Ted Strong in Montana Part 3

"Did we? Well, I should howl. After you got under way they began to drift before the wind. We fought them all night, and if we'd let them go they'd been plumb into Colorado by this time. I don't want any more such nights in mine."

"That was only a starter, my friend. That was a picnic compared to what you may have to go up against before the daisies bloom again."

"Chuck!" yelled McCall, beating on the bottom of a griddle with a big iron spoon.

The fellows left the fire in a hurry and, squatting in the snow with a tin cup full of steaming coffee and a plate heaped with fried bacon and griddle cakes, were soon too busy to remember their weariness.

Stella had ridden up, her cheeks glowing, and her eyes sparkling with the frost and the exercise.

"Why didn't you wait for me?" she cried to Ted. "You're a mean thing.

Thought you'd leave me behind, but here I am." She made a little face at Ted.

"I thought you'd rather stay indoors to-day on account of the cold,"

stammered Ted.

"Well, change your line of thought. There's going to be nothing to keep me indoors in this country, and don't you forget it. If I've got to stay indoors, I'll go South."

As soon as the boys had finished breakfast they were ready for another day's work.

"Come on, fellows," shouted Ted. "Let's hurry to where the critters are, and send the other boys back. Mac, cook up another breakfast for them."

They were in the saddle in a jiffy, and scurrying toward the south as fast as their ponies could carry them.

Ted found the herd bogged in a shallow coulee that was filled to the top with snow, in which they stood up to their bellies, lowing from fright, hunger, and thirst.

They were packed in a solid ma.s.s, and could not get out on the other side because the wall of the coulee was too steep for them to clamber up, as they might have done had it not been for the deep snow with which it was drifted full.

As a matter of fact, though, the coulee had saved the herd from drifting many miles in the night.

But how to get them out was the question that perplexed Bud, and with the arrival of Ted he thankfully turned the task over to him.

"Hike for the chuck wagon, boys," shouted Ted, as he came up.

"Well, I should smile to e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e," said Bud, "we're as hollow an' cold as a rifle bar'l. I'll turn this leetle summer matinee over ter you, my friend, not wis.h.i.+n' you any harm."

"Go ahead and enjoy yourselves," said Ted. "But as soon as you have filled up and warmed up come back. As soon as we get the bunch out of this hole it will be a snap to get them near the ranch house. If we'd only known it, we could have made it in half an hour more last night."

When Bud had ridden away Ted took stock of the situation, and found that he had a difficult problem to solve.

Under ordinary circ.u.mstances it would have been easy to snake the cattle out of the coulee by roping them around the horns and dragging them out with the ponies, but it was utterly impossible to do that with a couple of thousand of them.

While he was looking things over he became aware that Stella had ridden away. He looked anxiously after her, for he knew her propensity for getting into trouble when she rode alone. Soon she dropped out of sight behind a swell in the prairie with a flash in the sunlight of her scarlet jacket.

Ted was still studying the situation, riding up and down the edge of the coulee, trying to figure out some plan of rescue, and noting the cattle that were down, and which were rapidly being trampled to death by the other beasts, or being smothered by the snow.

The prospect was not a pleasing one to the young cow boss, for he saw the profits of the venture fading away hourly.

Suddenly a faint, shrill yell reached his ears, and he wheeled his pony in the direction from which it came.

Stella's scarlet jacket was coming toward him in a whirlwind of flying snow, and he rushed toward her.

What could have happened to her? He looked in vain for whatever was pursuing her, and saw that she was not being followed, but was swinging her arm above her head with a triumphant gesture.

He slowed his pony down, and soon she dashed to his side.

"You fellows are certainly a bright lot of cow-punchers," she exclaimed.

"What's the matter now?" asked Ted gloomily.

"Didn't any of you think of scouting down the coulee?"

"I confess I didn't."

"You ought to be laid off the job for a week."

"Why?"

"You can get those cattle out of that hole in an hour."

"We can! How do you know?"

"The coulee runs out about a mile to the west, and straight to the north, up a wide swale, lies the ranch house in full view."

"Stella, you're all right. But the cattle are bogged, and they can't move even down the coulee."

"I believe they can."

"How?"

"When the other boys come back from breakfast all of you jump into the coulee and tramp the snow down as much as you can ahead of the leaders.

Then start them up."

"Bully for you, Stella; you're a better cow-puncher than any of us."

"No, I'm not, but because I don't know as much about it I go at it in a woman's way, which is a roundabout way, and nearly always foolish to look at, but sometimes does the work."

This suggestion had the effect of taking a great load from Ted's shoulders, for if he did not succeed in getting the herd out before night they would freeze solid in their molds of snow, and then he would never get half of them out alive.

Presently Bud and the other boys came winging back from breakfast, and Ted told them of the plan for releasing the cattle, at the same time praising Stella and giving her all the credit for the idea.

"Peevish peppers, but I'm a tenderfoot," grunted Bud. "Why in Sam Hill didn't I think o' that myself? I reckon I'm gettin' too old fer ther cow business. I ought ter be milkin' cows at some dairy farm."

The boys followed Stella's suggestion, and, leaping into the coulee, wheeled their ponies about until they had a well-beaten road for several hundred feet toward the west.

Then, cutting out a bunch of about fifty steers, led by a wise old fellow, the herd leader, whom they called Baldy on account of the spot of white hair between his horns, drove them along the path. After getting the bunch going well, the boys drove them with yells and the las.h.i.+ng of quirts into the deep snow ahead, and would not let them stop.

Another bunch was driven up, and soon there was a smooth road along the bottom of the coulee to the open ground, over which the cattle pa.s.sed to safety.

Stella's good common sense had saved the herd.