Too frightened to utter a sound, the others, who by this time had reached the summit of the cliff, gazed over into the inky depths beneath them. It was Merritt who first found his voice.
"Rob, oh, Rob! What has happened?"
"Don't ask me yet," gasped the boy below him, and, throwing himself flat on the narrow shelf, he peered over into the black void.
"Tubby, Tubby!" he called softly.
"Gee, that was a drop, all right!" came up a voice from below him.
The astonished Rob almost fell over the edge of the ledge himself in his excitement.
"Oh, Tubby, is that really you?"
"I guess so," came the voice below, "but I wish you fellows would hurry up and get me out of this; I'm hungry."
"Gracious!" thought Rob; "fancy thinking of hunger in such a position as he is in."
"I'm clinging to a tree," came up Tubby's voice. "I grabbed it as I was falling. It's only a very little tree, though, and I don't just know how long it'll bear me."
"Get in as close to the roots of it as you can," breathed Rob, hardly daring to speak above a whisper for fear of dislodging his chum by the mere vibration of his voice.
"All right," said Tubby, and Rob could hear him cautiously making his way along his slender aerial perch.
Rob turned his face upward and hailed his corporal.
"Say, Merritt," he cried, "take the fellows, and get back to camp as quick as your legs will carry you, and then get back up here again. Bring ponies and ropes with you—all you can get of them, and maybe Blinky and some of the men had better come."
"All right, Rob. But how about you?"
"I'll wait here. Hurry back, now."
"We will," and an instant later Rob was alone, and his companions were making full speed to the camp.
"How are you making out, Tubby?" called down Rob in a low tone.
"All right. But my legs are cramped. Gee! I was lucky to strike this tree."
"You bet you were. I noticed a few small ones clinging to the rocks as we peeped over, but I didn't think they'd ever be the means of saving a life."
"Don't holler till we're out of the wood. It's bad luck."
"Well, they ought to be back within an hour with the ropes. I guess they can get ponies up that trail."
"I hope so," groaned Tubby. "I don't think I can hold out much longer."
"Good gracious!" gasped Rob, "is the tree beginning to give?"
"No, without grub, I mean. I tried to eat some of the leaves off this tree, but they're bitter and don't taste just right."
"What! You've been moving about?"
"Sure. I've got to have something to do."
The very idea of any one's stretching their limbs in such a position as the fat boy's, almost made Rob's hair stand on end.
"Tubby must have nerves of steel," he murmured, "or else not know the meaning of fear."
Then he went on aloud:
"For goodness' sake, don't move any more, Tubby. The slightest false move might send you off into space."
"All right, I'll keep still," Tubby assured him, but in a free-and-easy tone.
"Well, perhaps it's a good thing he isn't scared," thought Rob; "if he were, it would make the job of getting him up twice as difficult."
For a long time he lay silent on the narrow ledge, so absorbed in the difficulties of the situation that he forgot everything. Even the recollection that there was a strong likelihood of the Indians pursuing them down the passage had entirely gone out of his mind—displaced by Tubby's accident. Suddenly the boy started up with abound, which almost projected him over the ledge after Tubby.
A hand had been placed on his shoulder.
Before Rob could utter a sound another hand was placed over his mouth and he felt himself lifted from his feet. Peering down into his face, the startled boy could make out, in the faint starlight, half a dozen cruel countenances.
How bitterly he blamed himself for being thus caught off his guard! The simplest precaution would have kept him safe, but he had allowed the soft-moccasined red men to slip up on him without placing the slightest difficulty in their path. If ever a boy felt foolish and angry, it was Rob, as his silent captors slid noiselessly as cats into the black mouth of the tunnel of the cave-dwellers.
"I'm a fine scout to be caught napping like that," was his thought.
But as the redskins bore him into the narrow portal, they were compelled to release one of his hands. Rob took advantage of this to break a shrub, in a way which he knew would indicateas plain as print to any Boy Scout who saw it which way he had been carried off.
The next instant they were in the black tunnel. The Indians ran swiftly but noiselessly, bearing in their sinewy arms the powerless boy. Frightened Rob was not. His brain was too busy thinking up some plan of escape for that. His uppermost emotion was impatient anger at his folly. Even a loose rock, placed at the mouth of the passageway, would have been tripped over by the Indians, and thus have given him warning of their coming. Bitterly he blamed himself for his oversight. More bitter still were his thoughts, as his mind reverted to poor Tubby, hanging alone in space, without any means of knowing what had become of Rob, for the shelf, or ledge, on which the sudden drama of his taking off had been enacted, overhung the cliff face as an eyebrow does an eye.
On and on traveled the Moquis, almost noiselessly pitter-pattering along the dusty floor of the passage. They skillfully avoided treading on the carcass of the skinned mountain lion, andit was not long before they emerged in the bowl-like valley in which Rob had seen the solitary marksman who had made a sieve of his hat.
At the rocky portal the Moquis paused and grunted gutturally, and then started forward on a steady jog-trot once more.
"Well, this is a luxurious way of riding," thought Rob, as he reposed in the sort of armchair the arms of the Indians formed, "if the circumstances were different, I wouldn't mind taking a long trip like this."
It was so dark in the cup-like valley that the boy could see but little of the country. He only knew they were in the strange depression by noting how the dark walls upreared against the lighter hue of the star-sprinkled sky.
Before long, however, his tireless kidnappers began to trot along over rising ground. For what seemed hours they traveled thus. Presently the boy became aware of a faint glare in the near distance. At the same time, the short, sharp yapping of a mongrel dog was borne to his ears. Before many moments had passed, theycame in sight of several tepees, pitched under a grove of trees in a small, and seemingly inaccessible, cañon. The cook fires were lighted, and big pots hung over some of them. Children, squaws and dogs swarmed about, the curs yapping and snapping at each other. As the Indians who had captured the boy gave a shrill screech, the village literally boiled over with activity. From the tepees poured braves and squaws and more children. All rushed forward to meet the returning redskins.
"Well, they seem glad to see us," thought Rob to himself; "wish I could say the same for myself. If only I knew how Tubby came out, I'd feel better."
As he was borne into the circle of firelight, the boy was surrounded by a curious, chattering crowd, who pulled his clothes about, and poked him inquisitively. Suddenly, a tall Indian, his face hideously daubed with red, yellow and black, emerged with a stately stride from a tepee covered with rude pictures of hunts and battles. He regarded the boy with a piercing eye for amoment, and then, raising his arm, pointed to another tepee, and gave some sort of an order.
Instantly Rob's arms were seized and pinioned by the Indians who had brought him from the cliff, and he was hustled over the ground and flung roughly into the tepee.
"So that's their game, is it," gritted out Rob savagely, every drop of his fighting blood aroused by the cold-blooded ferocity of his manner of entrance into the patched and smoky tent.
"Well," he went on, "there's no use getting mad, I suppose. Anyhow, it's a strange experience—captured by real Indians. That's more than any of the Boy Scouts at home can say, anyhow."
No attempt had been made to bind him, and Rob therefore peeped out of the flap of his place of confinement to see what was going on about him.
His experience of Indians had hitherto been confined to the Wild West show variety. He was deeply interested in the life of the tepee village, as he watched it busily moving about him. Thesavory smell of the Indians' supper, as they dispatched it, caused a strange sensation of emptiness about Rob's ribs, but no one came near him with food.
"I'll be hanged if I'll ask them for it," grunted Rob to himself, "especially after the way they chucked me in here."
When the meal was over, the braves pulled out their clay-bowled pipes and smoked stolidly. Not one threw even a glance at his tepee, and Rob began to think they must have forgotten him. He grew terribly thirsty, and not far from the camp there must be a brook, as he realized, by hearing the silvery tinkle, tinkle of its waters over the rocks.
"Well, as no one will bring me a drink, I'll go and get one," thought the boy to himself, and he boldly threw back the flap of the tent and marched out.
For an instant a wild hope flashed across him that he could escape. No attempt was made by any member of the smoking circle to check him, and the boy reached the bank of the streamwithout the slightest interference being opposed to his movements.
"I'll try it," thought Rob. "I believe they've forgotten me."
He placed his foot on a rock and was about to spring to the farther bank of the little creek, when a sharp voice behind him checked him abruptly:
"White boy, come back!"
The words came in the guttural, grunting tone that was unmistakably Indian.
Rob wheeled, and found himself looking into the muzzle of a gleaming rifle-barrel.
"That's queer; I don't see a sign of him."
Merritt Crawford, on the return of the Boy Scouts with ropes and help, peered about the ledge for a trace of his leader, but in vain.
"He can't have gone over, too."
It was Blinky who suggested this alarming possibility.
"Don't suggest such a thing," protested Merritt. "Hullo, Tubby!—below there—are you all right?"
"Fine and dandy, but snake down a rope as soon as you can, will you, and you might tie a sandwich on it, if you don't mind."
"You can have your sandwich when we get you up," promised Merritt, as the others, despite their worry over Rob's disappearance, broke into a loud laugh at Tubby's unconcerned manner.
"Come on, now, and lend a hand with the ropes," ordered Blinky, who had brought several lariats up on his pony, and was busily engaged in tying them together so as to form a long lifeline. Tubby had not yet been informed of Rob's disappearance, as it was feared that it might unnerve him.
A fresh difficulty now presented itself. On the narrow ledge there was not sufficient room for the holders of the rope to brace themselves. To haul up the stout youth, therefore, it was necessary to return to the summit of the cliff. This was quickly done, but you may be sure that great caution was exercised in mounting the steps cut in the rock face. The fate of Tubby was fresh in their minds, even without the reminder that he was still clinging to his uncertain support, so far below them.
Blinky began looking about for a suitable tree, around which to take a turn of the rope, as soon as they reached the summit. One was found about fifteen feet back from the lip of the precipice.
"Now, then," ordered the cow-puncher, as he tied a big loop in one end of his long line, "we'll see if this will reach."
He dropped it over the edge of the cliff and dangled it about so that it rattled against the rock. This was in order that the fat boy could hear it and indicate in which direction he wished it swung.
"Is it near you, now, Tubby?" shouted Blinky, peering down into the darkness and tentatively swinging the rope.
"A little more to the right," came up the stout boy's voice, as steady as if he was asking for another helping of ice cream.
"That boy's grit clear through, even if he does like to play the giddy goat sometimes," muttered the puncher.
"How's that?" he asked a minute later.
"Wait, I'll reach out and grab it."
"Don't you dare do any such thing!" almost yelled the cow-puncher. "You might lose your balance, and——"
He stopped with a gasp. A jerk had come atthe other end of the rope. Down there, out of sight, Tubby had hold of it. A succession of jerks told the holder of the rope on the cliff edge that he was making the loop fast about him.
"All right!" finally hailed Tubby. Then in imitation of an elevator runner:
"Go—ing up!"
"Hold on a minute," croaked out Blinky, even his iron nerve a trifle shaken now that the crucial moment was near.
He ran back to the tree and took a deft turn round the trunk. Then he extended the end of the rope to the boys and told them to "tail on."
"What are you going to do?" asked Merritt.
"I'm going to stand at the edge of the cliff and transmit orders from below. Mind you, obey them the instant you hear them."
"All right. We will, Blinky," came in chorus.
"Very well. Now hold on and when I tell you to start hauling, pull with all your might. That boy's a heavy load."
"A hundred and forty pounds and still growing," volunteered Harry Harkness.
"Well, that rope held a six-hundred-pound steer, so I guess it'll stand his weight. All I'm afraid of is a knot giving. I made them in the dark, you know."
The cow-puncher, after giving a few more final instructions, ran to the cliff edge.
"All right?" he shouted down.
"All right!" rejoined Tubby.
Blinky straightened up and turned back toward the boys, holding onto the rope.
"Haul away, boys," he ordered.
A cheer burst from the throats of the Boy Scouts as they tailed on the lifeline, and walked backward from the tree with it.
"Whoa!" came a shout from below suddenly.
"Whoa!" yelled Blinky, repeating the word.
"What's the matter?" he hailed down, as the hoisting movement stopped.
"Why, I'm bumping my delicate knees," came up in Tubby's voice.
"Can't be helped," yelled down Blinky. Then hailing the hauling line:—
"Pull away, boys."
Steadily they pulled till the fat boy had been raised twenty feet or more from his tree. Suddenly he hailed Blinky.
"Whoa!" roared the cow-puncher.
Instantly the hoisting ceased.
"Now, what is it, Tubby?"
"I just thought of something."
"What?"
"Say, lots of folks would pay money to see this, wouldn't they?"
"Never mind that now. Are you all right?"
"Yes, except my knees."
"Ha-ul a-way."
The boys on the other end of the rope hauled steadily now, and the fat boy drew nearer and nearer to the ledge.
As he rose higher, hanging suspended like a spider from the end of his gossamer thread between the sky and the ground, a sudden thought struck Blinky. It would be manifestly impossible to haul Tubby over the edge of the ledge which projected like the eaves of a roof. Hardly had the thought flashed across his mind before ashout of alarm came from the boys, simultaneously with a sharp:
Crack!
"The rope!" came a wild yell from the tree.
"It's broken!"
Blinky went white, and his knees shook. At the same instant the rope began to snake hissingly over the edge of the precipice. It had parted. Tubby was once more dropping downward like a stone.
"Catch it!" roared Blinky, regardless of his own peril, throwing himself onto the fast-retreating rawhide. He gripped it, but was carried like a feather before the wind toward the edge of the cliff by the descending Tubby's weight. In another moment—for he obstinately refused to let go—he would have been over the edge, when the line suddenly tightened.
"Hooray! I've got it."
The shout came in Merritt's voice.
The boy, with great presence of mind, had managed to catch the rope, and secure it before its end whipped round the trunk of the tree. Asthe knot which had parted was in the section of the rawhide above the tree, this was possible. Had the rope broken between the tree and the cliff both Tubby and Blinky would have been dashed to death.
"What parted?" roared Blinky, as soon as he had recovered his senses.
"One of the knots. It slipped. It's all right, now we've fixed it!" hailed Merritt back.
"Merritt, you're all right," shouted the cow-puncher, "if it hadn't been for you, I'd have been down among the cattle now. I'd have traveled by lightening express, too."
As it was dark, the boys had not been able to see what the cow-puncher had done, so it was not till long afterward that they found out the meaning of his remark and learned of his courageous action.
The cow-puncher feared that the sudden drop and the danger of the rope breaking again under the renewed strain might have frightened Tubby into a swoon. To his intense joy, however, in reply to his hail there came up a cheerful:
"Say, what are you fellows doing? Having a game up there? You almost jolted the daylights out of me."
"All right, we'll be more careful in future, Tubby," breathed the puncher, not daring to tell the boy what had actually happened.
"Are you near the ledge, Tubby?" hailed the puncher suddenly, after an interval of hauling.
"Yes, I think so. I can see a dark thing like a shelf right above me."
"Stop!" shouted the cow-puncher to the rope handlers.
The most difficult part of the enterprise was yet to come. They had to get the boy up on the ledge. To accomplish this at first was a poser, but Blinky finally solved it. Enjoining the rope handlers not to make a move till he hailed them, he slipped down the stone steps and reached the ledge. Arrived there, he peered over into the black void under his feet. Swinging a short distance below, he could distinguish a blacker object than the surrounding night. He could also make out a sound of humming. It was Tubby crooningto himself as he swung on the end of the frail rope:
"See-saw! see-saw!On a s-um-mers day!"
"See-saw! see-saw!On a s-um-mers day!"
"Well, I'll be extra special, double-jiggered!" breathed the puncher, as he heard.
He knelt on the edge of the ledge and spoke to the vocalist.
"How's your nerve, Tubby?"
"Fine, but it needs feeding," was the cheerful response.
"All right, you'll do," rejoined the cow-puncher. "Now, then, Tubby, I want you to hang to the edge of this ledge by your finger tips for just two minutes. Think you can do it?"
"I'll have to, won't I?" innocently inquired the stout youth.
"Yes, or——"
"Take a tumble," Tubby finished for him.
"Never mind about that," spoke Blinky sharply. Then cupping his hands to his mouth, he shouted upward:
"Haul away! Slow, now!"
He placed his fingers on the taut rope and felt it slip upward through them.
"Good old ropes," he murmured; "stretched like a fiddle string and sound as a ship's cable."
Presently Tubby was hauled up level with the ledge.
"Stop!" roared Blinky.
He could have reached over in the darkness, and, catching the stout boy's hands, have hauled him up beside him—he could have, that is if Tubby had been able to assist him by digging his feet into the rock face. But this he could not do, as he was dangling from the lip of the ledge, fully three feet out from the face of the precipice, and with four hundred feet of empty space under the soles of his shoes. Moreover, in such case the cow-puncher would have nothing to brace himself with, and there would have been grave danger of his being dragged over by the other's suspended weight. Instead, therefore—necessity being the mother of invention—he had thought up a daring plan. What this was we shall soon see.
"Can you grip the edge with your fingers, Tubby?" whispered the cow-puncher.
"Yes," rejoined Tubby, reaching up.
"All right, then, grab it—and in Heaven's name, hold on!"
With a single swift stroke of his knife, the cow-puncher slashed the rope, leaving Tubby with the loop draped uselessly under his shoulders. The fat boy's hold on the edge of the ledge was all that now lay between him and eternity.
Blinky's breath came sharp and hard as he rapidly adjusted the rope around himself just under the shoulders. Then leaning forward, he seized the stout boy's wrists in his steel-muscled grip.
"Haul!" he bellowed.
The line tautened just as the cow-puncher braced his muscles.
"Stop!"
The line became motionless, holding the cow-puncher firmly on the ledge, while his hands gripped Tubby's wrists.
"Now," breathed Blinky to himself, bracingevery muscle till they seemed to crack. The sweat rolled down his face, and his features became contorted. Tubby was a heavier load than he had bargained for. But pluck and grit won out, and after a few seconds of this Titanic struggle the stout boy stood safe on the ledge beside his rescuer.
"Got him!" muttered Blinky triumphantly. But even as he spoke he almost lost the rescued boy. All at once Tubby became as limp as a half-emptied sack of grain, and seemed about to slide backward out of the cow-puncher's arms.
"Hey, hold on, there! What's the matter?" roared Blinky in amazement, dragging him back.
"Gone out, by the great horn spoon!" he exclaimed, as the rescued boy sank heavily in a dead swoon on the ledge beside his rescuer.
"Hum!" said Rob to himself, with an accent of deep conviction. "Evidently these chaps keep a closer watch on their prisoner than I had imagined. I guess I'd better retire to my boudoir again."
The Indian sentinel lowered his rifle as the boy turned, and eyed him stoically without any more expression on his stolid features than would have shown on the features of a mask.
"All right," Rob said to him, nodding cheerfully. "Don't worry about me, old chap. I'm going to bed."
If the Indian understood, he made no sign. Instead, he wheeled and solemnly followed the boy back to the tepee. Rob entered it and lay down. Presently, to his delight, some blankets were thrown in to him.
"Well, if I can't eat I can sleep, anyhow," he said philosophically, and in a few minutes he was curled up in the coverings and off as soundly as if he was slumbering in a cot at the ranch house.
It was dawn when Rob awoke, as he speedily became aware when the tent flap was thrown open, and he saw facing him a rather pretty young Indian girl who bore in her hand an earthenware dish.
"Hullo!" said Rob, sitting up in his blankets.
"Hullo," rejoined the girl in a more friendly tone than Rob had yet heard in the Indian camp.
"Who are you?"
"My name Susyjan," was the response, as the girl set down the steaming dish, in which, as a concession to Rob, an earthenware spoon had been placed.
"All right, Susyjan," smiled Rob. "If you don't mind, I'm going to eat."
"All right, you go ahead," acquiesced Susyjan, who, as Rob guessed, had been named after some white Susy Jane.
"You talk pretty good English, Susyjan,"remarked Rob, between mouthfuls of the contents of the dish, which had some sort of stew in it.
"Um! Me with Wild West show one time."
"Is that so?" asked Rob, interested. "So you've been East?"
"Um! New York, Chicago, Bosstown, every place."
"Maybe I've seen you in the show some place?"
"Maybe."
"What did you like best in the East, Susyjan?" asked Rob, after a brief silence.
"Beads," rejoined Susyjan, without an instant's hesitation.
"Beans?" inquired Rob, puzzled. "Oh, in Boston, you mean?"
"No beans—beads," pouted the young squaw. "Ladies' beads. Round neck—savee?"
Rob nodded.
"Oh, yes, I savee, Susyjan. So you like beads, eh?"
"Plenty much," rejoined Susyjan, nodding her smooth black head vigorously and showing her white, even teeth in two smiling rows.
A bold idea came into Rob's head. Perhaps out of this young squaw's vanity he might contrive a means to escape. But he would have to go to work gradually, or she might betray him, and that would result, as he knew, in closer captivity than ever for himself.
"What have they got me here for, Susyjan,—you know?" he asked.
"Um-hum. Big Chief Spotted Snake him say bimeby get plenty much money for you. Have big dance."
"Oh, that's the game, is it?" mused Rob. "Holding me for ransom. In that case, then, no wonder they are guarding me closely."
"Say, Susyjan," broke out Rob presently, "how you like to have lots of beads—fine ones, like white ladies wear?"
The Indian girl clapped her hands, which to any one familiar with these unemotional people indicated that she was hugely excited over the idea. Presently her face clouded over, however.
"How can?" she asked.
"Me give um you."
"You?"
"Yes. I'll give you the finest set of beads ever strung together, but you have got to do something for me."
"What that?"
"Bring a pony round to the back of the tent to-night."
The girl shook her head positively. But Rob saw that mingled with her refusal was an admixture of keen regrets for the loss of the promised beads. She knitted her brow in deep thought for a few seconds, and then sprang up, radiant once more.
"All right, white boy. Me get you pony. Charley One-Eyed Horse him very sick. I get you his pony."
"All right, then, that's settled," said Rob cheerfully. "But how about you? Won't you get into trouble over it? I don't want that, you know."
"Oh, no," laughed the girl. "Charley One-Eyed Horse my uncle. Him very old man. Pony very old, too—plenty mean. I break rope. Braves think pony bust 'em and get away."
Although the ethics of this didn't seem just straight to Rob, he was in no position to be very particular. More especially as the girl went on to tell him that the tribe expected to move on the next day, making for the valley in which the great snake dance was to be held. In the event of his being carried with them, Rob knew that his chances of escape would be problematical. If he was to make the attempt, he would have to carry it out as soon as possible.
How the rest of that day passed, the boy could never tell. The feigning of sleepy indifference to things about him cost him the hardest effort he had ever known. The hours seemed to drag by. It appeared as if night would never come.
Susyjan did not come near him again that day, and although he saw her moving about the camp at various times, she gave no sign of recognition. Once a dreadful thought flashed across Rob's mind. What if the girl had been used as a spy, and had betrayed his secret. This put him into a fever, but he was, of course, powerless to resolvehis doubts. Suspense was all that was left for him.
As evening closed in, the agony of waiting grew worse.
"Those fellows must have made up their minds to keep awake all night," thought Rob, as hour after hour went by, and the Indians still sat, blanket-shrouded, by their fire, playing some sort of game with flat slabs of stone. Finally, however, even the most persistent players ceased and went to their tepees.
By the dying fire there now stood only two figures, tall, motionless and apparently wooden. But Rob knew that they were sentinels posted to watch the tepee in which he was confined. He knew, also, that even though they did seem unconscious of everything, their little black eyes were alert and awake to the slightest move on his part.
"I guess I'll have to give it up for to-night," thought Rob, casting himself down on his blankets. He felt more despondent than he had at any time since his capture. The camp was nowas silent as a country graveyard. In the intense stillness he could even hear the occasional crackle of an ember falling to ashes.
Suddenly the boy started, and gazed, open-eyed, at the back curtain of his tepee.
Surely the flap had moved.
After a few seconds' gazing there was no doubt of it. The flap slowly rose, and presently Susyjan's flat-nosed countenance peered into the gloom of the shelter.
"Come, white boy," she whispered. "Me got pony."
"Blessings on your black, clayed head!" breathed Rob under his breath.
Silently as a stalking cat, he moved toward the back of the tent. In another moment he was out of it and under the starry canopy of the sky.
"Come," whispered the young squaw, gliding like a snake into the dark fringe of forest behind the tepee. Rob followed as quietly as he could, but alas! he was not as expert as the girl. His foot struck a twig which snapped with a loud "crack!" under his tread.
Instantly the motionless Indians by the fire galvanized into life. They looked about them in a startled way, and for one dreadful moment Rob, crouching in the shadow and hardly daring to breathe, thought that they were about to examine his tepee. To his intense relief, however, they contented themselves with gazing about them, and seeing nothing unusual, resumed their statue-like vigil.
"White boy like lame cow. Plenty tumble," snickered Susyjan, while Rob's cheeks burned wrathfully. He took greater care from that time on, and managed to follow the noiselessly gliding girl without causing another alarm, while she led him in a circuitous route round the back of the encampment.
Suddenly they came to a hillside covered with wild oats, on which several dark objects that the boy made out to be ponies were hobbled. Deftly seizing one by the nose, the girl forced a rope "hackamore" she had brought with her into its mouth, and cast off its hobbles.
Rob, with one hand on the little animal's rump,and the other on its withers, vaulted to the pony's back in a second.
"Which way I go?" he whispered.
"Over there," rejoined the girl, pointing to the eastward. "Bymby find trail."
"All right, Susyjan; you're a brick," whispered Rob, "and I won't forget the beads."
"Real ones, like white lady," insisted Susyjan.
"Sure, and the whitest of them isn't any whiter than you," Rob assured her, as he dug his heels into the pony's bony sides and the little animal plunged forward. As he did so, Susyjan wheeled and vanished. It was important for her to be in bed in her tepee in case the alarm was given.
"Slow and steady's the word, I guess, along here," mused Rob, as the pony picked his way among rough rock and stubbly brush. "If this little animal doesn't stumble and wake the whole camp, I'm in luck. Anyhow, Susyjan won't get in trouble over it now. That's one thing, and——"
Crash!
The little pony had done just what Robdreaded. Nimble as it was, a loose rock had proved its undoing, and it had come down on its knees with a crash. Instantly it scrambled up again, but as it did so a series of demoniacal yells rang out behind the boy.
The alarm had been given.
Suddenly there was added to the general confusion the sound of confused shooting.
Bang! Bang!
"Waking up the camp," muttered Rob, swinging the end of his rope hackamore and bringing it down over the pony's flanks with a resounding "thwack." "Now get a move on, Uncle One-Eyed Horse's pony, for if ever you carried a fellow in need, you've got one on your back to-night."
Pluckily forward plunged the pony, as if anxious to redeem his untimely stumble.
"It'll take them some time to get to their ponies and unhobble them," thought Rob. "If I've luck, I may get away yet."
Keeping steadily to the direction the girl had pointed out, the boy pressed on at as fast a clip as he dared. The farther he rode ahead of the pursuing tribe, the better chance he stood of getting beyond their earshot.
It was risky riding, though, through an unknown country on such a dark night. What sort of going it was under foot, Rob could only tell by the uncertain gait of the beast he bestrode. Bushes occasionally brushed in his face, scratching it, and once in a while an extra strong bunchof chaparral would press against his legs, almost brushing him from his pony's back.
Suddenly the way took a steep downward pitch.
"I hope this isn't another precipice," thought the boy, as the pony half-slid, half-clambered down in the darkness. Presently his hoofs splashed in water, and Rob knew they were crossing a creek. He drew back on his single rein and listened intently. Fortunately the wind, what there was of it, set toward him.
Borne on it he could hear distant shouts and cries. To his intense satisfaction, it seemed to him that they were farther off than when he had first heard them.
"Gained on them!" muttered Rob triumphantly. "Now, if daylight would only come along——"
But it was long to wait till daylight, and in the meantime Rob did not dare remain where he was. The Indians probably knew the mountains like a book, and would work them on a system. In such an event his only salvation lay in keeping moving. All at once he stopped, with a sudden heart leap,as his pony scrambled up the farther bank of the creek.
A shrill cry sounded close behind him.
Could it be possible that the advance guard of the Indians had approached him so nearly?
The next instant Rob gave a laugh of relief. The shrill cry came again.
"Whoo-to-too, who-o-o!"
"Only an owl," exclaimed the boy. "Hullo, though, that's funny! There's another answering it—and by George! there's another!"
From the woods to the right and left had come similar hoots to the owl-like sound he had noted behind him. At the same instant, the unmistakable sound of a dislodged stone bounding and rattling down the steep incline he had just descended was borne to his ears.
"That's no owl," gasped Rob, "it's Indians!"
As he realized how badly he had been fooled, his pony topped the rise. To any one below in the hollow, the outline of the pony and the boy showed blackly against the stars. Suddenly a sound like an angry bee in full flight hummedclose to Rob's ear, and the next moment there came a sharp report behind him.
Instantaneously the hoots to the right and left flanks redoubled, and began closing in. All at once one of the birdlike cries sounded right in front of the escaping white boy.
He was hemmed in by Indians!
The craft of the red men had proven too much for Rob. Even the darkness had not prevented their unerringly tracking him. By their skillful woodcraft and keenness of perception they had succeeded in discovering him and surrounding him.
For an instant Rob's heart stood still. Then, as a second shot whizzed by his ear, aimed by the unseen marksman below, he urged his pony on over the rise.
The advance, however, over the rocky ground sounded as loud as the approach of a squadron of cavalry. Wild cries and yells rang out on every side of the boy. What was he to do?
One of those inspirations born in moments of keen stress came to him in his extremity. If allwent well, he would fool the Indians yet, hard as they were to deceive.
Slipping noiselessly from his pony as he rode under a dark clump of piñon trees, the boy turned it loose. The little animal, to his surprise, immediately turned backward, heading round toward the camp. But this turn of events, at first alarming, ultimately proved to be the very best thing that could have happened for Rob, who had at first hoped that the pony would trot forward.
The Indians, hearing its rapid footsteps galloping back, reasoned that Rob, realizing that he was headed off, had turned his mount in a desperate effort to escape that way. Yelling like demons, and discharging their rifles in an almost continuous fusillade, the Indians wheeled and rode after the retreating pony. Naturally, the more they shouted and fired, the faster the little animal ran, and every step took them farther from Rob, who was crouching under his piñon trees.
Not till they got back to their camp did the redskins discover that the white boy had servedcraft with strategy, and outwitted them. It was then too late to follow up the pursuit that night. The redskins knew that any one cunning enough to have devised such a trick would not have stood still while they were chasing a will-o'-the-wisp in the opposite direction to their desired quarry.
And they were right in this assumption. Rob, as soon as the beat of their ponies' hoofs had grown faint, had chuckled to himself at their mistake, and silently as possible resumed his journey. If it had been a hard ride, it was a doubly hard tramp he had before him.
Susyjan had told him that a trail lay not so very far ahead. In the darkness it was possible that he might have lost it. If he had, without food or water, he would soon be in a serious position. But Rob, nevertheless, determined that his best course lay in pushing on, and through the darkness he steadily and pluckily advanced.
Presently he began to ascend what he knew must be a hill or mountainside. This complicated the problem. To go on along level ground was one thing, but to attempt to continue his way overan acclivity as steep as the one that faced him seemed foolhardy. Every step he took might be leading him farther and farther astray.
"Oh, for a nice soft bed!" muttered Rob. "But not having one, a good flat stone would do."
Soon afterward, following a lot of feeling about, he managed to find a flat-surfaced rock which seemed to promise well for a rough and ready couch. To the boy's delight, it retained some of the warmth of the sun which had beaten on it all day, and had he possessed a blanket to throw over it, might not have proved unacceptable as a sleeping place.
Casting himself down on it, Rob soon dozed off, nor did he awaken till the blackness turned to the gray that preceded the dawn. Viewed by daylight, Rob found his surroundings such that he was glad that he had not proceeded any farther during the night. He lay on a hillside behind a screen of chaparral. But what caused him to feel some apprehension, when he thought of what might have happened had he continued his journey, was the fact that below his rock quite a steepslope dropped down to the valley below. It was a drop of some thirty feet, and while in the daylight any active man or boy could have clambered down it without injury, in the dark night it might have meant broken bones.
But Rob had little time to think of such possibilities. Something else suddenly occupied all his attention, and that something was an odor of frying bacon!
Mingled with it came the unmistakable aroma of tobacco. Somebody was camped near him, that was a certainty. His first impulse was to shout, but he checked it. It speaks volumes for the Western training that the boy was rapidly acquiring when it is said that before he showed himself from behind his chaparral, he gazed cautiously through that leafy screen.
Below him he saw three figures seated about a fire, over which was frying the bacon that had aroused his hunger almost to the exclamation point. The three campers, whose ponies were tethered a short distance from them, had their backs turned to Rob, but presently one of themturned to reach something from a saddle bag. Rob came very near to uttering a startled exclamation and betraying his hiding place as he saw the man's features.
It was Hank Handcraft.
The former beachcomber wore Western clothes and had trimmed his once luxuriant and scraggly beard, but he was none the less unmistakably Handcraft. Nor, as almost simultaneously Hank's companions turned, was Rob's astonishment at all lessened, for one of them was Bill Bender and the other was the ranch boy to whom he had given a lesson in jiu jitsu—Clark Jennings.
"Hurry up and stow your grub, Hank," Clark was saying. "We've got to light out of this neighborhood for a while and stick around the ranch."
"You think that old Harkness is suspicious, then?" inquired Hank.
"No, our disguises were too good. I'll bet they're cussin' the Moquis now."
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Bill Bender. "That wasa great idea, dressing up like Indians. I guess we got even on old Harkness for driving those sheep off his pastures."
"You bet! and we'll do worse to him before we get through," grunted Clark. "It's pie for me. More especially as I can get even, at the same time, with that young sniffler, Harry Harkness, and his friends from the East—your old pals, Bill."
"No pals of mine. You can bet your life on that," grunted Bill. "The best thing I'd heard for a long time was when you told me about Jack Curtiss shoving that kid Rob into the river. I'd like to have seen it. If it hadn't been for those Boy Scouts, as they call themselves, Hank and Jack and I would have been East now, instead of in this God-forsaken country."
"What are you kicking at?" laughed Clark. "You've done pretty well since you've been here, and if we can get that bunch of mavericks of Harkness's, we'll all have a pocketful of money."
"When are you going after them?" asked Hank, placing a big bit of bacon on a hunk ofbread and gnawing on it in a satisfied way that set Rob half crazy to watch.
"Soon as they are turned out on the Far Pasture. When they get over the scare of the stampede, they'll leave the place unwatched, and we'll have our chance. We ought to get five hundred apiece out of it, anyhow."
"That would look good to me," grunted Hank.
"Oh, the scoundrels!" breathed Rob to himself. "They're plotting to steal some of Mr. Harkness's mavericks. I remember now hearing him speak of turning them out in the Far Pasture."
"Then we can clear out and get back East," concluded Bill, "and take poor old Jack with us. He isn't making out very well."
"Sort of hanger-on in that gambling place, isn't he?" asked Clark.
"I guess that's what you'd call it."
Soon after the group saddled up their ponies and prepared to leave their temporary camp. That they were on the trail, after having concluded their dastardly attempt to stampede Mr.Harkness's cattle, Rob had no doubt, judging by their conversation.
"Better put that fire out!" warned Clark. "Scatter the ashes. We don't want any one trailing us."
The three worthies bent together over the ashes, while their saddled ponies stood eying them at some short distance.
"Guess I'd better pull back out of this before they take it into their heads to look around," thought Rob, who in his eagerness to hear what was going forward below had thrust his head out through the bush which screened him.
With the object of drawing back again, he braced himself on one hand and pushed backward. How it happened he never knew, for he had been very careful, but suddenly the small rock on which the pressure of his hand rested gave way with a crash.
Clawing wildly at the bush, Rob sought to save himself from being flung headlong down the hill into the camp below him, but it was too late.
Down the hill he shot at lightning speed, in the midst of a roaring, rattling landslide of rocks and earth.
The men in the camp started and turned as the sudden uproar of Rob's involuntary toboggan slide reached their ears.
"What the——" shouted Hank Handcraft.
"Who is——" began Clark, when Rob's feet caught him in the stomach and cannoned him against Hank Handcraft. Clutching wildly to prevent his own fall, Hank caught Bill Bender's sleeve, and the next instant all three of the campers were rolling in a confused mass in the ashes of their fire.
"It's a bear!" yelled Hank.
"Bear nothing!" bellowed Clark Jennings, as Rob scrambled to his feet and darted off like a shot. "It's a boy!"
"After him!" shouted Bill Bender, snatching up a rifle and aiming it. "That kid's Rob Blake."