CHAPTER XIV—OFF FOR THE ROUND-UP
“Phew! it looks like another hot day, Frank!”
Andy had just dressed, and gone to the window to look out. The sun was already up, and had that queer, dark red glow that betokens an unusual display of heat. It would be a hard day for the long ride across the treeless level stretching out between the ranch buildings and the grassy valleys where the cattle generally bunched at this time of year.
Frank had been strangely silent while dressing; and as he now joined his cousin at the window, Andy noticed for the first time that he was looking rather “peaked.”
“Here, what’s the matter with you, old fellow?” he asked, with his customary breezy impulsiveness. “You don’t seem a bit tickled over the idea of spending a whole day in the saddle, and that’s a fact.”
“Well,” replied the other, with a little smile, “the fact is, Andy, I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint you.”
“How’s that?” demanded his cousin, aggressively. “I don’t think I’d better try going today, and that’s a fact,” Frank went on.
“Are you sick? Is that what ails you? Seemed to me you kicked around a whole lot last night, now I come to think of it. Why, didn’t you call me up, Frank? What’s the matter? I just bet the heat was too much for you yesterday. We shouldn’t have done that long ride on so nasty a day; felt like I was drawn through a straw myself, though I’m all right now. But do you really mean that you won’t ride out today with the boys?”
“The way I feel now, it would be silly for me to try it,” Frank continued, with a little shake of his head. “I seem to be dizzy, and to sit on the back of a lively pony for even an hour would upset me like everything.”
“That’s a shame now, ain’t it, Frank?”
“Oh! I don’t mind it so very much. You’ll only be gone a couple or three days at the most; and I’ll have Mrs. Ogden, Charley Woo, and little Becky to keep me company. And then, if I’m feeling myself by tomorrow, why I might take a notion to look you boys up by the air route. Don’t worry about me, Andy.”
“I don’t mean to, because I expect to stay with you and see that you get the right kind of care,” said Andy, with his positive face in evidence.
“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” retorted Frank. “I’ll be in good hands, and the chances are will be all right by noon. So you’re just going along with Uncle and the rest.”
“I’d like to see anybody make me when I put my foot down,” Andy went on to say. “The fact of the matter is, Frank, between you and me and the lamp-post, when I found out what sort of a scorcher we were in for today, I began to lose some of my own enthusiasm. Sure I’d have gone along if you were all right, and taken my medicine as well as I could; but this alkali dust don’t please me a whit; and on a red hot day it’s a lot of a nuisance to have to keep on riding in a saddle on such a slow thing as a cayuse.”
“Oh! you’re spoiled by this mile-a-minute gait of your air steed, that’s plain,” chuckled Frank, “but your uncle will be disappointed if you don’t go along, Andy.”
“He’ll have to be, then,” returned the other steadily, as though his mind was made up, and nothing could change it. “I don’t pretend to be able to keep up with Buckskin, Shorty and all that lot of hard riders. They can wear me to a frazzle in the long run. My place, where I shine, is with you in a biplane. There you don’t have to work your way, but just sit and enjoy the grandest view any fellow ever had spread out before him, while’s he spinning along at much more than a mile-a-minute speed. The air route for mine, every time.”
“Well, I see there’s no use trying to force you to go; but I’m sorry that this has happened, Andy.”
“Shucks! don’t you bother your head about me,” his cousin said, with a chuckle. “Fact is, I’m rather tickled at finding an excuse for backing down without its looking that I’m showing the white feather. That thought of three days in the saddle, with the heat and dust gave me a bad feeling. And Frank, perhaps we might look the boys and their chuck wagon up tomorrow in our biplane. That’s a heap sight more to my fancy, let me tell you, now.”
“All right, Andy. But there’s your uncle outside, looking after things. We’d better see him, and let him know, before he gets ponies ready for us.”
Both boys went outside, and when Mr. Witherspoon heard about Frank’s sickness he expressed the greatest concern. After hearing the symptoms he agreed with Andy that it must have been the extreme heat of the preceding day that had knocked his cousin out.
“Nothing serious at all,” announced the ranchman, “I’ve felt the same way myself more than a few times, after unusual heat, and hard riding. No use trying to keep in the saddle when you’ve got that dizzy spell; just lie down, and Mrs. Ogden ’ll give you a dose of the same medicine that always brings me around. Chances are you’ll be feeling all right by noon, or before night, anyway.”
“We feel sorry not to be able to go along with you on the round-up, Uncle,” remarked Andy.
“I’d put off starting until tomorrow, boys, only all preparations have been made and it would interfere with our work more or less,” the ranchman went on to say with a tinge of regret in his voice, as though he were tempted to do this at any cost.
“We wouldn’t think of letting you do such a thing, sir!” exclaimed Frank.
“And besides,” added his cousin, “if Frank is all right tomorrow, you may see us sailing along to hunt you up, and with a map of the whole ranch spread out before us.”
“You mean you’ll take a spin in your biplane, is that it, boys?” Mr. Witherspoon went on, “Good! Nothing would please us better. I can imagine the antics of the cattle when they see a great bird settling down over them.”
“Oh! we’ll be careful, and try and not start a stampede, Uncle; if we do come, after we’ve located where you’re working at the time, we’ll drop down some distance away, and walk over; or you can send mounts for us. But I don’t care to go without Frank, you see. And to tell the honest truth, I’m a bit leery about riding through such a scorching hot day as this promises to be.”
“Perhaps you’re wise, my boy,” said the ranchman, reflectively, “it’s hard enough on us old shellbacks, used to breathing this alkali dust from one end of the year to the other, and must be rough on tenderfeet. Make yourselves at home; the best is none too good for you. Charley Woo thinks you are a couple of little tin gods on wheels, and he’ll do anything in the wide world for the wizards who can mount up to the clouds, and play tag there with the winds.”
Frank, though looking badly, would not go in and lie down while the outfit was getting in readiness to start. He wanted to see all that went on, for the chance might never come to him again.
And Andy was busy snapping off several pictures of the scene, as the bunch of active cow punchers galloped around on their ponies, making the animals do all sorts of wonderful feats as they curvetted and pranced, and snorted with the excitement.
“I’ve just got another film of a dozen exposures,” he complained to Frank, after he had taken several views of the chuck wagon, and the string of led ponies that had to be taken along for service when the hard riding boys wore out their first mounts, “and with that I want to get my pictures of the round-up; also one of the dinner hour, when the entire crowd gathers around the chuck wagon.”
“But how is it that Charley Woo doesn’t go along this time; I thought he always did the cooking for the crowd when they went off like this?” Frank remarked.
“I asked Uncle about that, and he said that the boys had been complaining somewhat lately about the Chinaman’s way of cooking. He thought they were just spoiled by having things too good; and to show them the difference he has arranged to let Shorty do the cooking on this trip. He used to, long ago, before Charley came along, and got the job.”
“Oh! that’s it; and the boys are in for a lesson, I can see. When they get a dose of the old style of slinging hash together they’ll never have another word to say about Charley. That’s the way things go, sometimes; you never miss the water until the well runs dry.”
“Looks like they might be going to start right away, Frank. Here come the boys on the jump, to say goodbye, and hope you’ll be feeling better soon.”
“I hope they won’t think I’m faking this headache, just to get out of riding on the round-up with them?” remarked Frank, uneasily.
“They know you better than that,” returned his cousin. “Any fellow who has got the nerve to ride in an aeroplane would be equal to anything, so Buckskin and every one else swears. Try as we can, you know there isn’t one of them dares go up. What Buckskin told them about his sensations has given the whole bunch cold feet so far as wanting to try a ride among the clouds. The earth, alkali dust and all, is good enough for them, they say. Hello! boys, hope you have a grand good time. And if Frank’s feeling O. K., look for us along some time tomorrow. I want to get some cracker-jack pictures of how you round up the cattle, and brand the same, those that need the Double X mark.”
Every puncher insisted on gripping the hand of each of the Bird boys, while his restless pony danced, and snorted, and acted as though just wild to start off like a comet.
Then came Uncle Jethro and the foreman, Waldo Kline, to also shake hands, and say how sorry they felt at not having the visitors at the ranch along; but the boys again repeated their intention of looking in on the workers later on.
With a tremendous racket and waving of hats, the string started off, and Andy could not resist aiming his kodak after them, for the scene was an inspiring one, which he and Frank would never forget.
Further and further away drew the caravan, the mules hitched to the chuck wagon being kept on the trot by old Shorty, who had once again come into his own as cook for the outfit; yet wore a troubled look on his face, as though he felt uneasy concerning the outcome. For cow punchers are no respecters of persons when they feel that they have good cause for complaint concerning the quality of the grub with which they are being served; and Shorty had before then known of cooks being actually tarred and feathered just because they failed to come up to the expectations of the clamorous bunch of reckless cow men. When they had vanished from sight far away over the plain, in a cloud of dust, Frank went in to lie down again; while Andy started to amuse himself developing some of the films he had just exposed.
And as the morning advanced it proved even a hotter day than the preceding one had been, so that Frank felt he had acted wisely in declining to take chances on so hard a gallop, with his head in such a whirl.
It was just before noon that Andy came into the room in somewhat of a state of excitement.