Cowmen and Rustlers: A Story of the Wyoming Cattle Ranges, Edward Sylvester Ellis [e reader .TXT] 📗

imaginative youth for adventure, the prospect was an inviting one to them. Their father's glowing accounts of the magnificent scenery, its vast resources and limitless possibilities, caused a yearning on their part probably deeper than his own.

It is rare that such expectations are fully realized in this life. It cannot be said that those of the brother and sister found more than a partial fulfilment, but, though the fateful day came when they regretted the change beyond the power of language to express, yet it was many months before it dawned upon them.

Hugh Whitney's herd of cattle numbered several thousand, and, on the day when we take up the eventful history of the family, they were grazing on the open ranges along the spurs of the Big Horn Mountains.

The two cowmen engaged by Whitney to assist him in the duty of looking after his property were Budd Hankinson and Grizzly Weber. They were veterans in the business, brave and true and tried. Under their tuition, and that of his father, Fred Whitney became a skilful horseman and rancher. He learned to lasso and bring down an obdurate steer, to give valuable help in the round-ups, to assist in branding the registered trademark of his father on the haunches of his animals.

This brand consisted of a cross, with two stars above, one below, the initial letter of his given name on the left, and that of his surname on the right. When this was burned into the flesh of the yearlings, it identified his property, no matter where wandering, and the honest rancher would no more disturb it than he would enter another's home and rob him of his clothing.

The first year was an enjoyable one to Jennie. Her father presented her with an excellent animal, of which she became very fond. A good horsewoman when in Maine, in Wyoming she acquired a skill which compelled the admiration of the cowmen themselves.

"She's struck her callin'," remarked Budd Hankinson one day, while watching her speeding like a courser across the open country.

"What is that?" asked the father, who was proud of his children, and especially of the pretty daughter.

"Why, riding hosses like a streak of lightnin'," was the somewhat indefinite response.

"What particular profession can she fill by dashing over the country in that style?" continued the parent with a smile.

"Why, showing other persons how it is done. I've no doubt, colonel, that she could make good wages in breaking broncos and teaching young women like her how to ride in the right style; I advise you to think about it."

"I will do so," replied the parent, with so much gravity that the cowman never suspected his sincerity, but felt the satisfaction of believing he had given his employer a valuable "pointer."

Another pleasure which followed the removal of the Whitneys to Wyoming was that their friend Monteith Sterry followed them within a few months. He had shown some signs of running down in health while attending the high school in Boston, despite the fact that he was one of the best athletes in the institution; but he readily persuaded his wealthy father that a few months' experience in the bracing northwest would do him more good than anything and everything else in the world.

That he might have some pretext other than the one which could not wholly deceive the Whitneys, he engaged to serve the Live Stock Association, which was beginning to have trouble with the rustlers. Matters were not only going wrong, but were rapidly getting worse in Wyoming, and they were glad to secure the services of such a daring and honest youth, who seemed rather to welcome the fact that he could perform his duties faithfully only at personal risk to himself.

It need not be explained how it came about that young Sterry found it necessary to give a great deal of his attention to that section of Wyoming in which the Whitneys lived. There appeared to be more need of it there than in any of the other neighborhoods where the outlook was really threatening.

The natural consequence was that he became a frequent visitor at the home of his former friend, though he found other acquaintances engaged in the cattle business who were glad to have him take shelter under their roofs. Sometimes he engaged in hunting with them, and several times Fred Whitney and Jennie joined him. There was a spice of peril in these excursions which rendered them fascinating to all three.

The particular day to which we refer was a mild afternoon in May, 1892. Jennie was helping her mother with her household duties in their home, where they had lived since coming from their native State. The building was one of the long, low wooden structures common in that section, to which the fashions of the older civilization have not yet penetrated. It possessed all the comforts they required, though it took some time for the brother and sister to accustom themselves to the odd style of architecture.

Jennie, as usual, was in high spirits. She had been out for a ride during the forenoon, and was now trying to make up for it by taking the burden of most of the work upon her comely shoulders.

In the middle of one of her snatches of song she abruptly paused with the question:

"Did you hear that, mother?"

"No; to what do you refer?"

"The sound of rifle-firing; something is wrong on the range."

The two paused and listened, looking in each other's pale countenances as they did so.

"It is rifle-firing!" said Mrs. Whitney in a scared voice; "what can it mean?"

"Trouble with the rustlers," replied Jennie, hurrying through the open door to the outside that she might hear the better. Her mother followed, and the two stood side by side, listening and peering across the wide stretch of undulating plain in the direction of the mountains, whose wooded crests were outlined against the clear spring sky.

There could be no mistaking the alarming sounds. They were made by rifles, fired sometimes in quick succession, often mingling with each other, and then showing comparatively long intervals between the discharges of the weapons.

"Father said the rustlers were becoming bolder," remarked Jennie, "and there was sure to be trouble with them before long."

"It has come," was the comment of the parent, "and who shall tell the result?"

"It cannot last long, mother."

"A few minutes is a good while at such a time. A score of shots have already been fired, and some of them must have done execution."

"Father, Fred and our two men are unerring shots."

"And so are they," responded the mother, referring to the rustlers, who have made so much trouble for the cattlemen of Wyoming.