CHAPTER XX

The ground in the shady side of the chuck wagon resembled a small section of a battlefield where carnage had been complete. Tired bodies were sprawled in every imaginable attitude, some reclining with their heads on their hard saddles, imagining themselves comfortable, some with feet raised above the rest of their bodies by the simple method of bracing them against the wagon wheels, others lying face downward, arms outstretched. They had earned their ease, and Mr. Manley declared a vacation for the remainder of the day.

The sun touched the horizon before anyone stirred. Then Roy sat up, stretched, and poked Teddy with his foot. The boy jumped as though he had been shot.

“Only me, sweetheart,” Roy said, grinning.

“Huh? Golly, you scared me! I was dreaming of that bunch of beeves and I thought I was down under ’em. What time is it?”

“Don’t know. Feels like time to eat. I—”

“Hey, what’s all the noise about?” Nick, rubbing his eyes sleepily, looked about him. “Convention, or something?”

“Nope. Just one of Roy’s cute little jokes. He had an idea he’d slept enough, so he kicked me. Needed company, I guess.”

One by one the others came to life, yawning, stretching the kinks out of their muscles.

“Hey, Sing, when do we eat?”

“What’s on the men-oo for supper?”

“Get offa my foot, you ape! By golly, you been sleepin’ right on my laig! An’ now, by jinks, that’s asleep! If I don’t warm you up for that—”

Gus, letting out frequent yelps, hopped about, trying to restore the circulation in the benumbed member. Pop, who was the cause of this commotion, grinned happily.

“Don’t he dance well? Funny he only uses one leg. Come on, open up, Gus. Show yore stuff. One, two, three, four! Let’s go! I wonder if my baby does the Charleston—Charleston—”

“Dry up, you old leather-backed coyote! Maybe you’d dance too if yore laig was sound asleep. Uh! There she is.” He sat down suddenly, and glared about him. “Next time you want a pillow, you use somethin’ else besides my laig.”

Mr. Manley was watching the scene with an amused smile. Finally he said:

“Nick, suppose you jump that chuck wagon an’ find out if Sing Lung is asleep too. If he is we’ll have to get our own chow, I reckon.”

“I’ll wake him!” Nick declared, and pulled open the wagon door. “Hey, you Chink, come to! Time to get up!”

“Gettee out heah! Come in my klitchen, so! Out qlick! I beat you head with this!” Sing, a skillet in one hand, peered out ferociously.

“He’s awake!” Jules Kolto shouted. “Now we eat for sure. But I wouldn’t like to take Nick’s share. He’ll probably get boiled mice.”

“An’ I’ll eat ’em too,” Nick said forcibly. “I’m hungry enough to go anything. Come on, Sing, show some speed.”

The cook grinned and disappeared. Half an hour later the “come an’ get it” signal was sounded, and the men sat down to their third meal on the range, to which they did full justice.

Evening had settled upon the land when the punchers rested from the joyous labor of conveying food from pan to mouth. Satiated, they lit cigarettes or pipes and wandered about, talking, or sat and played cards in the waning light. Teddy and Roy stood near the corral talking to their father and watching the milling beasts within.

“Plenty of work to-morrow,” said Mr. Manley. “I can spot some cows in there now that aren’t ours. Look—there’s a deer! See him?” He pointed, and the boys saw a brown form flash past. The deer had been caught in the rush of animals and had been driven into the corral with the steers.

“Probably be more than one,” Roy commented. “Say, Teddy, how tired are you?”

“Not very. Why?”

“Like to take a little ride?”

“Sure. Where to?”

“Oh, over toward the southwest part of the range.”

“Uh-huh. All right, Dad?”

“Yep. Go to it. Don’t stay too long, though. You’ve got a long ride to-morrow to Red Rock.”

Teddy nodded, and went to saddle Flash. The night was cloudless, and when the two brothers started the full moon gave them ample light to see by. They rode slowly, enjoying the tang of the fall air and the beauty of the scene. Somehow, the prairie seemed soft, more friendly than it had under the hot sun.

“Any special reason for this little jaunt, Roy?” Teddy asked, after some minutes.

“Well, there might be, and then, again, there mightn’t. I’d like to get a look at that herd we’ve got to take Peterson. Maybe it’s shifted.”

“Perhaps. Good idea to find out, anyhow. Wonder if we’ll ever see the Lefton boys again?”

“Hope not. I’ve had my fill of them. They’re with Mob Jamisson, some place, I suppose. Thought they had us sewed up tight, did they? They’ve got another think coming.”

Teddy looked thoughtfully at his brother.

“So you think they’ve given up whatever plans they had?”

“I don’t think anything. I decided long ago that I did too much of that. We’ll take things as they come. All we’ve got to do now is to get that herd to Red Rock, and we’ll be finished. Maybe what that professor heard didn’t apply to our outfit at all.”

“You mean about having us sewed up?”

“Uh-huh. But he didn’t say that. He said he heard our name mentioned, and then came the rest of it. At least, as I remember, that’s what he told us. It’s easy to think they—I mean the Leftons and Mob Jamisson—were talking about us, then changed the subject and that stuff about sewing up tight—or cold, or whatever it was—had nothing to do with us at all.”

“Sure, you can figure that way if you want to. Just as logical. Say, look down that way. Do you see a light?”

Roy pulled rein, and stared.

“Some sort of a blaze. Let’s investigate. May be the beginnings of a fire. Golly, that would be hard luck! Come on, let’s get a wiggle on. If it is a fire we want to let the rest of ’em know.”

The boys leaped their ponies into a run, and as they rode forward they saw that a red glow showed in the distance.

“Kind of small for a prairie fire,” Teddy called. “And it doesn’t seem to get any larger.”

“Let’s slow down,” Roy said suddenly. “That’s a fire, all right. But it was made to cook stuff over, not to burn weeds.”

“You mean a campfire?”

“Sure do.”

“On our range, too! Now who do you suppose—”

“Soon find out. Take it easy.”

They went quietly forward, and then Teddy saw that his brother had been right. It was a campfire. They could see forms moving about, crossing between them and the flame.

“Shall we have a look?” Teddy asked in a low voice.

“I’ll tell a maverick we will! Let’s leave the ponies here and walk. Guess we’ll have to put our detective badges on again.” But there was no humor in Roy’s voice as he said it. A strange campfire on a range during round-up time is no joking matter.

They dismounted and picketed Flash and Star to a near-by bush. Then they proceeded on foot.

“Got a fine nerve, whoever it is,” Roy remarked. “Probably thought we’d all be too tired to do much riding to-night.”

They could hear the sound of voices now, making no attempt at concealment, loud in their denunciations of one of their members. As yet the boys could distinguish no individuals, but they saw that there were quite a crowd of men about the fire.

“Six, anyway,” Teddy said softly. “Yep, just six. I can count ’em. Listen!”

One of the men was speaking.

“I blame you, Jamisson, for this whole business. Ever since you’ve been with us you’ve caused trouble. Once more—and you’re out.”

“Is that so! Well, Peterson, I’ve heard that story before! An’ it’ll take more than you and yore gang to call me out on a deal like this after I’ve gone this far!”

“Aw, for the love of Pete, let’s cut this fightin’ out!” murmured another voice. “Where’ll that get us? Go ahead with your story, Peterson.”