Ted Strong in Montana With Lariat and Spur

Excerpt

THE BIG SNOW.

"We're going to have snow to-night!"

Ted Strong, leader of the broncho boys, was sitting on the back of Sultan, his noble little black stallion, on the ridge of a prairie swell, looking at a lowering sky.

Out of the northwest a chilling wind, damp and raw, was sweeping dull-gray clouds before it.

Ted had addressed his remark to Bud Morgan, his chum and able lieutenant, who threw a glance at the clouds and grunted.

"I reckon we be," he muttered, "an' I'm free ter say I'm dern sorry ter hear it."

"It's hard luck," resumed Ted. "If we had got away a week earlier, or hadn't been held up by the high water at Poplar Fork, we would have been at the ranch now, and settled for the winter."

"Thar's no telling whar an 'if' won't land yer sometimes. If we hadn't started we wouldn't hev been here at all. But here we aire, an' we'll hev ter git out o' it."

"Think we better push on, or make camp?" asked Ted.

"Got ter make camp fer ther night somewhere," answered Bud. "But I wisht ther storm hed held off till ter-morrer this time; we'd hev been within hootin' distance o' ther Long Tom Ranch."

"Suppose we push on a few hours more. We can camp down in the dark if we must. If the snow gets deep before ye reach the high ground you know what it means."

"I shore do. I wuz all through a big snow in this yere man's country a few years back, an' it wuz some fierce."

"All right. Ride back and drive them up. I'll point. We'll drive until it gets too dark. Tell the wagons to move up."

Bud wheeled his pony and dashed to the rear of the great herd of cattle that was coming on at a snail's pace.

The cattle were lowing uneasily. They knew even better than the men that a storm was coming, and they dreaded it.

This was the big Circle S herd which the broncho boys had bought in Texas in the spring of that year, and which they had herded and driven northward throughout the summer to winter on the Montana plateau, later to be driven to Moon Valley, and there put into condition for the market.

Various things had delayed the arrival of the herd on their winter grounds. A detention of several days at a time by flood, by a stampede, and by fights with rustlers, had brought the cattle several weeks late to their winter grounds.

Ted Strong had determined to try the experiment of wintering Southern cattle in the Montana country in order to harden them and improve the quality of the beef.

The broncho boys had a large order to fill for the government the following summer, and it was to accomplish their contract that they had bought the Texas cattle and driven them north to the Long Tom Ranch in northern Montana.

Now that they were within a few miles of it, and still on the low ground, it appeared that a big snow was inevitable, which might frustrate all their plans and cause them great loss.

But Ted Strong did not complain. It was a condition which he could not have foreseen, and, being close at hand, there was nothing for them to do but meet it with all the fortitude at their command.

Soon the herd began to move forward, being crowded by the broncho boys and the force of cow-punchers whom they had employed to assist them....