The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians | Page 2

as he ignited a match
by the simple process of scratching the head with his thumb nail.
"Cattle will have to fetch a heap sight more'n they do now when he
takes a few days off," declared the foreman. "What I meant was that
some tenderfeet individuals are headin'--"
Slim did not finish the sentence for he was nearly thrown from his
saddle (something most unusual with him) as his pony gave a sudden
leap to one side, following a peculiar noise in a bunch of grass on
which the animal almost stepped.
The noise was not unlike that made by a locust in a tree on a hot day,
but there was in the vibrations a more sinister sound. And well did
Slim's horse know what it indicated.
"A rattler!" yelled Bud, and close on the heels of his words followed
action.
He whipped out his .45, there was a sliver of flame, a sharp crack at
which the three steeds of the trio of youthful cowboys jumped slightly,
and there writhed on the trail a venomous rattle-snake, its head now a
shapeless mass where the bullet from Bud's gun had almost obliterated
it.
"Whew! A big one!" exclaimed Slim, who had quickly gotten his pony
under control again, and turned it back toward the scene of action. It
spoke well for his ability that he had not lost his cigarette, and was
puffing on it, though the sudden leap of his steed, to avoid a bite that

probably would have meant death, had jarred the words from his
mouth.
"First of the season," added Bud, slipping his gun back into the holster.
"Are they more poisonous then than at other times?" asked Nort.
"Guess there isn't much difference, son," affirmed Slim. "I don't want
to be nipped by one at any time. Much obliged, Bud," he said, easily
enough, though there was a world of meaning in his voice. "I shore
plum would hate to have to shoot Pinto, and that's what I'd a done if
that serpent had set its fangs in his leg."
"Why'd he shoot him?" asked Dick, for he and his brother, though far
removed from the tenderfoot class, were not wise to all western ways
yet.
"There isn't much chance for a horse after it's been bit deep by a
rattler," Bud explained. "Of course I don't say every horse that's bitten
will die, but it's harder to doctor them than it is a man. And Slim meant
he wouldn't want to see Pinto suffer."
"You're right there, Bud!" drawled Slim Degnan. "They do say this
new-fangled treatment is better'n whisky for snake bites, but I don't
reckon I want to chance it."
"The permanganate of potash is almost a sure cure for the ordinary
snake bite, if you use it in time," declared Bud. "But I don't know that it
would work after a fer de lance set his fangs into you. Anyhow I'm glad
we haven't anything worse than rattlers and copperheads around here."
"They're bad enough!" affirmed Slim, as he gave a backward glance
toward the still writhing form of the big rattler, which was now past all
power of doing harm.
The incident seemed to cause the foreman to forget what he had been
about to say when his horse shied, and the boy ranchers, by which title
is indicated Bud, Nort and Dick, did not attach enough importance to it

to cause them to question their companion. Yet what Slim had been
about to say was destined to have a great influence on their lives in the
immediate future, and was to cause them to ride forward into danger.
But then danger was nothing new to them.
"Well, things are right peaceful since we got rid of Del Pinzo and his
gang of greasers," observed Slim, as he rode on with the boys down the
trail that led to Diamond X ranch, the property of Bud's father.
"But I'm always worrying for fear they'll come back, or we'll have
some sort of trouble with our cattle," observed Dick. "It doesn't seem
possible that over at our Happy Valley ranch we'll be let alone to do as
we please."
"Don't cross a bridge until you hear the rattling of the planks!"
paraphrased Nort to his brother. "We're all right so far."
"Yes, things are sittin' right pretty for the present," declared Slim.
"Well, here we are," he added, as a turn of the trail brought them within
sight of the corrals and other parts of Diamond X ranch. "And there's
your folks," he added, as a woman and girl, standing in the yard of a
red ranch house, began to wave their hands to the boys.
"I see Dad!" exclaimed End.
"Where?" asked Nort.
"Over by the pony corral, talking to