Chapter 24

CONCLUSION

"Get back to that herd!" commanded the foreman sharply. "All of you! Tad, you stay with me. The girl has fallen and struck her head on the flagging. I don't think she is seriously hurt."

Not understanding the meaning of it all, the cowmen drew back and slouched to their ponies. Most of them were off duty at the time, so they took their way back to camp to be ready for whatever emergency might arise.

Not a man of them spoke until they had staked their ponies and seated themselves around the camp-fire. Such a silence was unusual among the cowboys. Ned and Walter, who had followed them in, were standing aside, equally silent and thoughtful.

Shorty Savage was the first to speak.

"What's it all about? That's what I'd like to know," he asked.

"You won't find out from me," answered Curley.

"Big-foot thinks he winged a spook," said a voice.

"Allee samee," chuckled Pong, who had been taking in the scene with mouth and eyes agape.

Big-foot fixed him with a baneful eye.

"I said I'd forget you were the cook some day," said he. "I'm forgetting it, now, faster'n a broncho can run!"

Pong's pigtail bobbed up and down like the streaming neckkerchief of a cowboy in saddle as he dived for the protection of the trail wagon.

"I reckon he can understand king's English when he wants to," laughed Shorty. "Now how about that spook, Big-foot?"

Sanders stood up, hitched his trousers and tightened his belt a notch.

"Reckon we've all gone plumb daffy, fellows. I'm the champeen dummy of the bunch."

The cowpunchers laughed heartily.

"But was she a spook?" persisted Shorty.

"She were not. She were a woman—a friend of the boss."

Shorty whistled.

"Lucky for me I missed her. I was rattled, or I'd never taken that shot."

"Who is she?" asked Curley.

"One of the young women from the Ox Bow. It gets me what she was doing in that spook place alone at night. I——"

"W-o-w!"

The exclamation was uttered by a familiar voice, at the sound of which the cowmen sprang to their feet.

"It's the gopher!" they cried.

"Chunky!" shouted Ned and Walter, running forward with a yell.

"I fell in," wailed the fat boy.

At sight of him the cowboys yelled with merriment. Chunky's clothes were torn. He was covered with dirt from head to foot, and his face was so grimy as to be scarcely recognizable.

Big-foot was staring at him in amazement. Striding forward, he grasped the lad roughly by the shoulder, jerking him into the full light of the camp-fire.

"Where you been, gopher?" he demanded sternly.

"I fell in," stammered the boy.

"Where?"

"Some kind of a well. It was in the bushes just outside the back door. I went there to hide. I fell down to the bottom and went to sleep."

"Just like him. Have anything to eat down there?" jeered Ned Rector.

"When I woke up it was dark. Then I found another hole—a passage. It went both ways. Guess one end went under the church. I followed it the other way, and came out near where the steers are bedded down."

"Hold on a minute. Let's get this straight," interrupted Curley. "You mean you found an underground passage at the bottom of the old well? Is that it?"

Chunky nodded.

"And the opening was near the spring at the point of rocks just above the herd?"

"Yes. But I had to dig out through a brush heap."

"Huh! Not such a terrible mystery, after all," sniffed Curley contemptuously.

"How came that underground passage there? What's it for?" asked Big-foot.

"Probably dug out in Indian times. I'll bet it has saved the scalp of more than one old fellow. There's an opening into it from the church somewhere, you can depend upon that. I'm thinking, too, that the well was a bluff—that it wasn't intended for water at all. We'll smash the mystery of the adobe church before we pull out of here to-morrow, see if we don't."

"I come mighty near doing for one of them," added Big-foot Sanders ruefully.

"Got anything to eat?" interrupted Stacy Brown.

"For goodness' sake, boys, take your fat friend over to the chuck wagon and fill him up. He's like a Mexican steer—he'll bed down safer when he's full of supper."

In the meantime, another scene was being enacted off at the Ox Bow ranch—a scene that was to add still another chapter to the romance of the trail.

Tad Butler was sitting alone in the darkness on the steps of the McClure mansion. The boy, chin in hands, was lost in thought. Stallings had carried Ruth Brayton in his arms all the way to the ranch where she had soon revived.

After leaving her, the foreman and Colonel McClure had locked themselves in the library, where they remained in consultation for more than an hour.

"How is Miss Ruth?" asked the boy eagerly, when Stallings finally came out.

"Better than in many months," answered the foreman. There was a new note in his voice.

"I'm so glad," breathed Tad.

"Old man," began Stallings, slapping Tad on the shoulder, "come along with me. We'll lead our ponies back to camp and talk. I presume you are aching to know what all this mystery means?" laughed the foreman.

"Naturally, I am a bit curious," admitted Tad.

"It means, Pinto, that not only have you rendered a great service to Mr. Miller and his herd, but you have done other things as well."

"I've mixed things up pretty well, I guess."

"No. You have solved a riddle, and made me the happiest man in the Lone Star State. Miss Brayton and I have known each other almost since childhood. When I was in Yale——"

"You a college man!" exclaimed Tad in surprise.

"Yes. We were engaged. My people were quite wealthy; but, in a panic, some years ago, father lost everything, dying soon after. Miss Brayton's family then refused their consent to our marriage. I determined to seek my fortune in the growing West. My full name is Robert Stallings Hamilton, though I never had used the middle name until I adopted it when I became a cowboy. But to return to Miss Brayton. Ruth was taken to Europe, and then sent to her uncle here. Her trouble preyed on her mind to such an extent that she grew 'queer.' She had heard that I was a cattle man, somewhere in the West. Strangely enough, when in her moods, she developed a strong antipathy to herds of cattle. Whenever a herd was near, Ruth would slip from the house and steal away to them in the night, A stampede usually followed. It's a wonder she wasn't shot. Whether or not she caused these intentionally, Ruth does not know——"

"And that is the mystery?" asked Tad.

"Yes."

"It is the strangest story I ever heard," said the boy quietly.

"What I was about to say, is that the herd will go on without me. Colonel McClure is sending his own foreman through with it instead. Ruth and I are to be married at once, and we shall go to my little ranch in Montana."

In view of the fact that Stallings was severing his connection with the herd, Professor Zepplin decided to do likewise.

Next morning, at sunrise, Bob Stallings, with Miss Ruth, by his side, both radiantly happy, rode out to the camp. The Pony Rider Boys had packed their kits and loaded their belongings on their ponies. Regretfully they bade good-bye to the cowmen.

Tad's parting with Big-foot was most trying. In the short time they had been together, a strong affection had grown up between the two. The plainsman had been quick to perceive Tad's manly qualities, and the boy, in his turn, had been won by the big, generous nature of the man. They parted, each vowing that they must see each other again.

As the great herd moved slowly northward, three cheers were proposed for Bob Stallings and Miss Brayton. This the cowboys gave with a will, adding a tiger for the Pony Rider Boys.

The trail wagon, pulling out at the same time, held a grinning Chinaman, huddled in the rear.

"Good-bye, Pong!" shouted the lads.

"Allee samee," chuckled the cook, shaking hands with himself enthusiastically.

And here for a time we will take leave of the Pony Rider Boys, whose further exciting experiences will be chronicled in the next volume, entitled: "The Pony Rider Boys in Montana; Or, the Mystery of the Old Custer Trail." This will be a story of adventure, full of absorbing interest and thrilling incidents. The reader will then go over the same trails that General Custer rode in the wilder days.

THE END.