Nort was turning over to get into a more comfortable position, when he heard something hiss through the air with a swishing sound. For an instant he thought of rattlesnakes, but almost at once it was borne to his mind that he had heard this sound before--the swish of a lariat through the air.
He sat up quickly, straining his eyes in the direction of the sound. Just then a piece of the greasewood burned up brightly, and revealed to Nort this sight.
From somewhere in the darkness, beyond the circle of light, a lariat had coiled in among the lads. And as Nort looked, the coils settled over the head of his brother Dick. Before Nort could cry a warning, or scramble from under his tarpaulin, the rope tightened and Dick was pulled from his resting place near the fire out into the darkness, his frightened yells awakening the echoes, and startling the cattle into uneasy action.
It was only a moment that surprise held Nort motionless, sitting up there by the small fire of greasewood twigs, with the bunch of cattle moving uneasily in the darkness. Then, with a yell that had in it both warning and encouragement, Nort scrambled to his feet and made a grab for Dick, who was being dragged off in the loop of a lariat, the other end being manipulated by some one unseen.
"Hold it, Dick! Hold it!" cried Nort, as, many a time he had thus shouted encouragement to his brother on the football field. "Hold it!"
But Dick was unable to do this. Taken at a disadvantage, awakened from a half-sleep as he was, and dragged from a fairly comfortable bed, he was puzzled and confused, not to say frightened.
But he was capable of yelling, and this he did to the best of his ability.
"Here! Quit that! Let up! What you doing?" shouted Dick, for, as he said afterward, he thought it was one of the cowboys playing a trick on him, hazing a tenderfoot, perhaps, though Dick proudly imagined that he was fast graduating from that class.
The yells of the two brothers naturally awakened Bud who, being more used to sleeping in the open than were his cousins, had almost at once gone soundly to sleep. But it did not take the young rancher long to rouse himself.
"What's the matter? What's going on?" shouted Bud, and Nort had a glimpse of his cousin with his gun in his hand. This reminded Nort that he had left his weapon under his tarpaulin, and he made a dash to get it, mentally blaming himself for not proving more true to his idea of the traditions of the West, and having his revolver always with him.