CHAPTER XVI

THE SPRING ROUND-UP

Oriole Putnam might have pursued her inquiries about the prospect hole somewhere near the Three Sisters and have learned something of importance about these landmarks had it not been that about this time a number of very interesting things happened at the Langdon ranch. There really was enough going on to drive out of her thoughts a much more vivid impression than she had gained from overhearing the broken sentences spoken between the three rough men she had observed in the chaparral.

Of course, Oriole did not often ride alone. Harvey Langdon had bought in the East, and it had now been delivered, a roomy basket-phaeton for the children's use; and to this was hitched a lazy old pony called Blooey. Blooey dragged the twins and Oriole over hill and dale, while Sadie Brown, Mr. Langdon himself, or one of the punchers, rode alongside. Oriole learned to drive as easily as she had learned to ride horseback.

They kept to the smoother wagon-trades for these outings, for the phaeton pitched and tossed like a boat in a heavy sea if the way was at all rough.

The Chinese cook was always ready to supply picnic lunches. Ching Foo, as has been shown, approved of any and all attempts to make the already chubby Langdon twins "grow fat."

"I dess," Marian lisped, "Chinese little girls and boys just _have_ to be fat."

"Maybe they throw the skinny ones away," suggested Myron, who must have heard something about pagan sacrifices of babies in the missionary class at Littleport. "Ching Foo is afraid papa won't want us here if we don't keep fat."

With Ching's lunches the children traveled far across the ranges. The driving pony was just as gentle as Oriole's Molly, but nowhere near as "cute" in the girl's opinion. "That Molly horse," as George Belden called Oriole's pony, was an intelligent animal. Oriole began to find out just how smart Molly was at the time of the spring round-up.

This was a busy and exciting season on the Three-bar Ranch. Mr. Langdon grazed his cattle on both fenced and open ranges.

The herdsmen merely "rode fence" on the home pastures--mending the wire, driving in the posts after the "heave" of the frost coming out of the ground, and roping or driving in the stray cattle that broke out of bounds.

But on the open ranges, farther up in the hills, the cattle business was conducted differently. There the punchers must stand watch and ward over the herds by day and ride continually around the herds at night, alert for trouble.

The whole ranch family went up into the higher range to the round-up--Sadie Brown and the twins, as well as Mr. Langdon and Oriole. Ching Foo alone remained at the ranch house, and Oriole wondered if the conditions were not similar to those at the time when the chest of silver was stolen.

However, when the party reached the branding camps the girl saw Ridley, Shaffer and Mudd at work with the other Three-bar punchers, so she considered that while the three "bad men" were here they could not be in any mischief.

The brief conversation Oriole had overheard between Hank Ridley and his mates continued to puzzle the girl. What was in or about the abandoned mine-shaft, or prospect-hole, up there near the Three Sisters--the rounded summits of which she could see from any part of the ranch--and which so interested the men she suspected of bringing about Teddy Ford's trouble? The question, vaguely insistent, continued to fret the girl's mind.

Yet, at present, it was merely a fleeting thought. The details of what was being done hour by hour here on the range was so fascinating that Oriole could attend to little else.

Besides being a good saddle pony, Molly was trained to range work of all kinds--was what the punchers called a good "cutting-out horse." If Oriole had known as much about the work as her mount did, she might have done a puncher's full part at this heavy season.

She was not the only girl rider on these upper ranges. There were several women and girls from other ranches, for the cattle of many different brands were mixed up on the "free grass." There was not much opportunity for social contact at this time, for the effort was being made to gather and brand as many steers as possible within a short time.

But Oriole was nothing if not friendly. Nor did these Westerners stand aside and look at her scornfully as had some of the Littleport people when Oriole was first introduced to them. The girls, as well as the boys, of the ranges welcomed her cordially.

Knowing so little about the tasks, however, the girl from the Eastern coast could not enter into the work as she really desired; so she was much alone when she rode about on Molly. She practiced continually with the lariat nevertheless and really improved in this delicate art from hour to hour.

"You keep on, Oriole," chuckled George Belden, "and you'll be able to rope the hind leg of a spider. You're going to make some cowgirl, I'll tell the world!"

Although this was said as a joke, Oriole secretly was made very proud by the trail-foreman's approval. When she rode out on Molly from the camp she roped every bush and stub she came to. Once she even tried to put the loop over the head of a half wild yearling that had not yet been dragged to the branding-pen.

Fortunately there was no mother cow with this red-and-white "doggy," for Oriole actually did get the noose over the creature's head, and he bawled loudly and dolorously.

"Oh, dear me!" gasped the girl, when Molly lay back on the rope in a most matter-of-fact way, keeping it taut no matter how the yearling jumped.

"Oh, dear me! Now I have done it! How am I ever going to let him loose again?"

She had seen the cowboys "run down the rope" after they had noosed a steer; but she could not do that. She dismounted gingerly enough and approached the blatting yearling that had now struggled to its feet.

"Come, bossy! Don't be cross," she urged. "I--I didn't really hurt you, you know. Soo, boss! Soo, boss!"

That was the way Ma Stafford had spoken to the cow when she was unruly, but this yearling did not seem to be soothed by the words at all! He shook his head, blatted again, and then sprang toward Oriole with an unquestioned determination to butt the girl.

Although the little beast's horns were merely "buttons" at this stage of his growth, had he been able to hit Oriole he certainly would have hurt her; for his forehead was hard bone and there was considerable force behind his charge. The girl saw her danger and screamed as she tried to spring to one side. Unfortunately she stumbled and fell backwards. She looked up to see the yearling bearing down upon her, tail in the air and forefront threatening--and she screamed again.

Whether it was her scream that made Molly move, or (as Oriole frankly believed) the pony's intelligence, she jumped aside just in the nick of time and the tautened lariat, fastened to Oriole's saddle, brought the angry yearling tumbling to the ground again.

Oriole was on her feet in an instant, and she ran several yards from the struggling yearling.

"Oh, Molly Langdon!" she cried, gazing at the pony, "you are just a wonderful horse! But--but how am I ever going to get that rope away from that mean, mean calf?"

The pony eased up on the rope, and again the yearling scrambled to its legs. Fortunately the noose loosened when the little animal shook himself, and as it stood there bawling the rope fell down about its legs and the creature stepped out of the noose.

Oriole ran to leap into the saddle again. But the yearling, when it found itself free, did not charge her a second time. Instead, tail up and blatting joyfully, the animal galloped across the range and into a coulee out of sight.

"Well!" murmured Oriole, "I surely won't do _that_ again. I guess I will stick to stumps and bushes until I know better how to manage this rope. I guess Teddy Ford would laugh if he had seen me just now."

She rode on with great enjoyment, having left the twins and Nurse Brown behind at the branding camp. Above her on the hillsides the herds of cattle grazed--thousands of them. They looked black in the distance, but Oriole knew they were almost all red.

"If Uncle Nat or Ma Stafford could see all these cows, what would they say?" the girl thought.

Already Oriole had learned that there really was nothing on the range to hurt her--at least, in the nature of wild creatures. For if she left the cattle alone, they would not trouble her. Occasionally she had seen a coyote slink away into the brush, but she had been assured that they were creatures too cowardly to attack human beings, no matter how helpless the latter might be.

The farther she went along this dim trail, however, the lonelier the surroundings appeared. Yet she knew by the sun that she was heading toward the railroad. She had no particular object in view. The chance of adventure teased her on.

The incident of the aroused yearling did not keep her from trying her lariat again and yet again. Over first one bush and then another she flung the whirling coil. Really, she did improve--almost with each cast!

"Won't Mr. Belden and Nurse Brown be surprised when they see how well I do it?" was Oriole's exclamation at last. "Oh! there's a fine stump to try."

The stump in question was two feet across and six feet or more tall. She turned Molly a little nearer, coiling the lariat carefully. Then whirling the rope with a proper regard for distance, Oriole flung it.

Molly sprang away, eager to tauten the rope as the noose fell. The stump was caught fairly--the noose encircled it. And then, as Molly stopped with a jerk, there came a wild yell from behind the stump. Aghast, Oriole saw a figure struggling in the noose of the lariat.

Some person had been captured as well as the stump, and the taut rope held that person with painful severity, as his audible outcry proved.