Part 19 (1/2)

Out of sight of the ranch house they very quickly found themselves in what seemed to the visitors a pathless plain. Off to the left a huge herd of red and white cattle was feeding. It was broken up into little groups and the creatures looked no more harmful than cows back home. There was not a herdsman in sight.

”Why,” said Bess, ”I expected to see cowboys riding around and around the cattle all the time, and hear them singing songs.”

”They do do that at night. The riding, anyway. And most of the boys try to sing. It takes up time and keeps 'em from being lonely,”

replied Rhoda. ”But I am not sure that the cows are fond of the singing. They are patient creatures, however, and endure a good deal.”

”Now, Rhoda!” exclaimed Nan, ”don't squash all our beliefs about the cowpunching industry which we have learned from nursery books and movies.”

Rhoda headed away from the herd, and by and by they descended a steep but gra.s.sy slope into the mouth of a rock-walled canyon. It was a wild-looking place; but there were clumps of roses growing here and there. Rhoda leaped down and let her pony stand, with the reins trailing before him on the ground.

”Isn't he cunning!” observed Bess. ”He thinks he's. .h.i.tched.”

”They are trained that way. You see, on the plains there are so few hitching posts,” said Rhoda dryly.

The others dismounted, too. Rhoda was hunting among the great boulders that littered the gra.s.sy bottom. When they asked her what she was looking for, she called back that she would show them a boiling spring if she could find it.

Suddenly Nan lifted her head to listen. Then she started up the canon, which, in that direction, grew narrower between the walls.

”Don't you hear that calf bawling?” she demanded, when Bess asked her where she was going.

”Oh, I hear it,” said Bess, keeping in the rear. ”But how do you know it is a calf?”

”Then it is something imitating one very closely,” sniffed Nan, and kept on. The next minute she shouted back: ”It is! A little, cunning, red calf. And, oh, Bess! it has hurt its leg.”

She ran forward. Bess followed with more caution. Suddenly there was a crash in the bushes, and out into the open, right beside the injured calf, came a red and white cow. This animal bawled loudly and charged for a few yards directly toward Nan Sherwood.

”Oh, goodness, Nan! Come away!” begged Bess, turning to run. ”That old cow will bite you.”

But it was not the anxious mother of the calf that had startled Nan. She knew she could dodge the cow. But above the place where the calf lay, on a great gray rock that gave it a commanding position, the girl saw a huge, cat-like creature with glaring eyes and a switching tail.

She had never seen a puma, not even in a menagerie. But she could not mistake the slate and fawn colored body, the c.o.c.ked ears, the bristling whiskers, and the distended claws, the latter working just like a cat's when the latter is about to make a charge.

And it looked as though the savage beast could quite overleap the cow and calf and almost reach Nan Sherwood's feet.

CHAPTER XV

A TROPHY FOR ROOM EIGHT

Nan was badly frightened. But she had once faced a lynx up at Pine Camp, and had come off without a scratch. Now she realized that this mountain lion had much less reason for attacking her than had the lynx of the Michigan woods; for the latter had had kittens to defend.

The huge puma on the rock glared at her, flexed his shoulder muscles, and opening his red mouth, spit just like the great cat he was. Really, he was much more interested in the bleating red calf than he was in the girl who was transfixed for the moment in her tracks.

Bess, who could not see the puma, kept calling to Nan to look out for the cow. She was more in fun than anything else, for she did not believe the cow could catch her chum if the latter ran back.

What amazed Bess Harley was the fact that Nan stood so long by the clump of brush which hid the rock on which the puma crouched from Bess's eyes.

”What is the matter with you?” gasped Bess at last ”You look like Lot's wife, though you are too sweet ever to turn to salt, my dear.