Ruth Fielding At Silver Ranch OR SCHOOLGIRLS AMONG THE COWBOYS

CHAPTER I—“OLD TROUBLE-MAKER”

Where the Silver Ranch trail branches from the state road leading down
into Bullhide, there stretch a rambling series of sheds, or “shacks,”
given up to the uses of a general store and provision emporium; beside
it is the schoolhouse. This place on the forked trails is called “The
Crossing,” and it was the only place nearer than the town of Bullhide
where the scattered population of this part of Montana could get any
supplies.

One of Old Bill Hicks’ herds was being grazed on that piece of rolling
country, lying in the foothills, right behind the Crossing, and two of
his cow punchers had ridden in for tobacco. Being within sight of rows
upon rows of tinned preserves (the greatest luxury extant to the cowboy
mind), and their credit being good with Lem Dickson, who kept the store,
the two cattle herders—while their cayuses stood with drooping heads,
their bridle-reins on the road before them—each secured a can of
peaches, and sitting cross-legged on the porch before the store, opened
the cans with their knives and luxuriated in the contents.

“Old man’s nigh due, ain’t he?” asked Lem, the storekeeper, lowering
himself into a comfortable armchair that he kept for his own particular
use on the porch.

“Gittin’ to Bullhide this mawnin’,” drawled one of the cowboys. “An’
he’s got what he went for, too.”

“Bill Hicks most usually does git what he goes after, don’t he?”
retorted the storekeeper.

The other puncher chuckled. “This time Old Bill come near goin’ out
after _rabbit_ an’ only bringin’ back the _hair_,” he said. “Jane Ann is
just as much of a Hicks as Bill himself—you take it from me. She made
her bargain b’fore Old Bill got her headed back to the ranch, I reckon.
Thar’s goin’ to be more newfangled notions at Silver Ranch from now on
than you kin shake a stick at. You hear me!”

“Old Bill can stand scattering a little money around as well as any man
in this State,” Lem said, ruminatively. “He’s made it; he’s saved it;
now he might’s well l’arn to spend some of it.”

“And he’s begun. Jane Ann’s begun for him, leastways,” said one of the
cowboys. “D’ye know what Mulvey brought out on his wagon last Sat’day?”

“I knowed he looked like pitchers of ‘movin’ day’ in New York City, or
Chicago, when he passed along yere,” grunted the storekeeper. “Eight
head o’ mules he was drivin’.”

“He sure was,” agreed the cow puncher. “There was all sorts of trucks
and gew-gaws. But the main thing was a pinanner.”

“A piano?”

“That’s what I said. And that half-Injun, Jib Pottoway, says he kin play
on the thing. But it ain’t to be unboxed till the boss and Jane Ann
comes.”

“And they’ll be gittin’ along yere some time to-day,” said the other
cowboy, throwing his empty tin away. “And when they come, Lem, they’re
sure goin’ to surprise yuh.”

“What with?”

“With what they sail by yere in,” drawled the puncher.

“Huh? what’s eatin’ on you, Bud? Old Bill ain’t bought an airship, has
he?”

“Mighty nigh as bad,” chuckled the other. “He’s bought Doosenberry’s big
automobile, I understand, and Jane Ann’s brought a bunch of folks with
her that she met down East, and they’re just about goin’ to tear the
vitals out o’ Silver Ranch—now you hear me!”

“A steam wagon over these trails!” grunted the storekeeper. “Waal!”

“And wait till Old Bill sees a bunch of his steers go up in the air when
they sets eyes on the choo-choo wagon,” chuckled Bud. “That’ll about
finish the automobile business, I bet yuh!”

“Come on, Bud!” shouted his mate, already astride his pony.

The two cowboys were off and lashing their ponies to a sharp run in half
a minute. Scarcely had they disappeared behind a grove of scrub trees on
the wind-swept ridge beyond the store when the honk of an automobile
horn startled the slow-motioned storekeeper out of his chair.

Ruth Fielding At Silver Ranch OR SCHOOLGIRLS AMONG THE COWBOYS