Ted Strong in Montana | Page 6

stumbled upon the
ranch house.
"Hello, fellows!" he shouted as he rode up. "Where are the dogies?"
"Oh, to blazes and gone!" exclaimed big Ben, who was trying to thaw
out his boots at the fire.
"Where?" asked Ted anxiously.
"Away off yonder." Ben pointed disconsolately toward the south.
"Are they all right?"
"All right, nothing. They're up to their bellies in snow in a coulee, and
won't stir. They're the sickest-looking lot of beef critters you ever saw.
We've been working with them ever since daylight, then Bud sent us
along to thaw out and get some chuck into us, and hurry back so that
the other fellows could get limbered up some. Find the house?"

"Yes, accidentally stumbled on to it. Bully place, and the womenfolks
are comfortably settled."
"Looks like it," grunted Ben, pointing to the north.
Ted looked in that direction and saw a spotted pony leaping toward
them, and above it a dash of scarlet. It was Stella, riding like the wind
on Magpie.
"Have any trouble with the critters in the night?" asked Ted.
"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 mass, 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 ejaculate," said Bud, "we're as hollow an' cold
as a rifle bar'l. I'll turn this leetle summer matinée over ter you, my
friend, not wishin' 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 circumstances 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