Pet of the Big Horn Ranch

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Samuel Harrington, owner of the Big Horn Ranch, was a generous man and allowed his cowboys many perquisites. One of these was to allow the boys a certain number of colts (at the yearly round-up), which, when grown to maturity, they sold and divided the proceeds. Samuel was a widower with one daughter, a thorough Western girl and a lover of good horseflesh. Among the horses the boys owned was a beautiful chestnut filly, kind as a kitten and gentle as a lamb, which she admired very much; so instead of selling the filly, the boys had decided to make the owner's daughter a present of the animal. Big Tom, the best cowpuncher west of the divide, was elected to inform her of the fact. Our opening scene finds Tom, awkward and bashful, making the presentation speech. Tom was hopelessly in love with pretty Stella, and although he had never had the nerve to tell her of his secret, Stella, with a woman's intuition, read his heart and enjoyed his confusion. Little did either of them dream that through the giving of the present Tom was to find his voice and win the girl he loved. Our second scene shows Stella leaving the house, mounted on her new filly, going on an errand of mercy to the bedside of a sick woman who lived on a neighboring ranch. Operating in this section at the time of our story was a daring band of rustlers; the leader, a desperado named Macklin, had cast envious eyes on the mare the boys had given Stella, and laid his plans to have her. A favorable occasion soon offered. Seeing the girl pass alone, he rounds up several companions to keep watch, and while the unsuspecting girl is in the house he stealthily unties the horse and gets away. Poor Stella is distracted to find her pet gone and wildly seeks for help. The elderly ranchman goes in search of the horse and comes upon the gang unawares. He is set upon and badly beaten, but manages to get back to Harrington and give a description of the rustlers. Then begins a wild hunt for Pet, in which every man in the place able to mount a horse joins. Toward evening the searchers return in despair. A half-breed rides up with a note: "Send the foreman of your ranch alone with one hundred dollars to-night to Engle's Crossing and we will give him the horse." Mr. Harrington doesn't like the idea, for his foreman, Tom Deering, has made several bitter enemies among the rustlers, while guarding his employer's interests, and the whole thing looks like a frame-up to get Tom in their clutches. But Stella is crying over the loss of Pet, and those tears decide Tom. "Never mind the one hundred, boss: I'm goin' after that filly," and he rushes away in the direction of the corral, "Here! What in thunder! You'll be shot; let them have the horse." but Tom, not waiting to hear Harrington's protests, has mounted and gone. "Darn the boy! Half a dozen of you get your horses and ride after him. You can get to Engle's in time to help him, if those devils mean what I think they do." They arrive at Engle's Crossing, and Navajo Pete's quick eye catches the flutter of a paper pinned to a pepper tree by the roadside. "I've gone to the old mill in Blake's gulch; if I'm not back in half an hour, come after me. Tom." "The boss was right, boys; them devils are going to trim Tommy." Tom's foresight saved his life, for the punchers follow his orders and arrive just as Macklin has fastened the ace of spades over big Tom's heart, stepped back and was carefully aiming a big .44 at the black spot on the card. Tom, with his hands and feet tied and securely bound to a chair, had looked fearlessly into the murderous barrel, murmured Stella's name and said good-bye to all earthly affairs, when the crack of a Colt just back of his head gave him a new lease of life. Navajo had broken Macklin's wrist, and the rest of the gang were soon on the way to the county seat for an early trial, for out in this big country justice moves swift and unerring, and it doesn't take long to select a competent jury to try and convict rustlers. The next day we are present at an interesting scene. Stella, holding Pet's halter, is thanking Big Tom for her recovery. "And if they had killed you. Tom, I-I think I would have died, too." "What! Gee Whiz! Do you mean you care like that for a big, awkward-I mean, do you love me?" "Why, of course, I do. stupid." "Pet, you're witness." and Tom clasps the blushing girl in his arms.