CHAPTER II – BASHFUL IKE

The situation in the big automobile was quite as serious as Tom and Bob believed, and there was very good reason for the girls to express their fright in a chorus of screams. But Ruth Fielding, and her chum, Helen, on the front seat, controlled themselves better than the other Eastern girls; Jane Ann Hicks never said a word, but her uncle looked quite as startled as his guests.

“I am sartainly graveled!” muttered the ranchman, staring all around for some means of saving the party from disaster. “Hi gollies! if I only had a leetle old rope now – ”

But he had no lariat, and roping a mad steer from an automobile would certainly have been a new experience for Bill Hicks. He had brought the party of young folk out to Montana just to give his niece pleasure, and having got Ruth Fielding and her friends here, he did not want to spoil their visit by any bad accident. These young folk had been what Bill Hicks called “mighty clever” to his Jane Ann when she had been castaway in the East, and he had promised their friends to look out for them all and send them home in time for school in the Fall with the proper complement of legs and arms, and otherwise whole as to their physical being.

Ruth Fielding, after the death of her parents when she was quite a young girl, had left Darrowtown and all her old friends and home associations, to live with her mother’s uncle, at the Red Mill, on the Lumano River, near Cheslow in York State. Her coming to Uncle Jabez Potter’s, and her early adventures about the mill, were related in the first volume of this series, entitled “Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill; Or, Jasper Parloe’s Secret.”

Ruth had found Uncle Jabez very hard to get along with, for he was a miser and his kinder nature had been crusted over by years of hoarding and selfishness; but through a happy turn of circumstances Ruth was enabled to get at the heart of her crotchety old uncle, and when Ruth’s dearest friend, Helen Cameron, planned to go to boarding school, Uncle Jabez was won over to the scheme of sending the girl with her. The fun and work of that first term at school is related in the second volume of the series, entitled “Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall; Or, Solving the Campus Mystery.”

For the mid-winter vacation Ruth accompanied Helen and other school friends to Mr. Cameron’s hunting camp, up toward the Canadian line. In “Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp; Or, Lost in the Backwoods,” the girls and some of their boy friends experience many adventures and endure some hardship and peril while lost in the snow-shrouded forest.

One of Ruth’s chums, Jennie Stone, otherwise known as “Heavy,” invited her to Lighthouse Point, with a party of young people, for part of the summer vacation; and although Uncle Jabez was in much trouble over his investment in the Tintacker Mine, which appeared to be a swindle, the old miller had allowed Ruth to accompany her friends to the seashore because he had already promised her the outing. In “Ruth Fielding at Lighthouse Point; Or, Nita, the Girl Castaway,” is narrated all the fun and delightful experiences the girl of the Red Mill and her friends had at the seaside; including the saving of a girl from the wreck of a lumber schooner, a miss who afterward proved to be Jane Ann Hicks, the niece of a very wealthy Montana ranch owner. The girl had run away from the ranch and from her guardian and calls herself Nita, “because the girl in the paper-covered novel was called Nita.”

That was just the sort of a romantic, foolish girl Jane Ann Hicks was; but she learned a few things and was glad to see her old uncle, rough as he was, when he came hunting for her. And Mr. Bill Hicks had learned a few things, too. He had never seen people spend money before he came East, and he had not understood Jane Ann’s longing for the delicate and beautiful things in life. He saw, too, that a girl could not be properly brought up on a cattle ranch, with nothing but cow punchers and Indians and Mexican women about, and Mr. Hicks had determined to give his niece “a right-down good time,” as he expressed it.

It was to give Jane Ann pleasure, and because of the kindness of Ruth and her friends to his niece, that Mr. Bill Hicks had arranged this trip West for the entire party, on a visit to Silver Ranch. But the old gentleman did not want their introduction to the ranch to be a tragedy. And with the herd of half-wild cattle ahead, and Old Trouble-Maker thundering along the trail behind the motor car, it did look as though the introduction of the visitors to the ranch was bound to be a strenuous one.

“Do go ahead, Helen!” cried Madge Steele, Bob’s elder sister, from the back seat of the tonneau. “Why, that beast may climb right in here!”

Helen started the car again; but at that her brother and Ruth cried out in chorus:

“Don’t run us into the herd, Helen!”

“What under the sun shall I do?” cried Miss Cameron. “I can’t please you all, that’s sure.”

“Oh, see that beast!” shrieked The Fox, who was likewise on the back seat. “I want to get out!”

“Then the brute will catch you, sure,” said Bob Steele.

“Sit still!” commanded Mr. Hicks. “And stop the car, Miss! Better to be bunted by Old Trouble-Maker than set that whole bunch off on a stampede.”

“Mercy me!” cried Mary Cox. “I should think it would be better to frighten those cows in front than to be horned to death by this big beast from the rear.”

“Sit still,” said Jane Ann, grimly. “We won’t likely be hurt by either.”

Old Trouble-Maker did look awfully savage. Bellowing with rage, he thundered along after the car. Helen had again brought the automobile to a stop, this time at Bill Hicks’ command. The next moment the girls screamed in chorus, for the car jarred all over.

Crash went a rear lamp. About half a yard of paint and varnish was scraped off, and the car itself was actually driven forward, despite the brake being set, by the sheer weight of the steer.

“If we could git the old cart turned around and headed the other way!” groaned the ranchman.

“I believe I can turn it, Mr. Hicks,” cried Helen, excitedly.

But just then the steer, that had fallen back a few yards, charged again. “Bang!” It sounded like the exploding of a small cannon. Old Trouble-Maker had punctured a rear tire, and the car slumped down on that side. Helen couldn’t start it now, for the trail was too rough to travel with a flattened tire.

The black and white steer, with another furious bellow, wheeled around the back of the car and then came full tilt for the side. Heavy screamed at the top of her voice:

“Oh, take me home! I never did want to go to a dairy farm. I just abominate cows!”

But the crowd could not laugh. Huddled together in the tonneau, it looked as though Old Trouble-Maker would certainly muss them up a whole lot! Jane Ann and her uncle hopped out on the other side and called the others to follow. At that moment, with a whoop and a drumming of hoofs, a calico cow pony came racing along the trail toward the stalled car. On the back of this flying pony was a lanky, dust-covered cowboy, swinging a lariat in approved fashion.

“Hold steady, boss!” yelled this apparition, and then let the coils of the rope whistle through the air. The hair line uncoiled like a writhing serpent and dropped over the wide-spread horns of Old Trouble-Maker. Then the calico pony came to an abrupt halt, sliding along the ground with all four feet braced.

“Zip!” the noose tightened and the steer brought up with a suddenness that threatened to dislocate his neck. Down the beast fell, roaring a different tune. Old Trouble-Maker almost turned a somersault, while Jane Ann, dancing in delight, caught off her very modern and high-priced hat and swung it in the air.

“Hurrah for Bashful Ike!” she shouted. “He’s the best little old boy with the rope that ever worked for the Silver outfit. Hurrah!”

CHAPTER III – IN WHICH THINGS HAPPEN

The cow puncher who had rescued them was a fine looking, bronzed fellow, with heavy sheepskin chaps on his legs, a shirt open at the throat, his sleeves rolled up displaying muscular arms, and twinkling eyes under the flapping brim of his great hat. While he “snubbed” the big steer to his knees again as the bellowing creature tried to rise, he looked down with a broad smile upon the sparkling face of the Western girl.

“Why, bless yo’ heart, honey,” he said, in a soft, Southern droll, “if you want me to, I’ll jest natwcher’ly cinch my saddle on Old Trouble-Maker an’ ride him home for yo’. It certainly is a cure for sore eyes to see you again.”

“And I’m glad to see you, Ike. And these are all my friends. I’ll introduce you and the boys to them proper at the ranch,” cried the Western girl.

“Git that bellowin’ critter away from yere, Ike,” commanded Mr. Hicks. “I ’low the next bunch that goes to the railroad will include that black and white abomination.”

“Jest so, Boss,” drawled his foreman. “I been figurin’ Old Trouble-Maker better be in the can than on the hoof. He’s made a plumb nuisance of himself. Yo’ goin’ on, Boss? Bud and Jimsey’s got that bunch out o’ the way of your smoke-waggin.”

“We’ve got to shift tires, Mr. Hicks,” said Tom Cameron, who, with his chum, Bob Steele, was already jacking up the rear axle. “That steer ripped a long hole in this tire something awful.”

Bashful Ike – who didn’t seem at all bashful when it came to handling the big black and white steer – suddenly let that bellowing beast get upon his four feet. Then he swooped down upon the steer, gathering up the coils of his rope as he rode, twitched the noose off the wide horns, and leaning quickly from his saddle grabbed the “brush” of the steer’s tail and gave that appendage a mighty twist.

Bellowing again, but for an entirely different reason, the steer started off after the bunch of cattle now disappearing in the dust-cloud, and the foreman spurred his calico pony after Old Trouble-Maker, yelling at the top of his voice at every jump of his pony:

“Ye-ow! ye-ow! ye-ow!”

“I declare I’m glad to see those cattle out of the way,” said Helen Cameron, with a sigh.

“I believe you,” returned Ruth, who was still beside her on the front seat. “I just didn’t realize before that cattle on the range are a whole lot different from a herd of cows in an eastern pasture.”

Tom and Bob got the new tire in place and pumped up, and then the automobile started again for the ranch house. Jane Ann was quite excited over her home-coming; anybody could see that with half an eye. She clung to her uncle’s hand and looked at him now and again as though to assure the old fellow that she really was glad to be home.

And Bill Hicks himself began to “fill into the picture” now that he was back in Montana. The young folks had seen many men like him since leaving Denver.

“Why, he’s just an old dear!” whispered Ruth to Helen, as the latter steered the car over the rough trail. “And just as kind and considerate as he can be. It’s natural chivalry these Western men show to women, isn’t it?”