Six Little Bunkers at Uncle Fred's Part 26

There was nothing more for the fire to "eat," as Russ called it. Some little tongues of fire tried to creep around the ends of the plowed strip, but the cowboys soon beat these out by throwing shovels full of dirt on them.

"There! Now the fire is out!" cried Uncle Fred. "There is no more danger."

"And will your houses be all right?" Rose asked.

"Yes, they won't burn now."

There was still much smoke in the air, but the wind was blowing it away.

And then the children could see the big field, all burned black by the fire.

"The cows can't eat that now, can they?" asked Laddie.

"No, it's spoiled for pasture," said Uncle Fred. "But it will grow up again. Still a prairie fire is a bad thing."

The little Bunkers thought so, too, and they were glad when it was over.

They went back to the house, leaving some of the cowboys on guard, to see that no stray sparks started another fire.

"And now we'll have dinner," said Uncle Fred. "It's a little late, but we'll call it dinner just the same."

He invited the men from the other ranches, who had come to help him fight the fire, to stay with him, and soon Bill Johnson was serving a meal to many hungry men. The little Bunkers had theirs separately.

That afternoon Russ and Laddie and Vi went fis.h.i.+ng again, while Mrs.

Bunker took the other children for a ride in one of Uncle Fred's wagons, with Daddy Bunker to drive. She went to call on a neighbor, about five miles away; a lady who used to live near Mrs. Bunker, but whom she had not seen for a long while.

Laddie, Russ and Violet had fun fis.h.i.+ng, and caught enough for Bill Johnson to cook for supper.

"Come on!" called Laddie to Russ that evening, after they had played for a while out near the barn. "Let's go over and get a drink out of the spring."

"All right," agreed Russ. "Maybe we can see what makes it dry up."

"Maybe a bad Indian does it," suggested Laddie. "If I saw him do it I'd la.s.so him."

"So would I--only they won't let us have la.s.sos any more."

"Well, maybe they would if they knew we could catch an Indian," went on Laddie hopefully. "Come on, anyhow." Then off they started toward the spring.

"Oh, look!" exclaimed Russ, who had run on ahead. "The water's all gone again!"

"It is?" cried Laddie. "Oh, we'd better go and tell Uncle Fred! Let me see!"

He hurried to his brother's side. Surely enough, there was hardly a pailful of water in the bottom of the spring. And the stream that trickled in through the rocks at the back had stopped.

"Do you s'pose the bad men are taking any more of Uncle Fred's cattle?"

asked Laddie. "He said they did that when the spring went dry."

The two little boys managed to dip up a drink in the half a cocoanut sh.e.l.l, and then they looked about them. Night was coming on, and the sun had set some little time before.

"Hark! what's that?" asked Russ, listening.

"Thunder?" asked Laddie. "Is it thunder?"

"It sounds like it," said Russ, "but I don't see any lightning. I guess we'd better go home, anyhow."

They started away from the spring, and then Laddie suddenly cried:

"Oh, look! Look at Uncle Fred's cows all running away!"

Russ looked, and saw a big bunch of cattle rus.h.i.+ng and thundering across the plain. It was the hoofs of the cattle beating on the ground that made the sound like thunder.

"Oh, what is it? What is it?" cried Laddie. "What makes 'em run like that?"

"It's a cattle stampede!" shouted a voice, almost in the ears of the boys. "Look out! Up you come!"

CHAPTER XVIII

AN INDIAN

"It's a cattle stampede!"

Before Russ and Laddie had a chance to think what this meant, though Uncle Fred had told them in his stories, each little boy felt himself caught up in strong arms, and set on a horse in front of a cowboy.

What had happened was that two of Uncle Fred's cowboys had ridden along when Russ and Laddie were at the spring, and, fearing the little lads might get into danger, they had taken them up on their saddles.

"Where are we going?" asked Laddie, undecided whether or not to cry.

"We are going home--that is, I'm going to take you home," said the cowboy, smiling down at Laddie. "Then we'll try to stop these cattle from running away."

"Are the cattle running away?" asked Russ of the cowboy who held him so firmly in front on his saddle.

"That's what they are, little man," was the answer. "Something frightened the steers, and they started to run. We've got to stop 'em, too!"

"Will they run far?" asked Russ.

"Well, sometimes they do and sometimes they don't," answered the cowboy.

"It all depends. Out here on the plain, where there isn't any high land or cliffs for them to topple over, there isn't much danger. The cattle will run until they get tired out. But, of course, some of 'em get stepped on and hurt, and that's bad. And sometimes our cattle get mixed in with another herd, when they stampede this way, and it's hard to get 'em unmixed again. But we're going to take you two boys to the ranch house, and then we'll try to stop the stampede. What were you doing out here, anyhow?"

"Looking at the spring," answered Russ. "It's gone dry again."

"Has it?" asked the cowboy. "Then that means we'll lose more cattle, I reckon. Maybe the men started this stampede."

"No, I think this stampede was started by Indians," said the cowboy who had Laddie, and who had just ridden up alongside Russ in order to speak to "his cowboy" as Russ afterward called him.

"Indians!" cried Russ.

"Yes. Sometimes they come off the reservation, and start to travel to see some of their friends. A band of Indians will stampede a bunch of cattle as soon as anything else."