George Ralphson - Boy Scouts on the Open Plains; The Round-Up Not Ordered

They moved out of town after getting a pretty poor apology for a lunch at the tavern. Jimmy declared that he would starve on such fare and announced his intention of immediately opening a box of crackers he had purchased at a local store so as to keep himself from suffering.

Ned, as was his habit, had interviewed about everybody that crossed his path, so as to improve upon the rude map he carried and which he had found to be faulty on several occasions, which fact caused him to distrust it as a guide.

“We ought to make the ranch by tomorrow evening, if all goes well,” he told his three chums, as they walked onward over the plain, still heading almost due southwest.

“Not much danger of anything upsetting our calculations from now on,” observed Jack, “unless we meet up with drunken punchers, run across some bad men who have been chased by the sheriff’s posse out of the railroad towns and who try to make a living by holding up travelers once in six months; or else get caught in a fine old prairie fire.”

“Say, that last could happen, that’s right,” Jack went on to exclaim, looking a little uneasily at the dead grass that in places completely concealed the greener growth underneath. “If a big gale was blowing and a spark should get into this stuff she would go awhooping along as fast as a train could run. That’s something I’ve often read about and thought I’d like to see, but come to think of it, now that I’m on the ground, I don’t believe I care much about it after all.”

“They say it’s a grand sight,” Harry volunteered; “but according to my mind a whole lot depends on which side of the fire you happen to be. What’s interesting to some might even mean death to others.”

“Yes, I’ve read lots about the same,” admitted Jack, “and of the trouble people have had in saving themselves when chased by one of these fires on the plains. If we do see one of the same here’s hoping we are to windward of the big blaze.”

When the sun sank that evening they were hurrying to reach what seemed to be a stream of some sort, judging from the line of trees that cut across the plain and which only grow where there is more or less water to be had.

The three burros must have scented the presence of water, for there was no keeping the animals within bounds. They increased their pace until they were almost on the run; and Jimmy threw away the fag end of a whip with which he had been amusing himself by tickling the haunches of the burro in his charge and urging him to move along faster.

One of the animals started to bray in a fashion that could have been easily heard half a mile or more away.

Hardly had the discordant sounds died away than the boys were considerably surprised to hear a shrill voice coming from directly ahead, as though the exultant bray of the pack animal had given warning of their presence to some one who needed assistance the worst kind.

“Help! Come quick and get me! Help – help!” came the words as clear as a bell and causing Harry and Jimmy to stare at each other as though their first thought might have been along the line of some deception that was being practiced upon them.

But there was Ned already on the jump and shouting over his shoulder as he ran:

“Jimmy, give your burro over to Harry to look after; you too, Jack and follow me on the run!”

“That suits me all right!” cried Jack; “here Harry, please look after my pack!” and with these words he was off at full speed.

Jimmy was close at his heels. He had only waited long enough to snatch his rifle from the top of the pack on the burro that had been given into his charge after his own had been lost in the mountain disaster. Jimmy was always thinking they might be attacked by Indians off their reservation or else run across some bad men who liked to play their guns on strangers just to see them dance. For that reason he seldom if ever allowed himself to be caught far away from his repeating Marlin these days.

When they had pushed into the patch of cottonwoods they found that Ned was already at work trying to lend the assistance that had been so lustily called for in that childish treble.

A figure was in the stream, although just his head and a small portion of his body could be seen. He was stretching out his hands towards Ned in a beseeching manner that at first puzzled Jimmy.

“Why, I declare if it ain’t a little boy!” he exclaimed; “but what’s he doin’ out there, I want to know? Why don’t he come ashore if the water’s too deep. What ails the cub, d’ye think, Jack?”

“Don’t know – might be quicksand!” snapped the other, as he once more started to hurry forward.

Ned was talking with the stranger now, evidently assuring him that there was no further need of anxiety since they had reached the spot.

“Can’t you budge at all?” they heard him ask.

“Not a foot,” came the reply; “seems like I mout be jest glued down here for keeps and that’s a fact, stranger.”

“How long have you been caught there?” asked the scout master.

“Reckon as it mout be half hour er thereabouts,” the boy who was held fast in the iron grip of the treacherous quicksand told him; and so far as Jack could see he did not exhibit any startling signs of fright, for he was a boy of the plains and evidently used to running into trouble as well as perilous traps.

“But,” Jack broke in with, “you never shouted all that time, or we’d have heard you long before we did?”

“Never let out a yip till I ketched that burro speakin’,” the boy replied; “what was the use when I didn’t think there was a single person inside o’ five mile? I jest tried and tried to git out but she hung on all the tighter; and the water kept acreepin’ up till it’d been over my mouth in ten minutes more I reckon.”

“Well, we are going to get you out of that in a hurry, now,” Ned told him in a reassuring tone; “Jack, climb up after me, to help pull. Jimmy, you stand by to do anything else that’s wanted.”

Ned, being a born woodsman, had immediately noted the fact that the limb of a tree exactly overhung the spot where the boy had been trapped in the shifting sand. This made his task the easier; but had it been otherwise he would have found some means for accomplishing his ends, even though he had to make a mattress of bushes and branches on which to safely approach the one in deadly peril.

Creeping out on that stout limb Ned dropped the noose of his rope down to the boy, who was only some six feet below him.

“Put it around under your arms,” Ned told him; but as though he understood the method of procedure already, the boy in the sand was even in the act of doing this when Ned spoke.

“Tie the end around the limb and let me pull myself up, Mister, won’t you?” the boy pleaded, as though ashamed of having been caught in a trap, and wishing to do something looking to his own release.

This suited Ned just as well, though he meant to have a hand in the pulling process himself and also give Jack a chance. So when he fastened the rope to the limb of the tree he did so at a point midway between himself and Jack.

“Get hold and pull!” he said in a low tone to his chum; for already was the boy below straining himself with might and main to effect his own release.

It would have proved a much harder task than he contemplated; but the scouts did not mean that he should exhaust himself any further in trying. They managed to get some sort of grip on the rope and then Ned called out cheerily:

“Yo heave-o! here he comes! Yo-heave-o! up with him, Jack! Now, once more, all together for a grand pull – yo-heave-o! Hurrah, he’s nearly out of the sand!”

Five seconds later and the energetic boy was scrambling across the limb of the tree; and in as many minutes all of them had descended to the ground, the end accomplished and nobody much the worse for the experience.