The Motor Boys on a Ranch; or, Ned, Bob and Jerry Among the Cowboys

by Clarence Young

  CHAPTER XVIII

  TWO INVALIDS

  Gimp pulled up his horse sharply and looked narrowly at the Parson.

  “Where was the raid this time?” he asked.

  “From the Bear Swamp range,” and he named a part of the Square Z ranchthat lay to the southeast, a low tract that was wet part of the year.

  “Bear Swamp, eh?” mused Gimp. “That’s where some of the good stock was,too.”

  “Yes, the old man had a nice bunch fattening there for a special order.He’s ravin’ now.”

  For the moment Bob and Ned were more interested in how Munson had beenshot than in the news of the cattle being driven off. The same thoughtwas in both their minds. Was the cattle buyer shot while protecting theSquare Z herd, or while participating in the theft? This last fitted inwith the suspicions in the minds of the two boys. They wanted to ask aquestion but did not know just how, when Gimp saved them the trouble.

  “Where was Munson hit?” he asked. “In the back?” he added as asignificant after query.

  The Parson laughed.

  “It wouldn’t have surprised me if he had been on the run away from theenemy when he got nipped,” he said, “but I’ll have to be just and sayit was in the leg, and head on at that.”

  “What was he doing?” Gimp next demanded.

  “He tried to plug some of the rustlers but they got him first, it_seems_,” answered the Parson.

  “Huh! It _seems_?” inquired Gimp. “Doesn’t anybody _know_?”

  “Nobody was there but Munson, and we had to take his version of it,”went on the narrator. “At least nobody but Munson came back to Square Zafter the fracas. The others rode away with the cattle.”

  “Oh, then he was the only one who saw ’em. Which way did they go?”asked Gimp, eagerly.

  “Over there--same way as the others,” and the Parson pointed toward therocky defile near which all traces of the former bunch of stolen cattlehad been lost.

  “Same gang then, I take it,” said Gimp, presently. “Go on. Spin theyarn as we go along. We’ve got a sick boy here and the sooner thedoctor sees him the better.”

  Gimp told the Parson, briefly, how Jerry had been hurt, and addedsomething about Hinkee Dee which Ned and Bob could not quite catch.Then, in his turn, the Parson told of the raid.

  Munson, it appeared, had ridden off, as he often did, to look at abunch of steers or to inspect some part of the ranch. He had come back,riding a winded horse and with his right leg tied in bloody bandages.His story was to the effect that as he approached a small herd ofcattle that were temporarily without cowboy watchers from Square Z, hehad seen the steers being rounded up by half a dozen men, who startedto drive them away.

  “Munson said he knowed they wasn’t our men,” said the Parson, “so hehailed ’em. They fired at him quick as a flash, and then he said he wassure they were the rustlers. He shot back and thinks he hit one, butthey got him in the leg. He knows a little about medicine it seems, sohe tore up his shirt, bandaged the wound and rode home. I guess most ofus would have done the same.”

  “Then he saw the rustlers?” asked Gimp, eagerly.

  “Sure,” assented the Parson.

  “Can’t he give a description so we can find ’em?”

  “Well, he didn’t get near enough to see ’em clearly, he says. And youknow one cowboy on a horse looks pretty much like another,” replied theParson. “I guess Munson’s description won’t be much help. But we’regoing to get right on their trail, and maybe we’ll be able to land’em. They haven’t got such a start as before.”

  Poor Jerry was beginning to recover consciousness when they carried himinto the ranch house. He opened his eyes.

  “Are you badly hurt, old scout?” asked Bob, anxiously.

  “Well,” was the slow and low-voiced answer, “I have felt better,” andthere was a faint smile which showed Jerry’s grit.

  There were some modern conveniences at Square Z, a telephone beingone of them, and a message was sent to town for a physician, who,fortunately, was in his office. He promised to come at once in hisautomobile, and was at Square Z in a comparatively short time.

  “You’ve got two invalids to look after, Doc,” remarked the foreman, whohad remained behind with the boys when Gimp and the Parson had riddenoff after the other cowboys who had already started the chase.

  “Two? I thought there was only one.”

  “Visitor stayin’ here got himself shot-up,” and Mr. Watson brieflydescribed Munson’s hurt.

  As Jerry seemed to be the worse injured, the doctor attended him first,and after a searching examination announced, to the relief of Bob andNed, that their chum was not in a serious condition.

  “He’s had a bad shaking up, and he’s as sore as a boil and will be forsome days,” declared the physician. “But nothing is broken, and I thinkthere will prove to be no internal injuries. He’s badly bruised andhe’ll have to stay in bed for three or four days. Now where’s the otherchap?”

  But that was a question that could not be answered; at least off-hand.For when they went to Munson’s room, whither he had limped on hisarrival at the ranch with the startling news, he was gone. Some bloodybandages on a chair seemed to indicate that he had dressed his woundagain and gone. But where?

  The cook solved the mystery by reporting that, just before the arrivalof the doctor, Munson had been seen riding away in the direction takenby the pursuing cowboys.

  “Well, he’s got grit, that’s what I say!” exclaimed the foreman.

  Jerry was made as comfortable as possible, and then they could onlyawait the return of the cowboys from the chase to see how Munson fared.And when he came riding in with the others, showing little traces onhis face of any pain or suffering, and heard the edict that the doctorwas to come to him, or he to go to the doctor, he exclaimed:

  “Not much! It isn’t the first time I’ve been shot, and it may not bethe last. I know how to doctor myself and I’m all right. I’ll be alittle lame and stiff for a while and I’ll have to lie around thebunk, but that’ll be about all. No doctor for me!” and they could notpersuade him otherwise.

  Then the talk turned to the results of the pursuit.

  “They got clean away!” declared Gimp, in disappointed tones. “Couldn’tfind hide nor hair of ’em.”

  “Where was the last trace?” asked the foreman.

  “Same place as the others, near Horse Tail Gulch.” This, it appeared,was the name of the ravine near which the boys had made someobservations. “We traced ’em to there,” explained the Parson, “and thatwas all we could do.”

  “Well, this sure is queer!” exclaimed Mr. Watson, banging his fist downon the table. “I never knew cattle raids to be carried on like this.They must give the beasts wings after they start to drive ’em away.”

  “It does seem so,” agreed Gimp. “What they do with ’em is a mystery tome.”

  “Could they mingle your cattle in with others from another ranch, soyou wouldn’t notice them?” asked Ned.

  “Well, Son, they _could_ do that if there was other herds with adifferent brand than ours near here,” admitted the foreman. “But thereisn’t. I see your drift. You mean they’ll round up some of your dad’ssteers and when they get to where some other rancher has his herdsthey’ll bunch ’em; is that it?”

  “Yes,” nodded Ned.

  “Well, I don’t hardly believe they’d do that. It would be too hard workto cut out our cattle, and besides, as soon as the rancher saw a newbrand in with his beef he’d send word here. Our brand is registered allover.

  “Besides,” went on the foreman, “the thieves wouldn’t just cut out ourcattle and drive them on, after they’d let ’em mingle; they’d takesome of the other man’s, too. And we haven’t heard of any other ranchbeing robbed the way Square Z has--at least, I haven’t,” he concluded,looking at the cowboys.

  “No, they seem to be picking on just us,” said the Parson.

  “I guess my theory isn’t of much account,” admitted Ned. Then, as th
etwo boys left the group of ranchers, going off by themselves, he added:“But we’ve got to do something--we’ve got to make good.”

  “That’s right!” declared Bob. “We got the folks to consent to let ustry our hand at this rather than hire detectives, and they may call usoff if we don’t show results.”

  The doctor came the next day and announced that Jerry was doing finely,saying he could be up and around in another day. Munson stuck to hisdecision not to have the physician look at the wounded leg, and to thisthe medical man, with a shrug of his shoulders, had to agree.

  “It’s healing fine,” the cattle buyer said.

  Jerry was able to be up the next day, and it was considered that thetwo “invalids” were doing well. Ned and Bob wanted to stay around theranch to keep Jerry company, but he insisted that they do what theycould to get some clue to the mystery. So they rode off each morningtoward the gulch, but they were not successful in uncovering anything.Nor were the cowboys, though they could not devote much time tosearching, since there was much work to be done about the ranch.

  Jerry had been questioned as to why he took Go Some in mistake for hisown horse.

  “Why, I thought it was my own pony, that’s all,” he said. “The wild onewas tethered where I’d left mine, and I’m not sharp enough about horsesto tell one from another at a glance when they are as much alike asthose two.”

  “Well, they are a bit alike,” admitted the foreman. “But someonechanged the places of the ponies, and I’d like to know who did it.”

  The puzzle remained unsolved, however--at least for some time.

  “Well, I guess I’ll be able to go about enough to-morrow to start withBob and Ned on a thorough search,” said Jerry to himself, about a weekafter his accident, while he was moving about the house to get thestiffness out of his muscles. “I’m feeling all right again.”

  Munson had not been active, either, his leg developing a stiffness thatkept him to his room. He had been given an apartment to himself insteadof bunking in with the cowboys. Ned, Bob and Jerry, too, as guests, hadrooms to themselves in the same building.

  As Jerry, walking in the Indian moccasins which he wore while in thehouse, passed Munson’s room he was minded to go in and have a talk withhim. But as he noiselessly approached, something he saw through thepartially opened door caused him to pause.

  The cattle buyer was changing his clothes. Jerry had a glimpse of bothhis bare legs and on neither one was a trace of a bullet wound!