Stratemeyer Edward
The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch: or, The Cowboys' Double Round-Up

INTRODUCTION

My Dear Boys: This book is a complete story in itself, but forms the sixth volume in a line issued under the general title, “The Second Rover Boys Series for Young Americans.”

As noted in some volumes of the first series, this line was started years ago with the publication of “The Rover Boys at School,” “On the Ocean,” and “In the Jungle,” in which I introduced my readers to Dick, Tom and Sam Rover and their relatives and friends. The twenty volumes of the First Series related the doings of these three Rover boys while attending Putnam Hall Military Academy, Brill College, and while on numerous outings.

Having finished their education, the three young men established themselves in business and became married. Dick Rover was blessed with a son and a daughter, as was also his brother Sam, while Tom became the proud father of a pair of the liveliest kind of twin boys.

From their home in New York City the young Rovers were sent to a boarding school, as related in the first volume of the Second Series, entitled “The Rover Boys at Colby Hall.” From that institution of learning the scene was shifted to “Snowshoe Island,” where the lads spent a mid-winter outing. Then they rejoined their fellow-cadets and had some strenuous doings while “Under Canvas.” After that, in a volume entitled “The Rover Boys on a Hunt,” I related how they uncovered the mystery surrounding a strange house in the woods. And following this came a trip to Texas and Oklahoma, where, “In the Land of Luck,” the boys aided Dick Rover in his efforts to locate some valuable oil wells.

In the present volume the scene is shifted back to Colby Hall and then to a ranch in the West where some remarkable happenings await our young heroes.

From reports received I am assured that the sale of this line of books has now passed the three million mark! This is as astonishing as it is gratifying. I sincerely trust that the reading of the volumes will do all of the boys and girls good.

Affectionately and sincerely yours,

Edward Stratemeyer.

CHAPTER I
SNOW AND SNOWBALLS

“Line up, fellows! No crowding ahead in this contest.”

“Here, Jack, give me some elbow room if you want me to do any real snowball throwing!” cried Fred Rover.

“All the elbow room you want,” returned his cousin gayly.

“Remember the prize!” shouted Andy Rover to the cadets who were stringing themselves out in a ragged line. “The first fellow to throw a snowball over the top of the barn gets a sock doughnut.”

“For gracious sake! what do you call a sock doughnut?” demanded Phil Franklin, another cadet, as he paused in the act of rounding up a snowball he was making.

“A sock doughnut is one with a big hole in it,” answered Andy, with a grin.

“Then my socks must be all of the doughnut variety,” put in one of the cadets dolefully. “They are always full of holes.”

“Never mind the socks now!” cried Randy Rover. “Let’s see who can put the first snowball over the barn.”

It was late in the afternoon of a day in January and a number of the cadets of Colby Hall had been amusing themselves in the snow which covered the ground to a depth of nearly a foot. They had started in to snowballing each other, but had then grown more serious and had built several snow forts and likewise two or three snowmen which later they had taken great sport in knocking apart. Then some one had suggested that they try their skill at seeing who could throw, the highest and farthest, and this had led to the present contest.

“We’ll mark off a line about a hundred feet from the main barn,” Jack Rover had announced. “And then we’ll see who can throw highest over the roof.”

The four Rovers were accompanied by half a dozen of their chums and six or eight others, and at the word from Jack the snowballs began to fly at a lively rate, a few landing on the roof of the big barn and the majority hitting the side.

“Say, look out that you don’t break a window,” warned Gif Garrison. “If you do, you’ll have an account to settle with Captain Dale.”

“Here she goes!” yelled Dan Soppinger, and let fly with so much strength that the snowball sailed up to the very ridgepole of the barn and disappeared on the other side.

“Hurrah! Dan draws first blood!” shouted Jack.

“Huh! Dan didn’t throw over the barn, he just slid over it,” snickered Randy.

Jack was hard at work making a small and perfectly round ball. Now, taking careful aim, he let fly with all his might.

“There she goes fair and square,” he announced with pardonable pride, as the snowball cleared the top of the barn by several feet and disappeared beyond.

The snowball had scarcely been thrown when two other balls thrown by Fred and another cadet went sailing over the barn. Then those in the contest seemed to acquire better skill, and soon nearly every one of them was topping the barn with the missiles.

“Phew! some hot work, I’ll say,” panted Will Hendry, usually called Fatty because he was the stoutest boy in the school.

“This exercise will do you good, Fatty,” returned Fred. “You need to reduce.”

“If Fatty keeps on he’ll be eating Colby Hall poor,” announced Spouter Powell.

“Huh! I don’t eat any more than any of you,” grumbled Fatty. “Fact is, I hold myself down.”

“Gee! listen to that, will you?” exclaimed Andy. “Fatty says he holds himself down! And this morning I saw him storing away three helpings of sausages and about ’steen dozen buckwheat cakes.”

“Nothing of the kind! I didn’t have a bit more than you had,” growled Hendry. He broke off suddenly. “Hello! what’s up now?”

“Hi! Hi! What’s the meaning o’ this?” cried a voice from around one end of the big barn, and a man, dressed in overalls and a heavy cap and carrying a broom, appeared.

“Hello there, Bob Nixon!” cried Jack. “What’s wrong?”

“There’ll be a whole lot wrong if you fellows keep on throwing those snowballs much farther,” answered Bob Nixon, who was a chauffeur for the Hall and who did all sorts of odd jobs in the winter time.

“Did we hit you?” questioned Phil Franklin.

“You sure did – on the back and on my hand,” answered Nixon.

“We didn’t know anybody was around on that side of the barn,” announced Andy.

“I don’t suppose you did. But never mind me. What I want to know is, do you fellows intend to smash all the glass in those hotbed frames out yonder?”

“Great salt mackerel!” ejaculated Fred. “I forgot those hotbed frames were there.”

“Why, the glass is out of ’em, anyway, isn’t it?” questioned Gif.

“It was out. But they’ve been setting some of ’em in again, getting ready for some early stuff. You’ve sent those snowballs up to within ten or fifteen feet of where the frames are located.”

“Gosh! it’s a good thing you told us of this,” burst out Fatty Hendry. “We might have had a nice lot of glassware to pay for.”

“Not you, Fatty,” grinned Andy. “You never even hit the top of the barn. If you break any glass it will be in some of those basement windows.”

“Come on up to the other end of the barn,” suggested Gif. “Then the snowballs will fly right out into the open field and do no harm.”

“Well, I don’t care where you throw ’em as long as you don’t get into mischief,” answered Bob Nixon, and disappeared into the barn.

After that the cadets continued to throw over the structure for some time. But then they gradually lost interest, and as the short winter day was coming rapidly to an end some hurried into the Hall to do a little extra school work before the bell should ring for supper.

“Well, what next?” questioned Fred Rover, when he and his three cousins and Gif, Phil and Spouter found themselves left alone.

“I’ve got a great scheme for to-night if you fellows will help,” announced Randy. He and his twin brother were always ready for a joke.

“What is it?” questioned Jack quickly.

“This snow is just soft enough for rolling some big balls, as we found out this afternoon,” answered his cousin. “What’s the matter with making a whole lot of big snowballs and placing ’em in some of the bedrooms to-night?”

“Gee, that’s the talk!” cried his twin merrily. “I’d like to place a couple in Codfish’s room.”

“He certainly deserves ’em,” added Fred. “He’s getting to be just as big a sneak as he ever was. All of our kindness to him seems to have been useless.”

“And I thought he was going to turn over a new leaf,” declared Jack. “I wonder if some of the other fellows haven’t been teasing him and that has made him go back to his old tricks.”

“I know one person I’d like to treat to some big snowballs!” broke out Fred. “That’s Professor Duke.”

“Oh, say! I’d like to square up with him myself,” burst out Andy. “Gee! he certainly did have it in for us yesterday.”

“Professor Duke is certainly a sour one – much worse than Asa Lemm ever dared to be,” came from Gif.

“I was thinking of Duke when I mentioned it,” said Randy. “You know he has his room in our building instead of with the other professors in Colonel Colby’s residence.”

“We don’t want to get in bad with the colonel,” remarked Fred seriously.

“Oh, I think we can fix it so that nobody will know who did it,” returned his cousin.

The matter was talked over for several minutes, and then, having agreed on their plan for more fun, the Rover boys and their chums set to work rolling a number of snowballs which were two feet or more in diameter. These they placed close to the school building at a point where there was a series of fire-escapes leading down from the upper halls of the institution.

“We can let down the ladder just as soon as we’re ready to turn the trick,” announced Randy. “I don’t believe anybody will notice it, for it will be dark and so cold that most everybody will be indoors.”

“We’ve got to be on our guard to make certain that Codfish or Duke or somebody else doesn’t spot us,” said Spouter Powell. “Of course it wouldn’t hurt if some of the regular fellows found us out, because they’d keep it to themselves.”

It must be confessed that the Rover boys were rather preoccupied in mind during supper that evening. In fact, Andy grew so thoughtless that he salted some eggs he was eating three times, so that when he finally came to his senses the food had to be pushed aside. This happened just as Professor Snopper Duke was passing, and the new teacher eyed the young cadet suspiciously.

“What is the matter with that omelet, Rover?” he demanded, in his high-pitched, nervous tone of voice.

“Nothing the matter with it, sir,” answered Andy. “Only I somehow forgot and salted it too much.”

“Really!” returned Snopper Duke sarcastically. “Is that the way you waste food?”

“No, sir. It was only a mistake,” answered Andy meekly.

“You ought to be made to eat that omelet,” continued the professor severely. “Don’t let such a thing happen again.” And then, with his eyes rolling around among the other cadets to see if anything else might be wrong, he passed slowly down among the tables of the mess hall.

“Oh, isn’t he a perfect little lamb!” murmured Randy. “So awfully tender-hearted!”

“Somebody ought to wring his neck,” grumbled his twin.

“Just the same, Andy, you’d better be careful how you handle the salt-shaker after this,” put in Jack.

After the meal the Rovers and their chums mingled with the other cadets and informed two or three of what was in the wind, and as a consequence there was quite some excitement noticeable when a little later the crowd, with the exception of Randy, slipped out of the school building by a side door. Randy ran upstairs, to appear presently on the lower landing of the fire-escape. Here was suspended a heavy iron ladder in such a fashion that it could be easily shoved out so that one end would drop to the ground.

Soon the crowd of cadets appeared in the snow below him, and then, with a warning to them to get out of the way, Randy let down the ladder and then came down himself.

“All clear upstairs,” he announced. “Not a soul in sight.”

“One of us ought to stay on guard up there to give warning in case it’s necessary,” announced Spouter.

“Well, suppose you go up,” returned Jack.

“I’d just as soon help with the snowballs,” returned Spouter. “But if you want me to go I’ll do so.” And a moment later he disappeared up the ladder and into the school building through a window which had been thrown open.

The cadets on the ground found it no easy task to raise the big snowballs up the ladder. They tried it first with nothing but their hands, but soon found they could do much better by dumping a snowball into a big overcoat and then hauling it up by the sleeves and the tail of the garment. They worked as rapidly as possible, and soon had eight of the snowballs raised to the platform of the fire-escape.

“How about it? Everything clear?” questioned Randy, as he came into the corridor where Spouter was on guard.

“All clear so far,” was the reply. “A few of the fellows are in their rooms, but no one that we are going to bother.”

“Then let’s get those snowballs inside and distribute ’em.”

In a few minutes the snowballs were gotten inside the building, and then two were rolled and pushed over to the room occupied by Henry Stowell, a cadet commonly called Codfish on account of the broadness of his mouth. Luck was with them, for the door was unlocked, so that they had little trouble in rolling the snowballs inside, where they were placed one on either side of the single bed the cadet occupied.

After this the cadets rolled several of the balls to various other rooms, one being placed in the tub of a bathroom.

“I’ve saved the biggest of the snowballs,” whispered Randy. “That’s the one we must place in Professor Duke’s room.”

The professor’s room was around in another corridor, and to get to this the cadets had to roll the big snowball directly past the top of the broad stairs leading to the hall below. They had the snowball in a position right at the head of the stairs when Spouter, who was leaning over the upper railing on guard, gave a sudden hiss of warning.

“Somebody coming!” he announced in a whisper. “And unless I’m mistaken, it’s Professor Duke!”

“Gosh! I hope he doesn’t catch us,” returned Gif Garrison. “Maybe we had better run for it.”

“Here he comes right for the stairs!” put in Jack, as he saw the familiar form pass a light in the lower hall.

The cadets did not know just what to do, and while they paused to consider, Professor Duke started up the long, straight stairs. He was evidently in deep thought and did not look above him.

“Run, fellows! Run!” whispered Andy excitedly, and then, as the others started away he attempted to follow. But the floor was wet from the melting snow, and down he came flat on his back, both feet hitting the big snowball squarely.

The movement was sufficient to send the snowball directly to the edge of the top step. Here, as Andy scrambled to his feet, it hovered for a moment, then began to slide down the stairs, gathering speed from step to step.

“Hi! Hi! What is this?” those above heard Snopper Duke ejaculate. And the next instant the teacher set up a yell of alarm as the big snowball hit him in the stomach and hurled him to one side. Then the snowball passed on down the stairs, slid across the lower hallway, and shot directly through the open door leading to Colonel Colby’s private office!

CHAPTER II
SOMETHING ABOUT THE ROVER BOYS

“Gee, we’ve done it now!”

“The snowball knocked Professor Duke over!”

“Hi! Stop that! What do you mean? Who did that?” came in smothered tones from Snopper Duke, who now sat on one of the lower steps of the stairs, holding both hands over the spot where the big snowball had struck him.

“Gosh! it struck him, all right,” whispered Gif Garrison.

“Yes. And it went across the hallway into Colonel Colby’s office!” gasped Andy, who had scrambled to his feet and given a glance downward.

“Skip for it!” put in his twin brother quickly. “We mustn’t be caught at this.”

The warning was not needed, for all of the cadets were already scrambling through the corridor and away from the stairs as rapidly as possible. They came to a halt in front of Room 18, that which Jack occupied.

“Skip inside and pretend to be reading or studying,” said the oldest of the Rover boys.

“I think we had better go to our own rooms,” said Gif to Phil and Spouter. “And remember, mum is the word,” he added for the benefit of the others.

“There’ll be some fun sooner or later, believe me,” remarked Fred. “Andy, why did you push that snowball downstairs on top of old Duke?”

“I didn’t do it on purpose. I slipped,” was the answer. “But come before they start to investigate.” And then he slipped into Jack’s room, followed by his cousins.

And here let me pause for a moment to tell something about the Rover boys and how it was that they came to be at Colby Hall. My old readers will not need this introduction, and, therefore, I shall not feel hurt if they skip my words on the subject.

In the first volume of this line, entitled “The Rover Boys at School,” I introduced three brothers, Dick, Tom, and Sam Rover, and told how they were sent to Putnam Hall Military Academy where they made a number of chums, including a cadet named Lawrence Colby.

Passing through Putnam Hall successfully, the three brothers next attended Brill College, and then went into business in New York City, where they organized The Rover Company, with offices on Wall Street.

During their school days the Rover brothers had fallen in with three very nice girls, Dora Stanhope and her cousins, Nellie and Grace Laning. The three young couples became married and settled down in connecting houses on Riverside Drive, New York City.

About a year following their marriage Dick and his wife Dora became the parents of a son, who was named John, and this son was followed by a daughter Martha. The boy Jack, as he was usually called, was a sturdy youth with many of the independent qualities which had made his father so successful.

Shortly after the birth of Jack, Tom Rover and his wife Nellie came forward with a great surprise in the form of a pair of lively twin boys, one of whom was named Anderson and the other Randolph. Andy and Randy, as they were invariably called, were exceedingly active lads, in that particular being a second edition of their fun-loving father, Tom.

About the time Tom’s twins came upon the scene, Sam Rover and his wife Grace became the parents of a little girl, called Mary. Then, a year later, the girl was followed by a boy who was christened Fred.

Residing side by side, the younger generation of Rover boys, as well as their sisters, were brought up very much as one large family. At first they were sent to private schools in the Metropolis, but the boys, led by Andy and Randy, showed such an aptitude for fun and horseplay that their parents were compelled to hold a consultation.

“We’ll have to send those kids to some strict boarding school – some military academy,” said Dick Rover.

“I guess that’s right,” his brother Tom had answered. “Although how my wife is going to get along without having the twins around is more than I know.”

At that time Lawrence Colby, the Rovers’ former Putnam Hall chum, was at the head of a military academy called Colby Hall. To this institution Jack, Fred, and the twins were sent. And what they did upon their arrival there is told in detail in the first volume of my second series, entitled “The Rover Boys at Colby Hall.”

The military school was located about half a mile from the town of Haven Point on Clearwater Lake. At the head of the lake was the Rick Rack River, running down from the hills and forests beyond. The school consisted of a large stone building facing the river, and close by was a smaller building occupied by Colonel Colby and his family and some of the professors, and at a short distance were a gymnasium, a boathouse, and likewise bathing pavilions.

On arriving at Colby Hall the younger Rovers found several of their friends awaiting them, including Dick Powell, usually called Spouter because of his occasional desire to make long speeches, and Gifford Garrison. Spouter and Gif were the sons of Songbird Powell and Fred Garrison, men who in their boyhood days had been close chums of the older Rovers while at Putnam Hall. The Rovers made a number of other friends, and, likewise, a few enemies, many of whom will be heard of later.

As mentioned, Colby Hall was located about half a mile beyond Haven Point, and on the opposite side of the town was Clearwater Hall, a boarding school for girls. During a panic in a motion picture house the Rover boys became acquainted with several girls from Clearwater Hall, including Ruth Stevenson, May Powell, Alice Strobell, and Annie Larkins. They discovered that May was Spouter Powell’s cousin, and the whole crowd of young people soon became friends. Later on Mary and Martha Rover became pupils at the girls’ school.

Ruth Stevenson had an old uncle, Barney, and one day, while out hunting, the Rover boys did the old man a great service. For this he invited them to spend some winter holidays with him, which they did, as related in another volume, called “The Rover Boys on Snowshoe Island.”

On this island the boys met two of their former enemies, Nappy Martell and Slugger Brown, as well as Asa Lemm, a discharged teacher of Colby Hall. The Rovers exposed a plot against old Uncle Barney and caused the hunter’s enemies to leave Snowshoe Island in disgust.

Some of the boys hoped they had seen the last of Nappy and Slugger, but Jack was doubtful; and how those two unworthies turned up again to cause more trouble is related in the book entitled “The Rover Boys Under Canvas.”

This was at the time of the annual encampment, and at an election of officers Jack was made captain of Company C and Fred made first lieutenant.

While the Rover boys were at Colby Hall the great war in Europe opened. When the call for army volunteers came Dick Rover and his brother Sam lost no time in enlisting, and as soon as he could get away Tom Rover followed; and the three fathers of the boys went into the trenches in Europe to do their duty for Uncle Sam.

During the following winter at Colby Hall Gif Garrison received a letter from an uncle, stating that he and his chums might use a bungalow up in the woods. Gif at once invited the Rover boys and Spouter to become his guests, and what a glorious time the lads had is related in a volume entitled “The Rover Boys on a Hunt.”

The return of the older Rovers from Europe at the conclusion of the great war in which they had served gallantly brought something of a surprise. Dick Rover had saved the life of a man from Texas, and in return had been given the deed to some property located between Texas and Oklahoma and said to be in a region containing oil. He decided to go to Texas and Oklahoma to investigate, and the four boys begged to go along. How they went to the oil fields and what stirring adventures they had there are related in detail in the volume preceding this, called “The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck.”

Here they fell in again with Nappy Martell, Slugger Brown, and another good-for-nothing lad named Gabe Werner, and also with a man named Carson Davenport, who did his best to do Dick Rover great harm. Davenport and some of his cohorts were finally placed under arrest. As a result of this Gabe Werner’s father took hold of some wells that were being sunk by the Davenport crowd. But in the end he and the Martells and the Browns lost a great deal of their money, so that they were left almost penniless.

“It’s a terrible blow for those three families,” said Dick Rover, when this occurred. “It will make Mr. Werner quite a poor man.”

“Well, I don’t particularly wish them any hard luck,” remarked Andy. “Just the same, I guess Nappy, Slugger, and Gabe got what was coming to them.”

Before going down to Texas and Oklahoma the Rover boys, while along the Rick Rack River during a violent storm, had succeeded in rescuing a man and his son who were caught between some rocks and a drifting tree in the middle of the swiftly flowing stream.

The man, John Franklin, was exceedingly thankful for what had been done for him, and so was his son Philip. It developed later that the Franklins owned a tract of land in Texas. And when it was discovered that the tract inherited by Dick Rover from the soldier in France was practically worthless, Jack’s father made an arrangement to work the Franklin place on shares. Two oil wells were bored, and both of these paid handsomely, making the Rovers richer than ever and also placing a substantial amount in the bank to John Franklin’s account.

“Do you know I can scarcely believe it’s true,” Phil Franklin had said to the Rover boys. “Why, my father will have more money than he ever dreamed of.”

“We’re as glad as you are, Phil,” Jack had answered. “Glad on your account as well as our own. Now maybe you can go to Colby Hall with us.”

“Say, that would be immense!” Phil had returned with pleasure. And that fall he had joined the crowd at the military academy and soon made for himself a host of friends.

“Gee, I never thought going to school could be so nice,” declared Phil Franklin to the Rover boys one day. “I always considered going to school a hardship. But this is bang-up in every way.”

“I guess you haven’t made any enemies yet, Phil,” remarked Fred. “Don’t forget that Nappy Martell, Slugger Brown, and Gabe Werner all hailed from here.”

“I’ve met only one fellow that I don’t like,” returned Phil Franklin. “That’s a fellow who came in the day I did, a big, tall, lanky chap named Lester Bangs.”

“Oh, you mean Brassy Bangs,” broke in Randy. “I know that fellow only too well. I had quite a set-to with him one day in the gym.”

“For a new cadet he’s certainly pretty forward,” answered Jack. “I’m glad he isn’t a member of my company. If he was I think I’d have to call him down more than once.”

“I guess Colby Hall is bound to have its bullies,” Andy had remarked on hearing this. “No sooner do we get rid of one group than another appears. They seem to grow like weeds.”

During the fall there had been the usual football season at the military academy, and the boys had acquitted themselves quite creditably, winning seven games out of twelve. Then had come the brief Christmas holidays. And following this the lads had settled down once more into the grind, resolved to do their best at their lessons. But, of course, they were only boys, and they had to have their fun, and occasionally the fun went a little too far and brought forth rather disastrous results, as we have just seen.