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

“It was a close call for me, that’s sure,” the boy was saying, as he gravely went around and shook hands with each one of the scouts, not excepting Harry, who had meanwhile come up, leading the three burros; “an’ I want you all to know I’m glad that donkey let out his whoop when he did. Why, I might a been all under when you got here; but say, I lost my gun and that makes me mad.”

Looking at the boy more closely they were struck with the fact that while he did not seem to be more than nine years old, he was dressed like a cow-puncher and had a resolute air. How much of this was assumed in order to impress them with the idea that he had not been alarmed in the least by his recent peril, of course no one could say. Ned was wondering how the boy, brought up undoubtedly amidst such perils and on the lookout for danger all the while, could have fallen into such a silly little trap as this.

“What were you doing in the stream that you stood there and let the sand suck you in?” he asked as he proceeded to help the boy scrape himself off so as to appear more presentable.

“I was a little fool, all right,” the kid immediately answered, with an expression of absolute disgust on his sharp face; “you see, I glimpsed a bunch of deer feeding just over yonder to windward and as they were headin’ in this way I thought I’d lie low under the river bank and wait till they got inside easy gunshot. I tied my pony over in the thickest place of the timber and then walked out to where the water jest come to my knees, where I got low down to wait. Say, I was that taken up with watchin’ them deer afeedin’ up that I forgets all about everything else and was some s’prised to feel the water tricklin’ around my waist like. After that I knowed the huntin’ game was all up, and that less I wanted to be smothered I’d have to get out in a hurry. But it didn’t matter much how I pulled, an’ heaved and tried to swim I jest stuck like I was bolted down to a snubbin’ post and somebody had cinched the girth on me. Then, after a while, when I was expectin’ to swaller water, I heard that burro singin’ and afore I could help it I jest hollored out. Guess you must a thought it was a maverick. I could a kicked myself right away afterwards ’cause I give tongue so wild like!”

Ned smiled. He realized that the cub had imbibed the spirit of the Indian warrior who disdains to display any weakness of the flesh. No matter how much he may have been frightened by his recent terrible predicament, he did not choose any one to know about it. Indians may feel fear but they have learned never to show it by look or action and to go to their deaths, if need be, taunting the foe.

“Well,” he told the small boy, “we intended to camp for the night here close to the river and we’d be glad to have you stay over with us. Plenty of grub for everybody and it might be much more pleasant than being by yourself. We are not Western boys but then we’ve been around more or less and know something about how things are done out here. Will you join us – er – ”

“My name is Amos, Amos Adams, and I’ll be right well pleased to stay over with you to-night, sure I will,” the boy went on to say.

So it was settled, and out of just such small things as their meeting Amos in such a strange way great events sometimes spring. But none of the scouts so much as suspected this when they busied themselves preparing the camp, building the cooking fire, and seeing that all the animals were staked out to feed, after watering them.

“Ned, whatever do you imagine this kid is doing out here all by himself?”

Jack asked this question in a low tone. They had cooked supper, and disposed of it promptly; and there had been an abundance for the guest, as well as the four chums. And now the two scouts were lounging near the fire, while Jimmy and Amos cleaned up the tin dishes and cooking utensils; Harry meanwhile being busily engaged with some notes he wanted to jot down for future use, in comparing his recent experiences with those of others who had suffered tortures in the notorious Death Valley.

“Well, you’ve heard as much of his talk as any of us, Jack,” replied the leader of the expedition, quietly, “and so far there’s been nothing said about himself. I’m going to beckon to Amos to come over here, and put a few leading questions to him. Out here when a fellow is entertained at the camp fire, it’s only fair that he give some sort of an account of himself. Besides, Amos looks so much like a kid, just as you say, that it makes the thing seem queer.”

A minute later, catching the eye of the boy, he crooked his finger and nodded his head. Plainly Amos understood, for he immediately came across.

“Sit down, Amos,” Ned told him.

The small boy in the cowboy suit did so, at the same time allowing a sort of smile to come upon his bronzed face.

“Want to know somethin’ about me, I reckon?” he remarked, keenly.

Jack chuckled as though amused at his shrewdness; but Ned only said:

“Well, ordinarily out here on the plains I understand that men seldom express any curiosity about their chance guests; it isn’t always a safe thing to do. But you see, Amos, in your case it’s different.”

“Sure it is; I get on to that, Mr. Scout Master,” replied the boy, readily; for he had ere this noticed the emblem which Ned bore upon his khaki coat, and which stamped him as authorized to answer to this name, which would indicate that Amos knew something about the Boy Scout business.

“In the first place we chanced to be of some little assistance to you.”

“A heap!” broke in the other, quickly.

“And then, excuse me for saying it, but you are such a kid that anybody would be surprised to run across you out by yourself, carrying a gun, riding a pony like the smartest puncher going, and after big game at the time you got stuck in that quicksand – all of which, Amos, must be our excuse for feeling that we’d like to hear something about you.”

“That’s only fair and square, Ned,” the boy spoke up immediately; “Jimmy there has been telling me the greatest lot of stuff about what you fellows have been doing all over, that I’d think he was stuffing me, only he held up his hand right in the start, and declared he never told anything but the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help him. And I’m ready to tell you who I am, and what I’m adoin’ out here.”

“Not that we think you’re anything that you shouldn’t be, Amos,” put in Jack.

“Well, my name’s Amos Adams, just like I said, and all my life I’ve been around a cattle ranch. That’s why I know so much about roping steers, and riding buckin’ broncs. I guess I was in a saddle before my ma weaned me. There are a few things mebbe I can’t quite do as well as some of these here prize punchers, but it’s only because I ain’t as strong as them, that’s all.”

Looking at his confident face the scouts believed that Amos was only speaking the plain truth.

“My dad’s name is Hy Adams,” continued the kid puncher. “I guess you ain’t been around these diggin’s much yet, or you’d a heard who he is. They call him the Bad Man of the Bittersweets, and when he raises his fog-horn of a voice lots of men that think themselves brave just give a hitch to their shoulders this way,” and he imitated it to the life as he spoke, “and does what he tells ’em. That’s when he’s been drinkin’. But then there are other times – oh, well, I reckon, I hadn’t ought to tell family secrets.

“We live in a cabin, ’bout ten miles away from here. My dad, he’s in the cattle business, when he don’t loaf. Sometimes he’s ’round home, and agin he ain’t, just ’cordin’ to how things are agoin’. Mam, she’s a little woman, but she knows how to run the house. I gotter sister, too, younger’n me, and her name it’s Polly. I ain’t gone to school any to speak of, but mam, she kinder teaches me, when I ain’t ridin’ out on the range, or totin’ my gun on a hunt. That makes me mad to think I lost my gun in the drink there.”