Ruth Fielding at Silver Ranch

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.

A balloon of dust appeared far down the trail. Out of this there shot the long hood of a heavy touring car, which came chugging up the rise making almost as much noise as a steam roller. Lem Dickson shuffled to the door of the store and stuck his head within.

"Sally!" he bawled. "Sally!"

"Yes, Paw," replied a sweet, if rather shrill, voice from the open stairway that led to the upper chamber of the store-building.

"Here comes somebody I reckon you'll wanter see," bawled the old man.

There was a light step on the stair; but it halted on the last tread and a lithe, red-haired, peachy complexioned girl looked into the big room.

"Well, now, Paw," she said, sharply. "You ain't got me down yere for that bashful Ike Stedman, have you? For if he's come prognosticating around yere again I declare I'll bounce a bucket off his head. He's the biggest gump!"

"Come on yere, gal!" snapped her father. "I ain't said nothin' about Ike. This yere's Bill Hicks an' all his crowd comin' up from Bullhide in a blamed ol' steam waggin."

Sally ran out through the store and reached the piazza just as the snorting automobile came near and slowed down. A lithe, handsome, dark girl was at the wheel; beside her was a very pretty, plump girl with rosy cheeks and the brightest eyes imaginable; the third person crowded into the front seat was a youth who looked so much like the girl who was running the machine that they might have changed clothes and nobody would have been the wiser-save that Tom Cameron's hair was short and his twin sister, Helen's, was long and curly. The girl between the twins was Ruth Fielding.

In the big tonneau of the car was a great, tall, bony man with an enormous "walrus" mustache and a very red face; beside him sat a rather freckled girl with snapping black eyes, who wore very splendid clothes as though she was not used to them. With this couple were a big, blond boy and three girls-one of them so stout that she crowded her companions on the seat into their individual corners, and packed them in there somewhat after the nature of sardines in a can.

"Hello, Sally!" cried the girl in the very fine garments, stretching her hand out to greet the storekeeper's daughter as the automobile came to a stop.

"Hi, Lem!" bawled the man with the huge mustache. "Is Silver Ranch on the map yet, or have them punchers o' mine torn the face of Nater all to shreds an' only left me some o' the pieces?"

"I dunno 'bout that, Bill," drawled the fat storekeeper, shuffling down the steps in his list slippers, and finally reached and shaking the hand of Mr. William Hicks, owner of Silver Ranch. "But when some of your cows set their eyes on this contraption they're goin' to kick holes in the air-an' that's sartain!"

"The cows will have to get used to seeing this automobile, Lem Dickson," snapped the ranchman's niece, who had been speaking with Sally. "For uncle's bought it and it beats riding a cayuse, I tell you!"

"By gollies!" grunted Bill Hicks, "it bucks wuss'n any critter I ever was astride of." But he spoke softly, and nobody but the storekeeper noticed what he said.

"Mean to say you've bought this old chuck-waggin from Doosenberry?" demanded the storekeeper.

"Uh-huh," nodded Mr. Hicks.

"Wal, you're gittin' foolish-like in your old age, Bill," declared his friend.

"No I ain't; I'm gittin' wise," retorted the ranchman, with a wide grin.

"How's that?"

"I'm l'arnin' how to git along with Jane Ann," declared Mr. Hicks, with a delighted chortle, and pinching the freckled girl beside him.

"Ouch!" exclaimed his niece. "What's the matter, Uncle Bill?"

"He says he's bought this contraption to please you, Jane Ann," said the storekeeper. "But what'll Old Trouble-Maker do when he sees it-heh?"

"Gee!" ejaculated the ranchman. "I never thought o' that steer."

"I reckon Old Trouble-Maker will have to stand for it," scoffed the ranchman's niece, tossing her head. "Now, Sally, you ride out and see us. These girls from down East are all right. And we're going to have heaps of fun at Silver Ranch after this."

Helen Cameron touched a lever and the big car shot ahead again.

"She's a mighty white girl, that Sally Dickson," declared Jane Ann Hicks (who hated her name and preferred to be called "Nita"). "She's taught school here at the Crossing for one term, too. And she's sweet in spite of her peppery temper--"

"What could you expect?" demanded the stout girl, smiling all over her face as she looked back at the red-haired girl at the store. "She has a more crimson topknot than the Fox here--"

There came a sudden scream from the front seat of the automobile. The car, under Helen Cameron's skillful manipulation, had turned the bend in the trail and the chapparel instantly hid the store and the houses at the Crossing. Right ahead of them was a rolling prairie, several miles in extent. And up the rise toward the trail was coming, in much dust, a bunch of cattle, with two or three punchers riding behind and urging the herd to better pasture.

"Oh! see all those steers," cried Ruth Fielding. "Do you own all of them, Mr. Hicks?"

"I reckon they got my brand on 'em, Miss," replied the ranchman. "But that's only a leetle bunch-can't be more'n five hundred-coming up yere. I reckon, Miss Helen, that we'd better pull up some yere. If them cows sees us--"

"See there! see there!" cried the stout girl in the back seat.

As she spoke in such excitement, Helen switched off the power and braked the car. Out of the chapparel burst, with a frantic bellow, a huge black and white steer-wide horned, ferocious of aspect-quite evidently "on the rampage." The noise of the passing car had brought him out of concealment. He plunged into the trail not ten yards behind the slowing car.

"Goodness me!" shouted the big boy who sat beside Bill Hicks and his niece. "What kind of a beast is that? It's almost as big as an elephant!"

"Oh!" cried the girl called "The Fox." "That surely isn't the kind of cattle you have here, is it? He looks more like a buffalo. See! he's coming after us!"

The black and white steer did look as savage as any old buffalo bull and, emitting a bellow, shook his head at the automobile and began to cast the dust up along his flanks with his sharp hoofs. He was indeed of a terrifying appearance.

"It's Old Trouble-Maker!" cried Jane Ann Hicks.

"He looks just as though his name fitted him," said Tom Cameron, who had sprung up to look back at the steer.

At that moment the steer lowered his head and charged for the auto. The girls shrieked, and Tom cried:

"Go ahead, Nell! let's leave that beast behind."

Before his sister could put on speed again, however, the big boy, who was Bob Steele, sang out:

"If you go on you'll stampede that herd of cattle-won't she, Mr. Hicks? Why, we're between two fires, that's what we are!"

"And they're both going to be hot," groaned Tom. "Why, that Old Trouble-Maker will climb right into this car in half a minute!"