"Well, was I right?"
"Oh, say, don't rub it in, Jack. Of course you were. I was a fool to have gone to sleep, but——"
"Never mind reproaching yourself now, Pete," said Jack soberly. "The thing to do is to get out of here as quick as possible."
"Yes, we've no time to lose," said Pete, a serious look coming over his ordinarily cheerful countenance.
Jack caught a more serious meaning underlying the words than they seemed to hold in themselves.
"I should say so," he rejoined. "We've got to catch that old ruffian and give him the thrashing of his life. The idea of shutting us in here. I thought he was crazy, and now I know it."
"Not so crazy as you think, Jack," replied Pete gravely. "I'm afraid he's got more sense than we gave him credit for, and that right now we are in more serious danger than at any time since we escaped."
"What do you mean?"
"Never mind now. I don't want to scare you to death without there being any necessity for it. What I want to impress on you is that there is no time to lose."
"Of course, I appreciate that," rejoined Jack, not quite making out what Pete meant, but thinking it wiser to abstain from asking questions at the moment, "but how are we to get out?"
"Dunno right now," said Pete, scratching his head abstractedly.
"I have it," cried Jack suddenly. "We'll burn the door down."
"What about matches?"
"There are still some embers on the hearth there, and a pile of brush beside it. I'm sure we can do it."
"Well, let's get to work, then," said Pete, who seemed strangely ill at ease.
A goodly pile of brush was soon piled against the rough door and ignited by means of taking an ember from the fire and blowing on it till it burst into flame. Up roared the flames, the timber fire crackling against the stone roof and filling the hut with a choking smoke. Luckily, most of this escaped by the window, or they might have run a good chance of being suffocated.
"Say, it'll take a year to burn through the door at this rate," choked out Jack, after fifteen minutes or so of this.
"It would if we were going to burn through it, but we ain't," chuckled Pete. "Let the fire burn down now—or, better still, there's some water in that jar; just throw it over the blaze."
This being done, the fire soon died out, and then Pete, wresting one of the heavy loose stones from the hearth, battered with all his might against the charred wood. It took a long time, but at last a chink of daylight appeared.
"Hooray!" shouted Jack, as they attacked it with a piece of iron found near the cooking-hearth. Soon quite a hole appeared, and Pete, reaching through, encountered a heavy woodenbar leaned against the door from the outside, placed to hold it firmly closed. It was the work of but a few seconds to dislodge this and emerge into the open air.
Their work, however, had taken so much time that it was dusk when they stepped out of the door. Without a word, Pete, as if he had gone suddenly mad, darted off toward the old hermit's stable. He emerged in a second with an angry cry on his lips.
"Just as I thought," he exclaimed, "they're gone!"
"Gone!"
"Yes, the ponies and our rifles."
"Great Scott, what will we do?"
"Get away from here as soon as possible. If I don't miss my guess, that leathery-skinned old squeedink has recognized those ponies and started back to Black Ramon with them."
"Good gracious, that means——"
"That we'll have the whole boiling of them round us if we don't skeedaddle out of here pretty jerky. We lost a lot of valuable time getting that door down."
"But we've no ponies; how are we to travel on foot and keep ahead of them?"
"Well, there's that old one-and-a-half-eared mule out there. I reckon we won't be busting no code of ethics by borrering her. I'll get a saddle on her, and you just fill your pockets with whatever you can find in the way of grub, then we'll start."
In a few minutes all was ready, and the old mule, with a ragged saddle on her angular back, stood waiting with a drooping head. Pete swung himself into the saddle, and Jack, being lighter, leaped up behind, holding on to the cantle.
"All right, conductor. Ring the bell and we'll start this here trolley," grinned Pete, digging his feet into the old mule's ribs. She started off at a gait surprising in such a disreputable-looking animal.
"Well, we've got a start they never calculated on us getting," grunted Pete as they loped along. "If only our luck holds to the end, we'll beat them out yet."
The old mule plunged upward along the cañon, clambering over the rough ground with remarkableagility. One of the first things that Pete had taken care to do was to leave the trail in a rocky spot, where no telltale hoofmarks would show, and his course was now along the bottom of the gorge, where a small watercourse trickled.
"Well, we won't want for water, anyhow," he observed, with some satisfaction.
It grew dark rapidly, and nightfall found them in a wild part of the gorge with the main crests of the range reared forbiddingly above them. So far there had been no sign of pursuit, and both fugitives were beginning to hope that they had got clear away, when from far down the cañon they heard cries and shouts, and, looking back, saw a bright glare of light.
"Well, there they are," grinned Pete, "in a fine way of taking, I guess, over the fire."
"The fire," echoed the boy, puzzled; "is that what the glare is?"
"Yep," snorted Pete, "I reckoned we'd have to pay that old scallawag out some way, so I just scattered a few hot embers about his hut before we vamoosed. I reckon by the looks of thingsthey're catching up. Guess he's sorry he left us now."
"Pete, you're incorrigible," exclaimed Jack, not knowing whether to laugh or be angry at the cow-puncher's wanton act. True, it was wrong to burn down the old hermit's hut, but still the lone dweller of the cañon had betrayed their trust by an act of base treachery.
"I guess the books are about balanced," said Jack to himself.
Aloud he asked:
"Do you think they'll come on after us to-night, Pete?"
"Reckon not," rejoined the cow-puncher; "if they do, 'twon't do them no good. We've killed out the trail in this watercourse, and even if they have the dogs they couldn't pick us up. Wisht we had a couple of good rifles. We could lay up there on the hillside as snug as you please and pick 'em out as we chose."
It soon became manifest that they could not travel much farther that night. Not only was the old mule giving signs of fatigue, but it was so dark that, as Pete said, they "ran a chance ofbreaking their necks any minute." They were now high on the eastern slope of the cañon, and a tumble down its steep sides might have had disastrous results. They therefore decided to camp where they were.
Making camp was a simple matter with their scant paraphernalia. The old saddle had a coil of rope attached to its horn, and this cord was made fast to the old mule's neck. Neither of the campers was thirsty, so after eating some of the provisions Jack had hastily stuffed in his pocket, and which consisted mostly of a pasty, sticky corn paste, Pete made their bed.
Rolled in the ragged saddle blanket, with the saddle for pillow, and the stars above them, the wanderers slept as peacefully as if in their beds at home, although their couch was a rocky one. Before turning in, Pete took the precaution of wrapping the old mule's rope around his wrist, so that in the event of a surprise during the night she would give the alarm by tugging on it.
"Isn't she liable to start off home without ceremony?" asked Jack as he observed this.
"Not she," rejoined Pete wisely; "she's too tired to move a step."
All of which goes to show, as we shall see later, that it takes a wise cow-puncher to know a mule.
It was about midnight that Jack was awakened by a most unearthly yell. He sprang to his feet, with every nerve in his body tingling, and the first thing he observed was that Pete was missing. The cause of absence was not long in doubt. A sudden fit of homesickness had seized the old one-eared mule in the night, and she had started without delay for the hermit's hut, dragging with her the luckless Pete. The cow-puncher's yells filled the cañon.
Small wonder was it that he cried out in anguish, for the side of the hill down which the old mule was loping was as steep as the side of a house, and plentifully bestrewn with rocks, inter-grown with rough scraggly brush. Jack was fully dressed, just as he had lain down, and he leaped off into the darkness in the direction in which Pete's hideous yells and the clattering of the old mule's hoofs proclaimed them to be. But before he reached them, the abrupt descent of themountain by Pete had ceased. The old mule had been halted in midcareer by the rope becoming entangled in a small, low-growing piñon, and she had been checked as effectively as if a hand had been laid on the rope.
"Here, for goodness sake, get me cut loose from this she fiend incarnate," begged Pete, as he heard Jack coming toward him.
"Well, do make less noise, then," said Jack, who could hardly keep from laughing at Pete's doleful tones.
"Noise," groaned Pete, "it's a wonder I'm not making the all-sorrowfulest caterwauling you ever heard. If there's a sound bit of skin on my poor carcass, I'll give you a five-dollar gold piece for it, and no restrictions as to size, either. Ouch!"
He gave a painful exclamation as he rose to his feet.
"Consarn that mule," he grumbled, "I'm going to get me a good thick club, and her and me will argue this thing out. Look at that, will you, for pure cussedness."
No wonder the bruised and battered Pete wasindignant. The runaway mule stood only a few paces from them, unconcernedly cropping some sort of prickly bush, which no animal but a mule would have had the courage to tackle.
"Mule's ain't human, as I've often observed," grunted Pete, in intense disgust; "they're a mixture of combustibles, hide and devilment, with a dash of red fire thrown in."
"Well, why did you tie the rope round your wrist, then?" asked Jack, untangling the tether, and starting to lead the mule back.
"Don't ask me any questions," roared Pete, rubbing himself affectionately, "or if you do, ask me why I was ever a consarned, peskyfied, locoed idjut enough to cross that bridge."
A sudden disturbance in the brush below them caused them to start and listen intently.
The noise sounded like several animals of some sort making a kind of stampede through the brush.
"The Mexicans!" was the first thought that flashed through Jack's mind. But the next instant he knew it was impossible that it could be they.
"Those are no Mexicans, boy," whispered Pete.
"What was it, then?"
"Hold on, thar, or I'll shoot," unwisely yelled Pete. Unwisely, because they, neither of them, had a weapon.
In reply a bullet sang past his ear, fired, judging by the momentary flash, from the direction of the trampling animals.
"Waal, what do you know about that?" grunted Pete amazedly. "This valley must be full of enemies of our'n."
"Better not do any more shouting," warned Jack.
"No, I reckon not. Wow! I heard the bees sing that time, all right."
"What do you suppose it could have been? Not Mexicans, certainly."
"Nope. At least I don't think so. Maybe Injuns."
"Indians!"
"Yes, every once in a while they stampede off the reservation and roam around promiscuous. But anyhow, whatever it was, or whoever it is,he's more scairt of us than we are of him. Hark!"
There was a mighty clattering of dislodged stones and rustling of brush coming out of the darkness, and diminishing in loudness every minute.
"Git thar, Fox! You ornery son of a side-winding rattler!" they heard an angry voice grunt under its breath, from the direction of the retreat.
"A white man, by Jee-hos-o-phat!" exclaimed Pete, his face lighting up. "Now what in thunder is he doing up here?"
It was not for some time after the abrupt removal of Pete and Jack Merrill that any one of the little party in the old church spoke. Then it was the professor who broke the silence.
"I trust that no harm is meant to our young friend and his breezy companion," he said.
"Harm!" broke out Ralph indignantly, "you seem to take it easy enough. I—oh, well, I beg your pardon, professor, I guess this has got on my nerves. I didn't mean to be so short. But I do wish there was something we could do. Sitting here like this and not knowing what is going to happen is maddening."
"No use letting it get on your nerves, Ralph," counseled the quiet and deliberate Walt Phelps, "worriting about it isn't going to help any."
The professor got up and paced about the oldchapel, examining its walls with care. In one or two places were the remnants of old paintings, and these he examined with great interest.
"If we should ever get away from here I think that I should have some interesting discoveries to report to the Hispanic Society," he remarked amiably.
Walt Phelps nodded. The most interesting discovery he could have made at that moment would have been a door leading into the open air and a good horse standing outside it.
At noon a Mexican entered with their dinner, a similar meal to that which we have already seen served to the prisoners in the tower. Few words were spoken over the meal. Their hearts were too heavy for that. The uncertainty as to what was to be their ultimate fate was almost maddening. In addition, they had to bear the suspense of speculation over the destiny of Jack Merrill and Coyote Pete. Without the broncho buster's cheerful face and whimsical manner to cheer them the castaways were indeed in a gloomy condition.
About the middle of the afternoon they receivedanother visit from Black Ramon. This time he brought paper and some ink. The paper was some odd sheets, half torn and very dirty, which looked as if they might have been ripped from an old blank book. The ink was a faded, rusty colored composition. Evidently, writing materials were things for which the cattle rustlers had little use.
In a few brief words, spoken with brutal incisiveness, Black Ramon informed Ralph that his offer still held good. The boy had till the next day to make up his mind to write the letter to his father, demanding the payment of the ransom. A messenger would convey it to the nearest railroad station as soon as it was written. It was for this purpose that the ink and writing materials had been brought. As Jack had feared, the Mexican was going to work upon Ralph's sensitive nature by every means in his power, and as a step toward that end he had removed Jack and the cheerful cow-puncher.
"I've half a mind to write the letter and have it over with," said Ralph, as the door closed and they were once more alone.
"Don't you do it," said Walt Phelps decisively. "I've heard of fellows in a worse scrape than ours getting out of it all right. What's the use of your alarming your folks? After all, it may only be a bluff on the part of Black Ramon."
"I agree with our young Western friend," put in the professor, "this Mexican would hardly dare to commit any offense against the laws, and I firmly believe that if we show ourselves to be determined to resist his will, that he will ultimately let us go."
Walt Phelps had other ideas about the Mexican's character. The Western boy knew the man by reputation, and the general character of the wild outlaws who make their homes along the border. He said nothing, however, wisely thinking it best to let the professor encourage Ralph all he could.
As the afternoon waned away, therefore, the paper still lay scattered in the same spot on the floor where the leader of the cattle rustlers had placed it. By and by, a little ray of sunshine shot in through the window as the sun grew toward the west, and illumined the interior of theold chapel with a cheerful radiance. The rays played, as if in mockery of their captivity, upon the old sheets of paper, on which the thin, blue lines with which they had been ruled when they were new, were still visible.
"Wonder where Ramon picked up that paper," mused Ralph idly. "It reminds me of our exercise books at school. Looks like it might have been torn out of one of them, too. Heigh ho, I wish I was back at old Stonefell again. Don't you, professor?"
"Eh—oh!" gasped the professor, coming out of a brown study in which he had had his eyes fixed abstractedly on the paper, "yes, yes, of course. But, young man, your eyes are better than mine, and I want to ask you a question—do you notice anything on that paper?"
"Why, yes, a few marks; looks like dirt," said Ralph carelessly. "The sunlight shows them up. Nice sort of correspondence paper." He laughed mirthlessly.
"No, but," insisted the professor, "it looks to me as if characters of some kind were inscribed on them and——"
Ralph had suddenly risen and snatched up one of the sheets. A closer scrutiny had shown him that the papers were indeed covered with some sort of writing which they had not noticed before.
"You're right, professor," he exclaimed, "they are written on. See! the marks are getting clearer. But—but why didn't we see any writing before."
"Because," exclaimed the professor, "the papers have been written on with invisible fluid of some kind. Their exposure to the warm rays of the sun has brought out the writing."
"It's getting clearer," said Ralph, eagerly perusing the sheet he held. "I can't quite make it out yet, though."
He exposed the sheet he held to the sunlight, while Walt Phelps leaned interestedly over his shoulder.
"Why-why," the boy stuttered, "it's something about this church. Look here, I can see the 'Church of St. Gabriel, the old mission,' as plain as anything, and-and, why, professor," shouted the boy, half wild with excitement, "I believe thatthis paper, by some wonderful chance, may be the means of getting us out of here."
"Let me see," demanded the professor, taking the paper from the boy's trembling hands. Sure enough, it was covered with characters written closely, and seemingly hastily.
"'This record, made the seventeenth day of August, 1909,'" he read out, "'is to be kept in case of accidents. The secret passage lies four squares from the fifth square from the last window on the right hand side toward the altar. The old altar rail pulls back, exposing the trapdoor. Treasure in passage, one hundred paces from north of tunnel in wall, to right.' Give me that other page, Ralph, quick!"
The professor's voice shook strangely, and his dim eyes shone behind his spectacles. Rapidly he warmed the page Ralph handed him in the sunlight, and more writing leaped into view.
"'Written by me with onion juice on above date. Jim Hicks, prospector, formerly of Preston Hollow, N. Y. State. This to be an instrument for my heirs, if any, and if this is everfound.' And here is something that seems to be a postscript," gasped the professor, amazedly.
"'Will have to leave this in church and trust to luck. Place not deserted as I had thought, but in possession of Mexicans. If chance should bring this to an American's notice, let them search out Jim Hicks, the prospector, rightful owner of treasure by right of discovery, and legacy of Don Manuel Serro y Fornero, the last descendant of the old monk, Brother Hilarito.'"
"Good gracious, does that mean this church?" breathed Walt Phelps, his eyes as round as two marbles.
"Evidently," said the professor, who seemed strangely excited, "as nearly as I can make out, Jim Hicks was, or is, a miner or prospector who in some way was willed this missing treasure, whatever it is, by the last heir of one of the old monks who formerly lived in the mission. He must have come here to dig up the treasure and been surprised by the Mexicans. Fearing discovery when he would have been searched, he wrote this record in some old book he had with him and then stuffed it in a recess in the wall or other hidingplace. In some way the Mexicans found it, and not knowing what it was tore some leaves out, which providentially happened to be these, and gave them to Ralph to write his last message on."
"I guess you must be right, professor," agreed Ralph, "I've often heard that the old monks, when their Indians were giving trouble, hid their treasure in secret places. And this Brother Hila—whatever his name was—must have been the last survivor of the monastery. He willed the secret to his heirs, who, in turn, gave it to this old miner, Jim Hicks."
"This is the strangest thing I ever heard of," exclaimed Walt Phelps, "but now that we have found it, what good does it do us?"
"Why, why," blurted out Ralph, "don't you see, Walt, what the invisible writing has done? It has pointed out to us a way to escape."
"How?" asked the blunt Walt.
"How—why, through the tunnel."
"Yes, if this is the right church, and if the tunnel has an exit at the other end," rejoined the practical Walt. "I don't want to throw cold wateron your hopes, Ralph, but this looks to me as if it might be a trick of Black Ramon's."
"I hardly think so," said the professor. "At any rate, it is worth trying. We will make a test as soon as possible."
They did not dare, however, to try to test the secret of the old book till they could be sure they were not watched from without by one of Ramon's spies. Not till after dusk did they feel perfectly secure from observation. Then, with the professor leading, they sought out in the tesselated floor the designated square. It was easily found, and following the directions which had been memorized, for, of course, the invisible writing had disappeared with the fading of the warmth that brought it into being, the eager seekers went over the prescribed ground.
There was a moment of painful suspense as the professor laid hold of a moldering altar rail, followed by a moan of disappointment.
The rail did not yield. It was anchored solidly in its base.
"Sold!" ejaculated Ralph. Walt Phelps did not speak, but his disappointment was keen.
The professor said nothing, but thought deeply, for a few minutes. Then he spoke.
"I have it," he exclaimed suddenly, "it's we that have been wrong, and not the book."
"What do you mean?" asked Ralph, "we followed directions. I memorized them carefully myself."
"Yes, my boy, we did, but if you recollect the book said nothing about the color of the squares. We counted on the black ones, assuming that to be correct. Now might it not just as well have been the white ones that the directions meant?"
"That's so," agreed Ralph eagerly, with new hope; "let's try it that way."
"We'll have to be quick. It will be dark as pitch in a few minutes," said Walt.
Once more the three bent over the floor and counted carefully, this time using the white tiles as counters. Their enumeration brought them to another old brass rail, standing upright in what had once been the chancel of the old church.
Not one of that party drew a breath, as in the dying light the professor laid his hand on the upright pillar and pulled.
"Fooled again," burst out Ralph; but suddenly the professor, who had put his utmost strength into the task, went toppling backward, waving his arms like a scarecrow in a high gale. He fell on the marble floor with a crash, but was up again like a jack-in-the-box.
"Hooray! hooray! the old miner's writing was true!" burst out Ralph.
"Hush!" exclaimed Walt, "you'll have Ramon and his men in here in a moment."
As he spoke there came a sudden trampling of feet outside and shouts echoed.
"They've found us out!" gasped Ralph, with blanched cheeks.
"No, they're running past the door," exclaimed Walt. "Listen, something else is the matter."
"What can it be?" wondered Jack.
"No time for speculation now, my boy," warned the professor, who had recovered himself. "It's now or never. Are we going to chance the secret tunnel?"
"Yes," chorused both boys, gazing without hesitation into the black square which the swinging back of the rail had revealed. From the mouthof the dark pit a fetid, foul-smelling air rushed upward. It was the breath of the dead centuries.
"One moment," said the professor, staying Ralph as he was about to plunge forward undismayed into the abyss; "let some of that deadly gas out."
In apprehension of momentary discovery, the adventurers waited, starting at every sound. Outside the disturbance still went on. Feet could be heard rushing hither and thither. What could be happening?
"Now!" said the professor, after a few breathless minutes had passed.
Led by Ralph, they plunged downward, their feet encountering a flight of steps.
As they vanished into the unknown, the trap-door, actuated by some hidden machinery, which must have acted as their weight came on the long disused steps, swung silently back into place.
At the same instant there were several loud shouts from without, followed by a fusillade of rifles.
The escape of Jack and Pete from the tower had just been discovered, and while the ranch boyand the cow-puncher were surrounded by the perils through which we have followed them, the other members of the beleaguered party made their way forward into a blackness so utter as to feel almost solid.
As soon as it grew daylight next morning the two fugitives, Jack Merrill and Coyote Pete, not to forget the one-eared mule, from the effects of whose stampede Pete was still limping, made a careful reconnaissance. From their lofty perch on a ledge of rock far up the cañon they could see behind them a thin thread of distant blue smoke, which still marked the scene of the destruction of the treacherous old hermit's hut.
A few bluejays hopped about here and there, eying the intruders inquisitively, a badger rushed grunting and grumbling through some nearby scrub. Otherwise the cañon, under a blinding blue sky, was still as a desert noon.
"Wa'al, all's quiet along the Potomac from the looks of things," commented Pete, "and now let's get down to the creek, and I'll wash off some ofthe dirt that one-eared Maud there plastered me with last night, and then we'll hit up that pocket chuck-wagon of yours."
"And after that?" asked Jack.
"Why, then, we'll keep right on going. Let's see, it was to-day that you was to have written home for money, wasn't it?"
"Yes," said Jack, with a sigh, thinking of Ralph, who, if he had only known it, was at that moment beyond Black Ramon's reach.
"Wa'al, now, if that Easterner can only stick out, we'll win home yet," gritted out Pete, "and be back with help by day after to-morrow."
"Now, then, you one-eared, cock-eyed imp of Satan, if you want a morning drink quit pulling back on that halter and come down to the creek," went on the cow-puncher, addressing the mule, which by common consent had been christened Maud.
The mule flopped her one ear wisely at Pete, and docilely allowed herself to be led to water. Both travelers drank and laved themselves, and then seated on a rock at the edge of the watercoursemade a meal off the remnants of Jack's stock.
"Last of the grub, eh?" inquired Pete, as the final morsels vanished.
Jack nodded.
"Well, we'll have to tighten our belts a few notches then, I reckon," was all Pete said. It took more than the prospect of a little hunger ahead to alarm the old plainsman.
All at once his eyes fell on an object lying some distance up the creek. It reposed on the flat top of a rock and seemed to be a shallow metal basin of some sort.
"Hello!" exclaimed Pete, as he sighted it, "there's a clew to our neighbor of last night—the one who dug out so unsociable when Maud began cutting up."
"Cutting you up, I guess you mean," laughed Jack, gazing at Pete's scratched countenance, and a further facial decoration he carried in the shape of a big goose egg over one eye.
"Hum, I guess my style of beauty has been considerably damaged," grinned Pete, "and lookat that one-eared demon will you, grinning at us as if she enjoyed it."
They both had to burst out laughing, forgetting their other troubles at the queer sidelong glance Maud bestowed on them. It was as if she said:
"Didn't I have a lark last night?"
"Say, Jack," said Pete suddenly, after an interval of looking about to see if any chance crumbs had been overlooked, "I'm going to have a look at that thing on the rock up there. It may give us a clew to our friend who lit out so unpremeditated."
"That washbowl, you mean?" asked Jack.
"Well, it ain't exactly a wash bowl. It's what prospectors use to wash out gold in. They take a handful of mud and some water from any creek they think looks good, and then they wash it about. Of course, the gold, being heaviest, sinks to the bottom and stays there after all the other stuff has been washed away."
An examination of the basin showed that it was an old one and much battered. On one sideit bore scratched deep in its surface the initials J. H.
"Feller had quite a camp here," said Pete, looking about him. "Funny we didn't sight him when we first came up. Must have had three ponies, two to pack and one to ride."
"How can you tell that?" asked the boy.
"S'prised at you, a Western kid, asking such a question," grinned Pete, who was in high good spirits since they had apparently thrown off the Mexicans; "look at those hoofs."
"That's right," said Jack, after a short scrutiny, "there's one with only half a shoe on the off forefoot, one unshod on the hind hoofs——"
"That's one of the packers," put in Pete.
"And another the same way. Another packer," concluded Jack.
"You'll make a vaquero yet," approved Pete, "but come on, it's time for us to be up and getting. I only wish we hadn't scared J. H., whoever he is, out of ten years' growth, and we'd have been in the way of getting a hot breakfast."
"You wouldn't have wanted to have lighted afire," cried Jack; "wouldn't the Mexicans have seen the smoke?"
"Wa'al, I guess you're right, kiddo," said Pete; "cold victuals are safe victuals in a fix like ours. Just the same, a slapjack and some frizzled bacon, with a cup of hot coffee, would appeal to yours truly right now."
"Don't talk of such things," laughed Jack; "we may be eating piñon leaves by sundown."
"And that's no childish dream," agreed Pete. "Now, let's saddle up Maud and be on our way."
A few minutes later, with Pete's heels drumming a tattoo on her bony sides, Maud was once more ambling over the trail, her one ear moving backward and forward as if some sort of clockwork contrivance was in it.
"Lot of waste of power there," observed the practical Pete. "Hitch that ear to a sewing machine or a corn sheller and you'd have any motor ever built beat a mile."
By a sort of mutual but unspoken agreement, neither of the two mentioned eating when the sun, by its height in the sky, showed that it was noon. Without a word, though, Jack, from hisposition behind the cantle, tightened up his belt a notch. Short rations were beginning to tell on him. Pete, however, seemed cheerful enough. He even hummed from time to time a few lines of that endless cow-puncher's song which begins:
"Lie quietly now cattle;And please do not rattle;Or else we will drill youAs sure as you're born."
"Lie quietly now cattle;And please do not rattle;Or else we will drill youAs sure as you're born."
Such good progress did they make, notwithstanding Maud's deliberate method of procedure, that by mid-afternoon they found themselves almost at the summit of the range, and in a narrow gorge formed by the closing in of the walls of the cañon. They had been following a sort of trail, which had once—so Pete guessed—been an Indian way. It was, however, overgrown almost continuously with brush, and they had been compelled to turn out a dozen times in every hundred yards. Now suddenly the path came to a stop altogether at a spot where, for a distance of twenty feet or more, the side of the cañon had slipped down. Nothing but a smooth shaly wall, impossible even for Maud's goatlike feet to attempt, laybetween them and the resumption of the trail on the opposite side.
"Have to go around," decided Jack, who had dismounted and was surveying the break in the road.
"That means going back three miles at least," grumbled Pete. "Consarn the luck."
"Well, we can't go ahead."
"There's no such word as can't when you've gotter, son," rejoined Pete, gazing about him, while Maud philosophically cropped some patch grass that grew on the steep side of the trail.
"Let's see," mused Pete. "No, there wouldn't be no sense in trying to climb around it. Even this one-eared jackrabbit couldn't make it. Could you, Maud?"
The one ear shook vigorously.
"No, she's made up her mind she couldn't, and that ends it. Marry an old maid, argue with a school teacher, reason with a rattlesnake, but never try to persuade a mule of the error of her ways," said Pete solemnly.
"There's that old dead tree up there," said Jack suddenly, pointing to the steep shaly bank, wherea big dead pine lay precariously balanced where the last washout that had destroyed the trail had left it.
"Well, what of it?"
"Why, it's long enough to bridge the gap and broad enough for Maud to get across on if we lead her."
"And if she'll go," said Pete. "Just the same I think your idea's a good one, Jack."
"Well, we can try it, anyhow. It wouldn't take more than a shove to dislodge that trunk, and the way it lies it ought to roll so that its two ends will catch on each end of the trail and connect them."
"By Jee-hos-o-phat, I think it'll work!" exclaimed Pete, warming up to the idea.
As he spoke he got off the mule, who for the last five minutes had had her one good ear and the stump of the other cocked forward, listening intently. Her nostrils and eyes were distended, and as Pete's feet touched the ground she gave a wild scramble in an attempt to climb the bank.
"Whoa, whoa, Maud! what's the matter with you, you one-eared locomotive on four legs," growled Pete.
"She's scared at something!" said Jack, with a worried look, gazing nervously about him.
"Yep, that's right. Wonder what it is."
"Ph-r-r-r-r!"
Maud snorted and plunged about furiously.
"Well, it ain't Mexicans, that's a cinch, for the wind is blowing up the trail," mused Pete, "and whatever she smells is coming down. Well, no use worrying about it. The sooner we get busy and get that log across, the sooner we'll be on our way. I'll just hitch old Maud to this tree, and then we'll get to work."
Maud, still prancing and snorting alarmedly, was tied to the tree in a few seconds. The two adventurers, bracing themselves at every step, started to climb up the shale toward the dead tree, which they wished to roll down the incline to connect the two ends of the broken trail.
"Now, I'll take that far end and you take this, and when I say so, we both shove, see?" said Pete. After some difficulty on the slippery footholdthe shale afforded, they reached the log, which was nothing more or less than a huge pine trunk, sixty feet or more in length. Had it not been for the manner in which it had been caught on the pinnacle of two rocks at either end, they could not have hoped to move it. Balanced as it was, however, a touch set it rocking.
"Ready?" hailed Pete, after he had scrambled to his end of the log. He laid his hands on the fallen trunk and braced his feet and muscles for a mighty heave.
"All right!" hailed Jack, doing the same, when suddenly his expression of energy froze on his face, and he grew pale under his tan.
"Oh, Pete! oh!" screamed the boy, "look behind you!"
Pete, who stood with his back toward the upper end of the cañon, faced around from his grip on the timber. As he did so he echoed Jack's cry of horror.
Standing at the opposite edge of the broken trail—not twenty feet from him—was a huge, gaunt grizzly.
As it gazed upon the prey on which it hadlumbered so unexpectedly, the horrible brute's little pig eyes blazed malevolently, and its huge fangs began to drip as if in anticipation of the feast to come.
Standing at the opposite edge of the broken trail—not twenty feet from him—was a huge gaunt grizzly.
Standing at the opposite edge of the broken trail—not twenty feet from him—was a huge gaunt grizzly.
"Jee-hos-o-phat, a grizzly!" yelled Pete, as he gazed at the quarter of a ton of angry bruin, "and we've not got even a bean shooter."
"That's what Maud was scared at," was the ridiculous thought, considering the circumstances, that came into Jack's mind. That Pete had thought the same thing was evidenced the next instant.
"Say, if we'd only paid attention to Maud," he began, "we'd——"
But a sudden interruption cut him short. The big log they had been trying to dislodge was, as has been said, very delicately balanced. Already by placing their hands on it and rocking it testingly they had disturbed its equilibrium. Now Pete, in his agitation, had placed a foot on it. Both feet, in fact, as he jumped backward at the sight of the huge bear.
This was too much for the trunk. With a crash and a roar, and accompanied by a mighty cascade of dust and rocks, it rolled down the steep, shaly bank.
A few moments before both Pete and Jack had longed above everything else to see the trunk spanning the break in the trail. Now, however, when it landed fair and square in the position desired, with its two ends resting on solid ground, the natural bridge it formed was the last thing in the world they wanted to see.
With the trail still open—that is, with the break still in existence—they might have saved themselves from the bear, for it was extremely unlikely that the creature could have found a foot-hold on the loose shaly bank. Now that the bridge was in existence, however, things were altered, the bear could cross to them at will, even if they took refuge on their own side of the gap.
"Make for those trees," shouted Pete, pointing to a small clump of scrubby firs that grew out of a pile of rock just above where Maud had been tethered.
Without a word Jack turned and made the bestof his speed along the steep, slippery incline to the spot indicated by the cow-puncher. Pete was close behind him.
"Now climb," ordered Pete; "it's our only chance."
As he spoke the grizzly, which had hesitated for a moment when the bridge came tumbling down, had perceived the easy means it afforded him of reaching his prey, and was cautiously testing it with his foot.
"Wish the thing would give way and roll him down to kingdom come," gritted out Pete, savagely.
Both Pete and Jack in their haste had found refuge in the same tree, a small sapling fir, which bent perilously under their weight. From this insecure perch they watched bruin testing the bridge cautiously. Finally having made up his mind it was safe the immense brute started to lumber across it.
"B-b-but," stammered Jack, "he'll get us in this tree, Pete. Grizzlies can climb."
The boy was horribly frightened, and small blame can attach to him therefor. Jack, as wehave seen, was far from being a coward, but even the bravest of men might be pardoned for feeling alarm when caught weaponless by a grizzly bear—one of the most savage, merciless foes of man in the Western Hemisphere.
"He can climb, all right," rejoined Pete, "but a grizzly is the most cautious brute there is. He's quite smart enough to see that this tree overhangs a steep slope that ends in a precipice, and he knows, too, that if too much weight is put on it we'll all go down together. Maybe he won't try to dislodge us. That's our only hope."
"But even if he doesn't climb it he's liable to sit below till we come down from hunger or drop from fatigue."
"Well, that's a chance we've got to take," grunted Pete grimly.
The grizzly seemed in no particular hurry to proceed. Having crossed the bridge he leisurely sniffed about, only from time to time glancing up out of his little red eyes at the two figures in the flimsy fir tree.
All this time Maud had been plunging aboutlike a wild thing, but her rope held tight and she could not escape.
"Poor critter," said Pete, as he watched her. "If we'd only taken her warning we might have been out of here by now."
"If we ever get out of this, I'll believe anything a mule tells me," chimed in Jack miserably.
The grizzly apparently made up his mind suddenly that it was time that all delays were over. With the peculiar lumbering gait of these huge, but active, creatures, he rapidly made his way to the foot of the little fir and placed his fore paws on it. As Jack gazed downward at the huge paws, armed with enormous claws, each as big and sharp as a chilled steel chisel, he could not restrain a cry.
"Steady, kid, steady," groaned Pete. "Oh, if only I had a rifle for you, me haughty beauty, wouldn't I drill a nice hole in you."
He shook his fist at the bear, which growled savagely back. But having tested the tree, the bear, as Pete had expected, declined to risk his weight on it. Instead he shook it a little in a vain attempt to dislodge the two clinging occupants.Both man and boy hung on with grim desperation, while a dreadful fear that the roots might give way gnawed at the heart of each.
"How long will he stay there, do you think?" asked Jack, as the grizzly, grumbling angrily to himself, sat down at the foot of the tree, for all the world like a huge cat patiently watching a mouse hole.
"Dunno," grumbled Pete; "longer than we'll stay here, I guess."
Suddenly the bear seemed to tire of inactivity. With a savage roar he sprang at the tree, which bent like a sapling under his tremendous weight. To Pete's horror he distinctly felt the trunk crack.
"It's all off," he groaned aloud; "one more jump like that will finish us."
"When the tree hits the ground you run," whispered Pete to Jack. The boy nodded his head. He little dreamed what was in Pete's mind.
The acute mind of the grizzly soon perceived that his attack on the tree had been effectual. Roaring with dreadful note that sent a chill to Jack's heart, he charged once more.
There came a dreadful crashing, crackling, rending sound, and the small sapling gave way.
Like a stone from a catapult Jack felt himself strike the ground violently.
"Run, Jack, run!"
It was the voice of Pete, but it came to Jack like a voice in a dream. Mingling with it came the triumphant roar of the grizzly.
Bruised and shaken by his fall, the boy managed somehow to get to his feet and began running stumblingly forward. Suddenly he stopped. What had become of Pete?
In the same instant his friend's unselfish bravery flashed across him. Pete meant to stay behind and deliberately sacrifice himself while Jack got a chance to escape.
Jack turned and began to run back.
"Pete, Pete, you shan't do it!" he cried desperately.
But even as he yelled he gave a shrill cry of mortal terror. The huge black form was upon the cow-puncher, and all Jack could see was its huge, hairy arms as they shot out to envelope Pete in their grip. Over and over rolled the two,as the bear missed its footing on the treacherous hillside and began toppling down toward the trail. In this predicament it still gripped tight to its prey, however.
Suddenly Jack gave another yell—a cry of exultation. An extraordinary thing had happened.
In its rolling plunge down the slope the bear had come within the radius of Maud's iron-shod hind hoofs. With a scream of mingled fear and mulelike defiance, those formidable weapons drove out as if impelled by steel springs.
Ker-flo-p-p-p!
Both of those terrible heels struck the grizzly fair and square in the top of his ferocious head. With a howl of agony he dropped the man from his deadly grip, and with the blood streaming from the deadly wound went tumbling and clawing in his death agony down the slope.
Faster and faster he crashed downward, tearing out small bushes and trees as he went under his huge weight. At last everything grew silent, and Jack looked over the edge of the gulch.
At the bottom, half hidden among the avalanche of brush he had brought with him, lay thecarcass of the huge grizzly—quite dead, it seemed, for when Jack hurled down a stone he never moved.
At the same instant Pete sat up, a puzzled expression on his face.
"Am I dead?" he inquired.
"No, thanks to old Maud!" shouted Jack, joyously flinging his arms about Pete and doing a war dance of exultation. "She's the best one-eared mule in the world!"
"That's right," agreed Pete solemnly, after he had been made acquainted with the happenings of the last few moments, for he had lost consciousness in the bear's mighty hug.
"And say, Pete," said Jack in a choky voice, "I understand what you did, old man, and——"
His voice broke, and tears came into his eyes as he thought of Pete's act of self-sacrifice.
"Aw blazes," said Pete, with a bit of a quaver in his own tones, "that's all right. But look at Maud, will you?"
That intelligent animal, with her one ear cocked erect as if in triumph, had thrown back her head and opened her mouth.
"Is she going to have a fit?" asked Jack.
"Naw, she's going ter sing. Mules don't speak often, but when they do, they do it about something worth while. Hark!"
He-haw-he-haw-he-haw-he-haw!
Maud's song of triumph, as Pete had described it, went echoing up and down the cañon in the most discordant series of sounds known to the ear of man. But if there had been a hundred Mexicans in earshot, neither of the two fugitives would have grudged Maud her vocal exercise, nor have attempted to cut it short.
As it was, however, the mule's pean of victory had evidently reached other ears than those of Jack Merrill and Coyote Pete. They were still petting her and wishing for lumps of sugar and gold head stalls and all sorts of equine delicacies when both were startled by a gruff voice addressing them.
"Hullo, strangers!"
"Hullo yourself!" rejoined Pete, considerably surprised, and peering about him keenly.
The effect of their first sudden immersion into the total blackness of the tunnel was paralyzing to Ralph, the professor, and Walt Phelps. The air, too, was still oppressive and musty with the accumulation of ages.
"Has any one got a match?" was the professor's first inquiry.
"Don't know," rejoined Walt Phelps, "I most generally have, but them greasers went through me pretty thoroughly. Hold on, though; wait! Hooray! I had a hole in my pocket, and some slipped through into the lining of my coat."
"Light up," said Ralph eagerly, "and let's see what sort of a horrible hole we are in."
A sputter, a crackle, and then a blessed flood of light, as Walt Phelps lit one of the precious matches of which he had found three or four.
"Now, see how much you can take in in one match-length," urged the red-headed ranch boy, as he held the match high in the air.
Its radiance showed them that they were in a narrow, walled tunnel, into which the steps from the trap-door above had led them. Right ahead stretched blackness, behind was blackness, only in the little illuminated circle in which they stood in fact, was there any relief from the gloom. The professor uttered a sudden gleeful exclamation, and at the same instant Walt dropped the match with a loud exclamation of:
"Ouch!"
He had held on to it so long he had burned his fingers.
"Never mind," consoled the professor; "that match, Walter, has shown us one important thing."
"And what is that?" asked Ralph.
"That there is an opening to this passage somewhere."
"Why, how——"
"Simple enough. The flame flickered, as Walter held the match up. That shows there must bea draught, and where there is a draught there must be an opening."
"Then, for goodness sake, let's make for it," exclaimed Ralph, stumbling forward in the darkness "I can't stand this blackness much longer."
With his hands spread in front of him the boy started off, the others following. Walter would have lighted another match, but this the professor vetoed. He argued that, not knowing what lay ahead of them, they had better reserve their store for a real emergency. The boys agreed to this readily.
They had gone about two hundred yards when Ralph, whose hands were feeling along the walls as he went, gave a sudden exclamation. Up to this point the passage had been about six feet in height, and four or more in width. Now, however, it contracted until they had to double up, and could only just squeeze through. It grew unendurably hot, too, and as the floor had steadily declined as they went, they argued that they must have reached a considerable depth.
Ralph's exclamation had been caused by a peculiar substance with which his fingers had suddenlycome in contact. Heretofore the walls had been rough, and in places rocky. Suddenly, however, his fingers encountered a rounded, smooth surface.
"What's the matter?" asked the professor, who was behind.
"I don't know. There's something odd imbedded in the wall right here. Can we spare a match?"
"I think under the circumstances we might," said the professor.
Walter accordingly kindled a fresh lucifer.
As its rays shone out, every one of the party shrank back with a cry of horror.
From the wall a grinning skull was gazing at them.
The ranch boy dropped his match with a cry of terror and startled alarm. Even the professor's nerves were shaken by this sudden apparition.
"F-f-for g-g-goodness' sake, strike another!" stuttered Ralph.
With trembling hands Walt struck another light, and this time they nerved themselves to examinethe wall more carefully. The skull was imbedded in the rock, and by its side they now perceived was a skeleton hand, pointing down the tunnel. The professor also noted some marks at its side. There were five of them—short, straight lines, scratched in the wall.
"Why, boys," he said, as the match died out, "there is nothing to be alarmed at. The skull is placed there as some sort of a pointer, or indicator, as I take it. That hand shows the direction in which the treasure lies, and the five scratches mean either five feet, or five yards, in this direction."
This simple explanation nerved the boys wonderfully, and they carefully paced off five feet.
"Another match, Walter," ordered the professor.
"The last but one," said the boy, as he struck it.
Hastily they gazed about them, but not a sign could they perceive of any break in the wall or floor, which might serve as a hiding-place for the treasure indicated in the miner's invisible writing.
"Shall we try at five yards?" asked Ralph.
"We will put it to a popular vote," rejoined the professor. "It will mean burning up our last match, but on the other hand——"
"I'm willing to use it—how about you, Walt?" came from Ralph.
"Sure," responded the ranch boy.
The professor made rapid mental calculations, and then paced off the additional distance necessary to make up the five yards from the original starting-place.
"Now," he said, coming to a halt.
How carefully Walt Phelps nursed that tiny yellow flame, as it burst into being. How eagerly they glanced about them, greedy of every morsel of its light.
Suddenly the professor gave a cry.
"Look!" he sputtered out.
He was pointing downward excitedly. Almost at his feet was a mildewed iron ring. As the light died out, he grasped it.
"Never mind the darkness, now; I've got it!" he cried exultingly.
"Pull it up," urged Ralph, all else forgotten in the mystic spell of hidden treasure.
"Yes, pull," urged Walt.
"I—ugh—ugh!" grunted the professor, putting all his strength into it, but the ring never budged an inch.
"Here, give me a hand, boys!" he cried.
"How are we to find you?" asked Ralph.
"Here, extend your hands. Ah, that's it," went on the scientist, seizing hold of the boys' wrists and guiding them down to the ring.
"Now, all together," he said; "pull!"
With all their strength the three adventurers tugged with a mighty heave at the iron. At first it seemed that it was going to prove obdurate even to their combined efforts, but continued tugging resulted in a slight quiver of whatever the iron ring was fastened to.
"Now, once more—he-a-ve!"
There was a sudden give on the part of the iron ring, and its foundation gave way with a rush.
A strange, pungent odor filled the air!
"I—I—I'm choking," gasped Walt, gripping his collar with both hands and tearing it open, torelieve the terrible congestion that had suddenly seized upon his throat.
"Run, boys; run for your lives!" shouted the professor. "There's something deadly in there!"
They needed no second invitation. Forward they plunged, gasping and choking, in the grip of the unseen, destructive agent they had liberated.
The professor, as he sprang forward, felt his foot slip, and realized that he was falling backward. As he fell into what he knew must be the pit they had opened, and from which the noxious fumes were pouring, he grasped at something—it was Walt's leg.
"Hey, leggo my leg!" howled the red-headed youth, half-crazy with fear. To his excited imagination, it seemed that in the darkness some pulling arm had reached up from the pit and seized him.
"Walt! Walt!" gasped the professor. "Save me!"
The boy, in agony as he was from the horrible gases, pluckily reached round and felt about. Presently he felt the professor's bony hand griphis. A second later, the scientist had been hauled out of danger. But the suffocating fumes still filled the passage. They were choking, blinding and killing the adventurers.
"Forward, forward! It's our only chance!" cried the professor.
Suddenly he felt Walt, who was just ahead of him in the panic-stricken flight, collapse. Seizing the fainting boy in his arms, the professor bravely struggled on. In the meantime Ralph had hastened on ahead, and knew nothing of what had occurred behind him.
Rapidly he ran from the unseen peril, covering the ground swiftly. Stumbling blindly forward, he all at once felt the air grow fresh and sweet, and at the same time a sort of glow penetrated the stygian darkness of the tunnel.
The boy glanced upward and gave a cry of delight. Above him, at the mouth of a circular shaft, he saw the kindly stars blinking. Never had the sight of the sky looked so sweet to him. But even as he was congratulating himself, he looked about for his companions.
They were not there!
"Hullo, Walt—professor! Hurry," he called back into the blackness and the foul danger he had left behind him.
To his dismay, his voice echoed hollowly upon the rocks, and went booming mysteriously down the tunnel. But human reply to his call, there was none.
With a sinking heart, Ralph realized in an instant what had happened. The professor and his companion had been overcome, by whatever it was that had emanated from the trapdoor in the tunnel.
A sort of panic seized on the boy.
He shouted and shouted, again and again, regardless of his voice being heard above. But only the mockery of the echo to his frightened cries came back to him.
It is no disparagement to Ralph to say that it required some effort on his part to nerve himself for what he did then. Summoning every ounce of resolution in his body, he threw himself on his hands and knees, with a vague recollection of having heard somewhere, that deadly gases were less deadly near to the ground.
Thus extended, the Eastern boy, with a beating heart and a dread sense of disaster oppressing him, crawled back into the danger-filled darkness from which he had just emerged.
As he proceeded, the air grew more and more unbearable. His skin seemed to be on fire, and his eyes were filled with an aching, burning, smart that was maddening. But the boy kept repeating over and over to himself the words he had uttered as he plunged back over the path of danger.
"I must get them out. I must get them out!"
In the pitchy darkness, with mind and body burning, he painfully wriggled on.
"I can't keep this up much longer," was his thought; "where are they, oh, where are they?"
Suddenly he bumped into something soft. It was a human body.
"Professor!" gasped the boy in a voice which he knew must be his own, but which sounded strangely like that of another person.
A faint groan answered him.
"You must come with me. I must get you out. I must get you out," gasped Ralph. He seizedthe other's clothes and made a brave effort to drag him forward. But as he did so, everything seemed to race round and round in his head in a mad whirligig, and the boy collapsed in a senseless heap beside the two he had come to save.