Opening the big gate, they entered, closed it and then threw their saddles on the ground.
"Always close the gate before you start to get your ponies,"
instructed Bill. "Sometimes they cut up, and if they get out onto the prairie it"s the old Harry of a job to catch them again.
"Now put your oats in your pans. Watch Horace and me and you"ll see what to do."
When they had prepared the oat bait, the two Wilder boys began to beat on the pans, calling Buster and the other ponies by name.
The animals, which were at the farther end of the corral browsing, lifted their heads and then came trotting toward them, halting about ten feet away.
"Swish your pans so they can hear the oats," whispered Bill.
Slowly the ponies approached, as though deciding whether they preferred their oats or their liberty.
"Come, Blackhawk! Come, Buster!" called Horace.
The boys set the pans on the ground. For a moment the ponies eyed them and then trotted up, the eight crowding one another to get at the four measures.
"Now"s the time," breathed Bill.
In a trice the bits were thrust into the ponies" mouths and the leather over their ears.
Lightning plunged back, but Larry grabbed the reins just in time and held him.
"Push the pan to him," directed Horace, and, as he smelled the oats, the pony grew still and was soon munching contentedly.
After catching his own mount, Bill had bridled Buster, and as soon as the oats were devoured, all five were saddled with little trouble and the boys were quickly on the backs of four of them, Bill leading the pony for his father.
It required but a few minutes to make fast the saddle bags Hop Joy had filled with food, tin plates, cups, knives and forks, coffee pot, sugar and coffee and to tie on their sleeping blankets.
Then they buckled on their cartridge belts, slung their rifles across their shoulders and again mounted.
By the time they were ready, however, the grub wagon was coming into the yard.
"Where"s Hans?" gasped Larry, the first one to discover that there was only one occupant.
With a broad grin suffusing his face, the driver cried:
"Whoa!"
As the horses stopped Mr. Wilder, fearing that the boy had been made the b.u.t.t of some mad prank, said severely:
"If anything happened to that lad, I shall hold you responsible, Ned. Where is he?"
"Gone with his brother Chris."
"His brother!" cried Tom. "Did his brother come back?"
"He did--yesterday. Hans found him, and such a meeting n.o.body ever see before. The brother is going to another town and Hans with him. They started to-day."
The knowledge that Hans had found his brother was a great relief to Tom and Larry, and they lost no time in saying so.
"If you feel that way, then it surely is all right," declared the ranchman. "We"re going into the hills for a few days hunting, Ned.
If you need me, you"ll find me somewhere on the "Lost Lode" trail."
"With them tenderfeet?" inquired the handy man, eyeing Tom and Larry doubtfully.
"Don"t take them for easy, Ned. They put the laugh on Gus Megget, so I reckon they can take care of themselves in the hills and on the Half-Moon, too," he added with an emphasis which was to act as a warning to be pa.s.sed along to the cowboys.
"So it"s them two I heard "em talkin" about in Tolopah? Howdy, gents! I sure takes off my bonnet to you," and Ned swept his sombrero good naturedly from his head. "Say, you two are the only topic of conversation in Tolopah about now. Couple of pa.s.sengers told what you all done, and now everybody"s telling everybody else.
So it was you kids put the kibosh on Gus Megget. Phew! I hope I don"t get you riled up." And clucking to his horses, Ned drove on to the wagon shed.
"When you go into Tolopah, you"ll own the town," smiled Mr. Wilder, looking at the brothers. "You see, you are famous already."
But Larry and Tom only laughed, while the latter exclaimed:
"I"d rather find the Lost Lode than fight Megget."
"So my boys have told you about the mine and the ghosts, eh?" And shaking his bridle, the ranchman waved good-by to his wife and cantered away, followed by the others.
For a few minutes they rode without talking, the Wilder boys a trifle envious of the reputation their friends had achieved and the chums trying to get accustomed to riding with a rifle b.u.mping their backs.
They soon got the swing of it, however, and, as the ponies settled into an easy, steady lope, Tom exclaimed:
"Larry, we"re in the saddle and on the plains at last."
"Like it, what?" queried Horace.
"It"s what we"ve been dreaming of for months," declared Larry.
"Only, I say, Mr. Wilder, let"s drop Megget. All we did was to get away from him."
"As you like," smiled the ranchman, "but that"s something."
CHAPTER VII
A RACE IN THE MOONLIGHT
Now through waving gra.s.s up to their knees, now through stretches of sage brush the hunters rode. Three or four times they caught sight of cattle in the distance, which Horace eagerly declared belonged to the Half-Moon, explaining that the biggest herds were in Long Creek bottoms, about fifty miles southwest, where the cattle could find water as well as good grazing ground.
"Fifty miles, gracious! Do you own so much land?" asked Larry of Mr. Wilder.
"No. We have a thousand acres, more or less. But my neighbors and I have leased the rights to graze in Lone Creek."
"Neighbors?" repeated the elder of the brothers in surprise. "Why I can"t see any house but yours. In fact, I haven"t seen any since we left Tolopah."
"And there isn"t any within thirty miles. There are two on the south and more north, even farther away. But we call them neighbors just the same. Anybody within a day"s ride is a neighbor," explained the ranchman. And as he noted the look of amus.e.m.e.nt that appeared on the faces of the brothers, he added: "You won"t think so much of distances after you"ve been out here a while."