CHAPTER III.

NED’S EXPERIENCE IN CAMP.

It was plain enough to George that Ned wanted to take satisfaction out of the settlers for their refusal to notice him and make much of him, as he seemed to think they ought to have done. He said all he could to induce him to give up the idea, but Ned was stubborn, and George finally abandoned the attempt in despair, hoping that when the trouble came, as it certainly would come if Ned held to his resolution, he could in some way protect him from the consequences of his folly.

“I can at least guide him out of the country, for it will not be safe for him to stay here,” thought George. “Uncle John will go, too, if he is wise; but I shall have to remain and shoulder the whole of it.”

The conversation recorded in the preceding chapter was but one of the many Ned had with his father and cousin on the subject of farming, and the result was that the following winter saw him the owner, for the time being, of fifty acres of rich bottom land, which had been fenced and planted to wheat. By the terms of the contract made with his father in George’s hearing, Ned was to pay the same rent for the ground that he would have had to pay had he leased it from an entire stranger. “You know the ranche doesn’t belong to me,” said Uncle John. “I am managing it for George’s benefit, and must make all the money I can for him. You ought to clear a nice little sum by your venture, and can afford to pay the usual rent.”

“O, I’ll pay it after my crop is sold; that is, if I feel like it,” said Ned to himself. “George has money enough already. A boy who owns six thousand dollars’ worth of stock ought to be willing to allow his only cousin the free use of fifty acres of land. I shall have need of every red cent I make.”

Ned, who was extravagantly fond of company and pleasure, could hardly endure the lonely life he was compelled to lead. He hoped that as soon as it became known throughout the settlement that he had made up his mind to go to work, he would be in a fair way to gain the favor of the people; and perhaps he would, if he had gone about it in the right way. He laid aside the objectionable broadcloth suit and white shirt, it is true, and put on what he called “working clothes;” but they were more gorgeous than any that had ever been seen in that part of Texas before outside of an illustrated story paper. His boots were expensive Wellingtons, and were made of patent leather, too. He wore gray corduroy trowsers, a fawnskin vest, a finely-dressed buckskin coat, with silver buttons, and a Mexican sombrero ornamented with gold cord and tassels. It was a “nobby” suit, to quote from its delighted owner, and must have astonished the natives, if one might judge by the way they stared at him when they met him on the trail; but it did not bring him any more company than he had always had.

Ned led a lonely and discontented life all that winter. There were no boys with whom he could associate except his cousin, and Ned had come to the conclusion that he would much rather be alone than in George’s company. The latter did not suit him at all. He was much too industrious. He was in camp with his herdsman more than half the time, and when he was at home he was always busy. Ned had expected to see unbounded pleasure in living on the prairie and sleeping in the open air, as his cousin did more than six months in the year, and once he had spent two weeks with him in camp; but that was his first and last experience in cattle-herding, and as it was not at all to his liking, we must stop long enough to say something about it. This is a story of camp life, you know.

Ned had not been away from the ranche more than three days before he found, to his great surprise and disappointment, that life in the open air was not what his lively imagination had pictured it. Many a boy has been deceived on this point, just as others have been deceived in looking upon the life of a sailor as one of ease and romance. Ned thought that those who lived in camp had nothing to do but sit on the grass, under the spreading branches of some friendly tree, and dream away the days which would be all sunshine; and that when they grew hungry, some fat black-tail or antelope would walk up within easy range of their rifles just on purpose to be shot. The nights would be mild and pleasant, the fire would somehow keep itself burning all the time, whether the necessary fuel was supplied or not, and cook his meals for him without any care or exertion on his part. But one short week’s experience banished all these absurd ideas, and taught him what a cattle-herder’s camp-life really was. It was one of almost constant drudgery and toil. George had three hundred cattle to watch, and as he had only one herdsman to assist him, he was kept busy from morning until night. He and Zeke (that was the name of his herdsman, of whom we shall have a good deal to say by and by), were up and doing long before the sun arose, and while one cooked the breakfast and performed the necessary camp-duties, the other drove the cattle out to pasture and watched them to see that they didn’t stray away.

Ned, being inexperienced, and an invited guest beside, was not expected to do anything except to eat his share of the rations, and enjoy himself as well as he could. Sometimes he went out with the cattle-herder, and then he stayed with the camp-keeper; but he soon grew tired of both of them and of their way of life, too. George knew but little about the city and cared less. He took no interest whatever in his cousin’s glowing descriptions of the numerous “scrapes” he had been in, and neither did Zeke, who bluntly told him that he might have been in better business. Ned, on the other hand, cared nothing for the things in which George and Zeke were interested, so there was little they could talk about.

But there was plenty of hunting, and in this way Ned passed a portion of each day. He had no luck, however, for he never saw anything in the shape of game larger than Jack rabbits, and he never bagged one of them. The only thing he brought back to camp with him from these hunting excursions was a ravenous appetite, and he had to satisfy it with fried bacon, hard corn-cakes and coffee without any milk. The juicy venison steaks and other luxuries he had expected to fatten on were never served up to him. It rained, too, sometimes, and Ned could find no shelter under the dripping trees. There was no fun at all in going to bed in wet clothes, and Ned always shuddered and wished himself safe at the rancho when his cousin said to him, as he did almost every night—

“Don’t forget your lasso. The rattlers are tolerable plenty about here.”

Ned knew that, for he had seen two or three of them killed in the camp. George had told him that the neighborhood of a fire was a bad place for rattlesnakes, and Ned could hardly bring himself to believe that his hair lasso, laid down in a coil about the place where he made his bed, was a sure protection against these dangerous visitors.

A few days before he went home, Ned had an experience such as he had never had before, and which he fervently hoped would never be repeated. On this particular day he went out with George, whose turn it was to watch the cattle. He soon grew tired of talking to him, so he mounted his horse and set out in search of antelopes, which, so his cousin told him, were often seen in that neighborhood. He rode slowly in a circle around the place where the cattle were feeding, at distances varying from a half to three-quarters of a mile from them (there was small chance of finding an antelope so close to the herd, but Ned dared not go any farther away for fear of the Apaches, concerning whom he had heard some dreadful stories told by Zeke the night before), and he had been gone about an hour when he was suddenly startled by hearing the faint report of a rifle. Turning his eyes quickly in the direction from which the report sounded, he saw his cousin sitting in his saddle, and waving his hat frantically in the air. When he found that the sound of his rifle had attracted Ned’s attention, he beckoned him to approach.

“What’s up, I wonder?” thought Ned, not a little alarmed. “George must have shot at something, for I saw the smoke curling above his head. Are the Mexicans or Apaches about to make a raid on us?”

Ned, who had drawn rein on the summit of a high swell, looked all around but could see no signs of any horsemen. He did see something to increase his alarm, however. He saw that the cattle, which were quietly grazing the last time he looked toward them, were now all in motion, and that they were hurrying toward the belt of post-oaks in which the camp was located. That was enough for Ned. He put his horse into a gallop and hastened to join his cousin, who now and then beckoned to him with both hands as if urging him to ride faster.

“What’s the matter?” shouted Ned, as soon as he arrived within speaking distance of George. “Raiders?”

“O no! We’re going to have a norther, and if there should happen to be rain with it we don’t want it to catch us out here on the prairie.”

“Is that all?” exclaimed Ned, somewhat impatiently. “That’s a pretty excuse for frightening a fellow half to death, isn’t it? I thought something was going to happen.”

“Something is going to happen!” replied George.

“You seem to have grown very much afraid of the rain lately,” continued Ned. “It was only a day or two ago that you stood out in a hard shower, and never seemed to care for it.”

“Yes; but if we have rain now, it will be a different sort, as you will find.”

“I don’t see any signs of it yet,” said Ned, looking up at the sky. “I hope it will cool the air a little,” he added, a moment later, pulling off his hat and drawing his handkerchief across his face, which was very much flushed, “for I am almost roasted. I declare, I must have ridden fast. Just see how my horse sweats!”

“Mine sweats just as badly,” replied George, “and he has been staked out ever since you have been gone.”

Ned looked at his cousin’s horse, then glanced at his own, and was very much surprised at what he saw. Both animals were wet with perspiration, and stood with their heads down and their sides heaving, as if they had been ridden long and rapidly. There was not a breath of air stirring, as Ned found, when he came to look about him. The atmosphere was close and oppressive, and filled with a thick haze, which seemed to magnify every object within the range of his vision, and overhead, the sun rode in a cloudless sky, sending down his beams with fearful intensity.

“Whew!” panted Ned. He dropped his reins, hung his rifle upon the horn of his saddle, peeled off his coat, vest and neck-tie, and threw open the collar of his shirt. “_Whew!_” he gasped. “We shall be overcome with the heat before we can reach the timber. I had no idea it was so hot! I don’t see how you can stand it, with those thick clothes on.”

“I am pretty warm now, that’s a fact; but I shall be cool enough by and by, and so will you!”

While the boys were talking in this way, they were riding toward the post-oaks, which were now about a mile and a half distant. The sun’s rays seemed to grow hotter with every step of the way, and the atmosphere to become more stifling, until at last Ned would gladly have welcomed a hurricane or an earthquake, if it would have brought him any relief from his sufferings. Finally, a small, dark-colored cloud appeared in the horizon, rising into view with wonderful rapidity, spreading itself over the sky and shooting out great, black arms before it, until it looked like a gigantic spider. Then the first breath of the on-coming norther began to ruffle the grass, whereupon George faced about in his saddle, and began unfastening a bundle, in which he carried his rubber poncho and heavy overcoat, while Ned pulled off his hat again and turned his shirt-collar farther back.

“Aha!” exclaimed the latter, with a great sigh of relief. “Isn’t that a delightful breeze? What are you going to do?”

“I am going to bundle up,” was George’s reply, “and if you will take my advice, you will do the same. You see——”

“O, let it rain!” exclaimed Ned, without waiting to hear what else his cousin had to say. “It will be most refreshing, after such a roasting as we have had!”

George said no more, for he had been snubbed every time he tried to give his city relative any advice, and he had long ago resolved that he would not willingly give him a chance to snub him again. We ought also to say that there was another reason why George kept silent. A Texan takes unbounded delight in seeing a greenhorn caught out in a norther. It is so very different from any storm he ever saw before, and his astonishment is so overwhelming! George opened his bundle, put on his overcoat, threw his poncho over that and drew on a pair of heavy gloves. He looked as if he were preparing to face a snow-storm.

All this while the norther had been steadily, but almost imperceptibly, increasing in force, and now, without any further warning, it burst forth in all its fury, and the roar of the wind sounded like the rumble of an approaching express train.

“Whew!” exclaimed Ned, suddenly; “how it blows and how fearfully cold it is!”

As he said this he drew his collar together and hastily put on his vest and coat; but when he tried to button the coat his fingers were so benumbed that he was almost helpless.

“Why, I’m freezing,” gasped Ned, as his cousin rode up beside him and offered his assistance.

“O, no!” answered George, cheerfully. “No one was ever known to freeze to death or even to take cold from exposure to a norther. You’ll be all right as soon as you get to a fire.”

“I never saw such a country,” said Ned, as plainly as his chattering teeth would permit. “Summer and winter all in one day.”

“Yes, in less than a quarter of an hour,” said George, who was busy untying the bundle Ned carried behind his saddle. “The thermometer has been known to fall sixty degrees almost instantly.”

George took his cousin’s overcoat and gloves out of the bundle, but after they were put on they did not seem to afford the wearer the least protection from the bitter blast which came stronger and stronger every moment, and chilled him to the very marrow. It could not have been colder if it had come off the icebergs within the Arctic circle. It seemed to blister the skin wherever it touched, and was so cutting and keen that the boys could not keep their faces toward it. Even the horses began to grow restive under it, and it was all their riders could do to control them.

“O, I shall never see home again!” cried Ned, who was terribly alarmed. “I shall freeze to death right here. I _can’t_ stand it!”

“You can and you must,” shouted George, as he seized his cousin’s horse by the bridle. “Now, pull your hat down over your face, throw yourself forward in the saddle, and hang on for life. I’ll take care of you.”

An instant afterward Ned was being carried over the prairie with all the speed his horse could be induced to put forth. He did not know which way he was going, for he dared not look up to see. He sat with his hat over his face, his head bowed over to his horse’s neck, and his hands twisted in the animal’s mane, while George sat up, braving it all and leading him to a place of refuge.

It seemed to Ned that they were a very long time in reaching the timber, and that he should certainly freeze to death before that mile and a half of prairie could be crossed; but he didn’t, and neither did he afterward feel any bad effects from what he suffered during his cold ride. He found that Zeke, having been warned by signs he could easily read that the norther was coming, had moved the camp to a more sheltered locality, and that he had a roaring fire going and a pot of hot coffee on the coals. Ned drank a good share of that hot coffee, and forgot to grumble over it, as he usually did. George showed him the way home as soon as the storm abated, and there Ned resolved to stay, having fully made up his mind that there was no fun to be seen in camp-life.

Ned was more lonely and discontented than ever after that. It was harder work to pass the days in doing nothing than it was to stand behind a counter, selling dry-goods; and that was what he had done before he came to Texas. There was literally no way in which he could enjoy himself. Books, which were his cousin’s delight, Ned did not care for; there was not game enough in the country to pay for the trouble of hunting for it; the boys in the settlement were a lot of boors, who would not notice him, because he was so far above them; and all Ned could do was to spend the day in loitering about the house, with his hands in his pockets.

“If I only had some of the jolly fellows here that I used to run with in Foxboro’!” said Ned to himself, one day, after he had spent an hour or two in wandering from room to room, in the vain hope of finding something to interest him. “Wouldn’t we turn this old house upside down! They all promised to come and see me, but I know they won’t do it, for they’ll never be able to save money enough to pay their fare. If I ever see them, I shall have to send them the money to bring them here, and I——Well, now, why couldn’t I do that? It’s a splendid idea!”

Ned, all life and animation now, hurried to his room to act upon his splendid idea, while it was yet fresh in his mind. He wrote a long letter to one of the cronies, Gus Robbins by name, whom he had left behind in Foxboro’, giving a glowing description of his new home, recounting, at great length, a thrilling hunting adventure he had heard from the lips of George’s herdsman, and of which he made himself the hero, instead of Zeke, and wound up by urging Gus and his brother to come on and pay him a long visit.

“You must not refuse,” Ned wrote. “If money is what you need, let me know, and I will send you enough to foot all your bills. I am rich now, and can afford to do it. Your father ought to be willing to give you a short vacation, after you have worked so hard in the store.”

The letter was mailed in due time, and Ned impatiently counted the days that must elapse before an answer could arrive. It came at last, and Ned almost danced with delight when he read it. We copy one paragraph in it, just to show what kind of a boy he was whom Ned had invited to his house. We shall meet him very shortly, and be in his company a good deal, and one always likes to know something about a fellow before he is introduced to him. The paragraph referred to ran as follows:—

* * * * *

“You must be having jolly times down there, and since I read your letter I have been more than ever dissatisfied with the store. I should be only too glad to visit you, and the want of money is the only thing that stands in my way. It is all that has kept me in Foxboro’ so long. In regard to the governor’s giving me a holiday—I shall not ask him for it, for he would be sure to say ‘No;’ and neither can I write you anything definite about my brother. He is getting to be a regular old sober-sides, and if I am going down there, I would rather he would stay at home.”

* * * * *

The rest of the letter was taken up by the writer in trying to make Ned understand that Gus had fully resolved to visit Texas, and that he should be very much disappointed, if anything happened to keep him at home. He did not say this in so many words, but Ned was smart enough to see that he meant it all the same.

“He shall come,” said Ned, as he folded up the letter and hurried off to find his father. “And I hope he will come alone, for if his brother is getting to be a milk-sop, we don’t want him down here. Now, the next thing is to make father hand over the money.”

This was a task Ned had been dreading ever since he wrote the invitation; but he went about it with an air which said plainly enough that he knew he should succeed. Uncle John objected rather feebly, at first, and said he wasn’t sure that he had any right to spend George’s money in that way; but Ned had an answer to every objection, and stuck to his point until he gained it.

“You mustn’t forget that I may own this property myself some day,” said he. “If George does not live until he is of age, everything falls to me. If that should ever happen, you would think me awful stingy if I should refuse you a paltry hundred dollars.”

Ned certainly talked very glibly about spending his cousin’s money. He had seen the time when, if he chanced to have a hundred cents in his pocket, over and above what his debts amounted to, he considered himself lucky. It was not a paltry sum in his eyes, by any means.

After a little more argument, Ned got a check for the money he wanted, made payable to the order of Gus Robbins. After that he wrote a letter to his friend urging him to come on immediately, put the check into it and mailed it at the first opportunity. Then he was in a fever of excitement and suspense, and wondered if it would be possible for him to live until his friend arrived. He judged that Gus intended to leave home without his father’s knowledge or consent, but Ned did not care for that. Perhaps he would do the same thing himself under like circumstances. True, he often asked himself how Gus could ever muster up courage enough to go home again after doing a thing of that kind, but he always let the question pass with the reflection that it was none of his business. It was a matter that Gus must settle for himself. He waited impatiently for his friend’s coming, little dreaming that his appearance at the rancho would be the signal for the beginning of a series of scrapes and adventures that would put the whole settlement into a turmoil.