like in­creas­ing thun­der. Then the ap­palling truth flashed up­on him. There was a stam­pede of cat­tle, and he seemed to be di­rect­ly in the way of the mad­ly gal­lop­ing herd!