Beadle's New York Dime Library No. 1092 — page 3: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

4 which had the effect of stopping the advance of tbe herd in a moment, Tae bulls bad never héard such a sound be- fore, and it frightened them. Taey stopped and huddled together in a dense mass, staring at the figure in red before them, and gave symptoms of a stampede in a new di- rection, The wary huvter put up the bugle as soon as be saw that they were frightened, and rode round the flanks. of the herd, watched closely all the time by the bulls, who got to the outside and kept between the cows and davger, as they” thought, Toiey did not attempt to go any further, but stood there watching the hunter. Knowing as he dil theic habits, he was en- abled to get behind them, and when he drew forth the bugle onee more the effect was in- stantaneous. The first blast set them to huiddliug together, trembling and snorting, and the second sent them off in a wild stampede, that would have defied the efforts of an army to stop them, All their fatigue was forgotten in the moment be blew that blast—to the wild cattle terrible as the last trump. They started. on a dead run, as if they had been just freshly aroused, past the motte, in which they bad been about to take refuge, at a pace of ten miles and more an hour, while the prairie sp2d away behind them; and no one, pur- suer or pursued, took any. notice of the distance, Toe bunter followed at a moremoderate pace, not attempting to keep near thecattle, but satis- fied witli being in sight all the time. The miles turned tnto leagues, the sun climbed up into the heavens and declined again. and s'ill the stampede went on, with the same frantic ae on the part of the wild cattle, till nearly fty miles bad been passed over, within six hours, when Old Cross-Eye muttered to himself, as he rode: “They can’t keep this up much longer. I won- der where Tom’s gone to?’ The herd was running asrapidly asever, when a dark spot appeared, and wasrevealed as the body of a cow, met, D ‘d dropped in the mad race, and lay there, dying, with ber tongue out, and ‘the look in her eyes that told of complete exhaustion. The bunter no longer pressed the crowd. He knew that bis work was nearly done. He slackened his own pace toa walk. The herd did the same gradually, till it was pressing on slowly, tbe foremost trotting, at intervals, to escape the pressure, the rest straggling io the rear, and stringing out, further and further. Old Cross. Eye tried another blast on the bugle, but it bad little or no effect. Tbe cattle were too tired to stampede any more. Another cow dropped down in the rear of the herd, and the hunter was obliged to allow them to stop. , Then at last, when the expression of his face showed he was getting anxious; for the cattle, if allowed to feed and rest, would be as unman- ageable as ever, he saw a horseman coming over the green prairie in front, on the other side of the berd, and cried alcud in his joy: ‘‘Good boy, Tom! We’ll get them yet.” He drew out the bugle, and blew a succassion of loud blasts, under the effect of which the cattle lifted their heads from the grass which they were beginning to crop. and started to run again, not so rapidly as before, but with suffi- cient vigor to show that they bad not lost all their strength yet, The strange horseman came on toward the herd; then veered off to one side, and came rac- ing round the flank, at a pace that sliowed he was well mounted, exbibiting the. face and figure of a tall, handsome young fellow, with keen blue eyes and the picturesque dress of a prairie man of the old sebool, in all its bravery of buckskin trimmings and-fringes, He was mounted on a fine pony, of the same spotted variety as that of Old Cross-Eye, and rode in a similar hgame-made sadile of the Co- manche pattern. As he came up to the Maverick-Hunter, Old _ Cross-Eye said briefly: ** Drive’em into the corral. Had a long chase. Took ’em from under the nose of old Collings- worth, and they were all as mad as blazes. Having a round up.” The young man nodded, as if he understood the order, and the two set out to drive the herd, in the same style that they would have adopted if their cattle had been of the ordinary tame kind. Had. they tried this an bour before, it would have resulted in a charge, and the whole berd getting loose, As it was, the poor creatures were so completely exhausted by their long chase, they could not - enough energy to fight; submitted to be driven by the terrible whips carried by both their pursuers, and trot- ted on, bellowing and grumbling at the worr to which they were subjected, but obeying all the while, till the line of a fence eenee ree ou the prairie before them, toward which they were driven. The sight of the fence scared them, and they shied away from it, running along the side, as if seeking a road to escape, but they advanced ce | ssw Toe two men behind kept them on the run, till they had brought them to a place where the line of the fence ended, and an opening ap- pesred, as if it had been left cn purpose. Through this they rushed, bellowing; and as | soou as they were inside, the two men jumped off their ponies and bhéegan.te pick up from the ground the rails that had been lying there all the time, hidden in the grass. They had to work hard, for they had no help; but, at the end of an hour of arduous exertion, they had-the opening closed, the herd was in- side the corral, though the cattle did not know | it, and old Cross-Kye said to his partner: “Tom, my boy, that was a good job, well | done,” CHAPTER IV. IN THE CORRAL, THE spot which O'd Cross-Eye had selected for his corral, showed he had an eye fo saving labor, when he started in his undertaking. It was bordered on one side by a dense motte of chaparral timber,the edges of which had been made, with very little trouble into a fence, impervious to the heaviest rush; another side was formed by a deep barranca, which saved the trouble of a ditch, and only required to be stopped in one placa to make escape impossible on that side; the third was closed with rails and cross sticks, of the saw-buck pattern of fence; and the last was the entrance which had cost the most trouble of all, on aceount of the neces- sity of closing it at intervals and opening it again. Old. Cross-Eye, the Maverick-Hunter. _— ee + Altogether, the inclosure involved a space of | four or five miles in length, by as many in breadth; but the fencing had not been carried for more than two miles in any one place, on account of the help given by nature in the operation, It was so large that the herd of wild Mave- rieks did not comprehend they were shut in, when the chase was abandoned; but went to work, eating the rich grass inside the inclosure, or hunfed round for water, as if-they thought the bitterness of the day was past. Old Cross-Eye and his young partner sur- veyed the herd as soon as the entrance had been made quite secure, and the younger man said to the elder: | ‘*That’s a fine lot, Jake. There's blood in them. Where do you suppose they bave come from?” Old Cross-Eve shook his head. ‘Dunno. S’pose some of those big English companies they talk of as coming here. They never have good management; and if their cat- tle get out, they’re the worst of all. They may talk as much as they want about the qjJd long- horns; but they can't hold a candle to these imported fellows, when they get real wild, There’s the weight in them, and they’l! fight. By the by, Tom, the new company has begun to set up its posts, and they’ve got the bull water front of half the ranches in the county.” He spoke with an accent that showed he was vot a Southerner born and bred, though bis grammar was loose and his words those of an uneducated man. His companion, on the other hand, used good language, and there was tbat about his whole appearfince that suggested a man who bad come to Texas for some reason other than the poverty which drives so many to new lands, When Old Cross Eye spoke of the ‘“‘new company,” in almost the same terms that Deaf Smith had used in conversation with Judge Collingsworth, the face of the young man dark- ened, and he said: ** Jake, I tell you there’s going to be trouble of the wofst kind. I have not much to thank the men of this county for. They bave not been very kind to you or me; but if the worst comes, and they want a helping hand, they may find that the Maverick-Hunters may prove able to do good service. Who told you of it? Where did you hear it?” ‘‘Heerd it last night at the shanty in Smitb- ville,” replied Jake. ‘‘] bad to. yo there, ye know, to make things pleasant. These men can get up trouble for us, any time they’ve a mind to, if ye don’t spend a little money with them; and it’s always best to try the molasses for the flies, afore ye use vinegar. I took a bed there, and put the pony up, a-purpose to keep friends, and heerd the talk about it. It seems that the company’s got a Englishman overseer, and that’s what riles the boys. They’ve gone and took up a big grant from the land-: ffice at San Antonio, and it covers nigh the hull county. They say they're goin’ to fence in a million acres at a lick, and that lies along the bank of the Blue Fork all the way.” **The Blue Fork!” echoed Tom. ‘Why, that runs by the Collingsworth range, and Deaf Smith’s place, and Punch Burleson’s run, and Lame Hog Ranch and—” ‘Yes, and a bull Jot more,” broke in Old Cross-Eye, with a grim smile, “There’s goin’ to be trouble when the boys catch on to what’s ir and the worst of rl ey cae do n n’ to stop. the ny ; for the crittersas the law on their sider Tt'e-a darned goodthing, Tom, that we come out here when we did. It ain’t all pleasant, by any manner of means; but | —— —_—_———— COO CO Oe _ if the Indians take a share of the beef when they feel like it, at least they don’t take away the water from us and drive us into the poor-house, with a lawyer to help ’em.” ‘* Indians!” said Tom with a sbrug. ‘*T don’t see, for my part, why these Texans make such a fuss about then). We never had any trouble with them, They’re men, the samess we are, and they can fight, too; but if you treat them right, they’ll do the same by you. I'm sick of the talk about Indians. ‘The men who talk the | loudest are always the greatest teieves,” Old Cross. Eye shrugged his shoulders as ‘he replied: *““Ay, ay; that’s all very well, boy; but it won’t do to trust ’em too fur. Injuns is very sweet when everybady’s good to ’em; but they have a queer way, if one man does ’em a wrong and they can’t ketch bim, of takin’ the fust they find an’ getli.’ the spite out of him. Don’t trust ’em too much.” Tom Field bad not beensin Texas long enough to cutlive all the remanée of his nature, and he had come West, like many others, with a ver high’ idea of the character of the Indians, whie had not as yet yielded to the sight of the lazy vagabonds of the posts, that give the everage Western man bis batred of the ‘tred devils.” He seemed rather nettled, as he retorted: “Tm willivk to trust them, and that’s the reason they have never injured me. I tell you, Jake, your-notions about Indians are too much cf the same stripe as those of the semi-savages that call themselves citizens of this country. it came to a question of which sbould go to the wall, they or the Indians, I'll be banged if I wouldn’t be inclined to think the Indian better worth saving than the average frontiersman.” Old Cross-Eye smiled, as be said, soothingly: ‘There, there, don't git mad about it. May ve’re right; but, at the same time, J wouldn’t go to the next town and tell ’em so.” ‘* No,” said the young man, rather bitterly. “They would pitch on m4, I suppose you mean, ten or a dozen at once, I don’t want to be made a target of before my time; but | can keep up my thinking I suppose, and we can say what we like, out here.’ Then, as if wanting a pretext to turn the talk from an irritating subject; he added: “Did you see the judge, by the by?” ‘‘- Yes, and his darter, too.” “Which of them?’ The question was asked carelessly, but the old hunter squinted at bis friend in a humorous way, as be said: ’ s Wien on ’em d’ye want to hear about; oy? The color rushed into the face of the young man, ina way that there was no necessity for, as he answered: “Which of them? What do you mean? I haven’t any special interest in either of them, bave 1?” ‘‘That’s furs you to say,” was-the dry reply. “T seen one of ’em—the one they call Di— and she were very nearly gittin’ into the rush, _ when I led the cattle out. I passed her, not- more’n ten feet away, and she were a-puttin’ the whip to that borse of bern like a good one, T’ather one warn’t out.” He was watching the face of. the young man as he spoke, and saw that Field turned pale as he heard the news of the girl’s peril. ‘‘But she was not hurt, wasshe?’ he asked. Old Cross-Eye grinned, as he said: * Reckon she war’n’t: though there’s no sayin’. Twarn’t in the sperrits to waste much time lookin’ behind me when them angry devils was arter me like a bull cyclone a-comin’. Jf you'd ba’ been there, it might ha’ been different: but then you mightn’t ba’ got the cattle inter the correl,.as I did, Come, boy, ’m as tired and sore as a man kin be, who’s rid sixty or seventy miles, as hard as the pony kin leg it. I want some grub. W hat ha’ ye got in the shanty?” Tom Field, recalled to himself by the question, replied, as be mounted his pony: **Come and see, Thank , the land-sharks haven’t driven away the game yet.” Old Cross-Eye glan at bis own pony, which had come so far and fast that day, and be remarked, in a tone of regret, as he mounted the animal: ‘“* Poor pony! It’s a shame not to let ye rest; but it ain’t fur to the bouse, and we’ll make it up to ye with a extra feed, when we git thar,” Then the two horsemen rode slowly down the line of the corral fence, and. came at last to the edge of the motte, which formed the outside uf the inclosure; in the midst of which a small opening appeared, like a lane, cut through the thicket—for the trees were intertwined with vines and thorny creepers, in a way that Texas can show as well as any part of the world. It was by a judicious use of these thorns and creepers, that the edge of the motte, next to the corral, had been made impervious to the attacks of the cattle; the thinner portions of the thicket being woven together, around the trunks of the trees ag as cg Napa sie > The lane that nto the thicket f other side of she motte was bordered in the same way, and bad the appearance of having been thus arranged for a fortification, The path ran to and froin the midst of the com Cc it book “ere Tape. Pe 8 ee es a ° eee ee ee ee ee eed —- ef ey