"It"s just as well," returned Mr. Wilder. Then, finding that the men were impatient to be on the move, he gave the command to start and they rode toward the Long Creek bottoms.
When Tom and Larry awoke it was bright daylight.
"Why it"s nine o"clock," exclaimed Larry in amazement as he looked at his watch.
Hastily the brothers dressed and then went to see if Horace was in his room or had played some joke on them in letting them sleep. To their relief, they found him in bed.
"Hey, you, get up!" cried Tom. "You"re a fine one to be in charge of the Half-Moon Ranch. If you stay in bed much longer, it will be dark."
Deeply chagrined to think he had overslept, Horace leaped to the floor, and soon the three boys were ready for breakfast.
At the sound of their voices Mrs. Wilder had ordered Hop Joy to bring in their food, and as the lads entered the dining-room she was awaiting them.
"Why didn"t you call us?" protested Horace.
"Because I thought you were all tired and that sleep would do you good."
"And I suppose if Larry or Tom hadn"t happened to wake up, you would have let us sleep all day?"
"I suppose I should," said his mother, smiling. "When you are in bed I know that you are safe."
"You must not worry about us, Mrs. Wilder," interposed Larry. "I always tell mother that we are old enough to take care of ourselves. So I wish you would feel the same. I think it would save you no end of anxiety."
"Undoubtedly. But I never can think of my Horace except as my baby."
"Huh! I"m a pretty husky baby," grunted the boy. "See here, mother, I"m fifteen now, so I wish you"d stop calling me your baby.
When a fellow has been put in charge of the Half-Moon herd he doesn"t like to be called a baby."
"I"ll try to remember," returned Mrs. Wilder gently. Yet there was a wistfulness in her voice that caused Horace to look up, and, at the sight of her face, he left his chair, ran and put his arm around her neck, exclaiming:
"If you want to call me baby, you can, Momsy! I don"t care. Tom and Larry are the right stuff and they won"t laugh."
Ere either of the brothers could reply Hop Joy appeared.
"Ned he goee pool," he announced. "Say if you boys wantee go, you hully."
"Tell him to bring up Blackhawk, Lightning and Lady Belle. Then put up some food for us, Hop Joy. Plenty of it, mind."
As the Chinaman glided from the room Mrs. Wilder asked:
"Why do you take anything except for lunch, son?"
"Because I think we will spend the night at the pool. Larry and Tom want to see the will-o"-the-wisps, and we maybe able to catch some fish early to-morrow morning. You know father always says early morning is the only time to fish in the pool."
"Well, I don"t suppose it will do any harm for you to be gone over night. Only be careful. I shall worry if you are not back before dusk tomorrow night."
Permission to pa.s.s the night obtained, the comrades quickly collected their rifles and some fishing tackle, mounted the ponies Ned had brought up and rode away.
After learning from their companion that he had found Pete and the herd at the pool when he arrived, the lads indulged in speculation as to when and where the pursuers would come across the raiders and the chances of recovering the cattle.
Of a sudden, remembering his discussion, with his brother the night before, Larry asked:
"How do you stop a stampede, Ned?"
"You generally don"t," replied the man with a grin.
"But you try, don"t you? I"m sure I"ve read of cowboys stopping stampedes."
"I guess they do it easier in story books then than on the plains.
The best way to stop a stampede is not to let it start. Still, if there"s enough boys on hand, I suppose it could be done. The only way, though, would be to ride down the leaders and turn them round.
"As I said, if there are enough boys on hand when the trouble breaks, they can get them to milling, which is going round and round in a circle until the cattle get tired out. But it takes a mighty lively bunch of cow-punchers to do it."
After riding for two hours they came in sight of the cattle, and the two brothers quickened their pace, eager to see them at close range.
"Steady now. Don"t go riding at them like a pack of Indians or you will have all the stampede you want to see," exclaimed Ned. "My, but they surely are restless!"
This last remark was caused by some of the steers which raised their heads at the approach of the riders, then turned and dashed back to the body of the herd.
"Oh, dear! I"m afraid we"ve started them," said Horace.
"Pull in your horses!" commanded Ned. "The main bunch is all right. If we come up to them slow, there won"t be any trouble."
Obeying instantly, the boys reined their horses to a walk and reached the pool without causing further alarm among the cattle.
"So this is where the ghosts live, is it?" asked Tom, gazing from a little knoll at a placid body of water about one hundred feet long by twice as many wide, surrounded by reeds.
"Maybe you won"t laugh so much to-night," declared their friend and then, because he did not like to be joked about his belief that the place was haunted, he added: "Come on, let"s see if we can find which direction father and the boys took."
The chance to try if they could track any one on the prairie appealed to the others, and they started to ride around the pool.
"I can see where they had a camp fire!" cried Tom, pointing toward a pile of white ashes.
"Here"s where the gra.s.s is all tramped down. Look, there"s a regular path right for the mountains."
"No, this is the way they went, to the south, here," returned Larry.
Each boy was firm in his declaration that he had found the trail and to prove it they dismounted and began to examine the ground.
"I"m right. I can see horse tracks!" cried Larry. "This is the way they took, isn"t it, Ned?" Thus appealed to, both Horace and the man rode up.
"Larry"s right," announced Ned, after a few moments observation,
"Then what caused my tracks?" demanded Tom. "Here are horse tracks, too, only most of the hoofprints are made by cattle."
"Oh, you can"t tell a cow from a pony print," taunted Horace.
"Come over and see for yourself," retorted Tom.