Chapter Nine.

Chapter Nine.A Night Scare.It had been decided that they should make for the farthest part known to them south and west, where the wildest country lay, and they had been twice before, Griggs having paid double that number of visits in search of game. There the cultivation ceased entirely, for the rich soil gave place to sage-brush and a far-stretching tract of salt or alkali desert, Griggs proposing that they should cross this, for after a good deal of questioning the settlers in that direction, he elicited the information that one of the settlers upon the verge of the good lands had seen a strange-looking tramp, as he called him, pass his lonely shanty one evening, but feeling no desire for any such company he had stood back among the trees, and his place had certainly not been seen by the stranger.“That shows we should be a bit nearer where he came from,” said Griggs, “and it would be a fair day’s journey for a beginning. We could find a spot to camp out for the night, and start early the next morning to see if we could not cross the bad land before dark.”“How far would it be?” asked Bourne.“Ah, that we must find out from the man who lives nearest to the edge,” replied Griggs. “He’s pretty sure to have been some distance into the desert shooting, and even if he doesn’t know he’ll be able to tell us where we can find water, for that’s what we must always go by. When it’s too far off for a day’s journey we must take our bottles and the little casks full.”The mules soon steadied down; the day was hot, but not unpleasantly so, and after crossing a very wild patch some miles in extent they picked up a track and followed it, to come upon cultivated land again, and the track led them to a shanty built upon the bank of a river also dried into a series of pools; but as they approached the house and obtained a near inspection of the cultivated ground it became very plain that no hoe had been between the rows of fruit-trees that year, and on riding up to the shingled wood house, they found no sign of living creature—no ducks paddling in the pool, or fowls pecking about near the enclosed yard; all was still and silent. They had come upon another sign of failure, for, as far as they could see, the place had been deserted for quite a year.“A sign that we are not alone in giving up,” said the doctor; “but it will make a capital place for our first halt. Go and see what the water is like in that farthest pool, Chris. This one is nearly all mud.”Chris urged his mustang forward towards where there was a glint of water through some trees four or five hundred yards ahead, but he had not gone one-fourth of the distance before he was overtaken by Ned, who was as eager as he to see what the place was like.They soon knew—a carefully-tended Far West estate, given up and allowed to go back to a state of nature. Fruit-trees had been planted in abundance, but as the boys got farther from the house the wild vines and weeds were gradually mastering the useful trees, and in another year or two the plantations would have lost all trace of the hand of man and be wild jungle once more.“I dare say there’ll be fish enough,” said Chris. “This is a deeper pool than we generally see. I say, how sandy the ground is here!”The next minute they realised why it was so sandy, for instead of its being a cleared track it proved to be the dried-up bed of a little sandy river, one that linked the pools together when the wet season came on.“It looks as if no water had been along here for a twelvemonth,” said Chris. “Look there.”His cob had seen the object at which he pointed first, and stopped short with its ears pricked forward to where, grey and glistening, a snake lay basking in the hot sunshine amongst some stones, but now, alarmed by the snort given by Chris’s mustang, it began to glide away, passing amongst some dried-up reeds and leaves, giving forth its strange soft rattling sound with its tail the while.“Well, we don’t want to waste powder and shot on him,” said Chris. “Come on,” and they rode on to the edge of what proved to be a shallow lagoon some acres in extent, from which they startled a few waterfowl into flight, the ducks, as they splashed along the surface before rising, starting off other occupants of the pool in turn, a little shoal of fish darting off and raising a wave which marked their course towards the middle, where, the water growing deeper, they disappeared.“Well,” said Chris, “we know all we want to know now.—There are rattlers about, and if it wasn’t for them it wouldn’t be a bad place for a long halt.”“We can take care to avoid the snakes,” said the doctor, “and as there is plenty of good water we’ll stay here till the morning; but as we are in such good time two or three of us will ride on to see what the country’s like further on. Perhaps the next plantation may have some one to give us a little information.”Camp was formed then as far as was necessary, the fairly-well-built house offering plenty of shelter, and the place round, ample grazing-ground for the beasts.A hasty meal was made, and then Wilton and Griggs were appointed scouts, riding off and returning at sundown with the information that the plantation they were on was the farthest to be seen—all beyond was wilderness, but with nothing in the shape of high ground beyond, save in one spot where a hill or two rose faintly blue against the sky.“Isn’t it jolly!” said Ned, after they had partaken of an exceedingly muddly meal, the water being fetched from the lagoon, and the fire for boiling their coffee having been made of wood that was indisposed to burn, while no matter where they arranged the provisions it was only to have them attacked by insects, which came from under planks or stones, dropped from the rough ceiling of the decaying shanty, came flying, crawling, hopping, or with sharp raps as if they had formed part of the charge of a gun.But it was a change. Everything was fresh, and this first start had ended the monotonous drudgery of their unsatisfactory life at the plantation.So Ned had given his opinion that it was jolly, an idea which, now he had shaken off the feeling of depression at leaving what had for years been his home, Chris fully shared.For the boys’ spirits had risen as they rode through the bright sunny day, and they only found disappointment in one thing—the fact of being compelled to regulate the pace of their mustangs by that of the heavily-laden mules, whose rate of progress was about equal to that of an ordinary British donkey driven in from a common.Over and over again they longed to give their sturdy, well-chosen little nags a touch with the heel to send them racing along through the dusty-looking sage-brush; but they had to be contented with plodding steadily along behind the train, save when Chris found that there was something he wanted to ask Griggs, who kept on by the leading mule and its bell, and then the question seemed to be so important and weighty that it took two boys to carry it.The first few times the doctor had taken no notice, but after Chris had cantered forward four times to rein up on one side of the American, with Ned on the other, his father said dryly when he overtook him—“There’s a good old saying that has to do with thoughtfulness, Chris. It is this: Let your head save your heels. To apply it in this case, it should be, Save your pony’s heels.”“I don’t understand you, father,” said the boy.“Don’t you? I only meant, the next time you want to ask about something that has been left behind, keep it in your head till you think of the next thing, and the next. You might collect half-a-dozen, and then you could go and ask them altogether. Do you see?”“Yes, father,” said Chris, who turned rather red.“Be patient, my boy, and you’ll have plenty of hard riding, perhaps more than you anticipate.”There seemed to be no necessity for the precaution so near home, but the doctor said that they had better begin as they would have to go on “when in the enemy’s country,” as he put it, with a smile.“Before long we may be where there will be risk of our animals stampeding, or being stolen. Later on, when we are in the Indians’ country, we shall have to guard against attack, so we will divide the night into watches.”This was before settling down for the night in and about the deserted fruit-farm.“Oh,” cried Wilton; “but surely this is being too particular. Every one is tired. We have had a very wearing day, beginning so early as we did with the packing and getting off.”“Yes,” said the doctor coldly, “but the success or failure of the expedition depends upon our being punctilious. A stitch in time saves nine, my dear boy.”“But—” began Wilton, in a tone of protest.“One moment,” said the doctor. “Let me make a suggestion. We want to start early every morning for Unknownia, if you will let me coin a name for the place of our search.”“Of course,” said Bourne.“We must always break the neck of our journey by getting over a good many miles before the heat of the day sets in.”“That’s good advice,” cried Griggs.“Very well, then,” continued the doctor; “we don’t want to waste time in lighting fires and hunting up horses and mules that have strayed no one knows where in the course of the night, do we?”“No, of course not. I see,” said Wilton. “I give in.”“The man who takes the morning watch will have breakfast ready before daybreak, and then there will be nothing to do but load up the mules and start off the moment it is light enough.”There were no dissenters from the leader’s practical proposals, and he elected to take the first half of the night’s watch himself, Griggs to take the second, and soon afterwards the animals were hobbled and left to graze, one of the barn-like buildings was chosen for resting-place, and those who were free from duty lay down to sleep. The two boys naturally enough made up their bed of dry sage-brush on the decaying floor of the building, and then, in response to the doctor’s orders to get off to sleep at once so as to be well rested and fresh for the next day’s work, they lay wide awake, talking in whispers.To do them justice, this was no fault of theirs. They were tired enough, but their eyelids felt as if they were furnished with springs which held them wide open, to stare through the open side of the barn at the glittering stars, while their ears were all on the strain to listen to the different sounds that came from all around.At first there was the cropping of the horses and mules, as they feasted on the fresh shoots of the abundant growth, owing to the moisture beneath the little dry river-bed having kept the coarse grasses pretty succulent. There was the hum of mosquitoes and the boom of big beetles, and every now and then the cry and answering cry of some animal unknown from out in the sage-brush. But for a time the lads lay silent, till a peculiar mournful shout, as it seemed to be, came from the direction of the lagoon, sounding so mournful and human that it was too much for Ned, who whispered—“Awake, Chris?”“Of course. Who’s to go to sleep with millions of things getting up your legs and arms and down your neck? I wish I’d taken off my clothes. Isn’t it hot!”“Yes, yes; but did you hear that?”“Yes.”“What was it?”“Owl,” said Chris shortly.“I know it was a howl,” said Ned, “but it was more like a shout or hail.”“Owl, owl, hunting about over the brush for young hares or rats and mice.”“Oh, of course. I never thought of that,” said Ned, and he settled down quietly for a few minutes, before saying in a whisper: “I say, isn’t it queer that one seems to hear hundreds of things now that one never noticed at home?”“I don’t know. Perhaps we should have heard some of these ticks and squeaks and rustlings if we had lain awake. I say, Ned, I believe all the wild things from round about are coming to see what we want here.”“Very likely. What’s that?”“What?”“That flash of light. Is it a storm coming?”“Pooh! No. Father threw some bits of dry stuff on the fire.”“To be sure. But I say, Chris, that’s why all these insects and things come creeping up. It’s the light that attracts them.”“Of course it is. I wish you’d go to sleep.”“I will as soon as I can, but you needn’t be so disagreeable.”“Enough to make me. I’m tired, and you keep on talking like an old woman. Not frightened, are you?”“Nonsense! No. Ugh!”Ned started up, his action following the ejaculation belying his words, for all of a sudden from near at hand came a dull thud as if a heavy blow had been struck, followed by what sounded in Ned’s ears like a shriek of agony. “What’s that?” he gasped.“One mule tried to bite another in the back, had a kick for his pains, and called ‘Murder!’ in mulese,” said Chris sourly. “I say, I shall have a bed-room to myself to-morrow night if you’re going on like this.”Ned was silent, for his companion’s words rankled.“Perhaps I ought to have known,” he said, “but it’s all so strange lying out here in the darkness.”He turned over on the other side, determined to sleep now, and he tried hard for quite a quarter of an hour, the effort seeming to make him more wakeful than ever, for his senses were all upon the strain, while as the night progressed fresh noises, some of them quite peculiar, seemed to arise. Once he started, for there was a heavy splash which in the clear air sounded quite near, but which was evidently from the lagoon; and it put to flight an idea he had been nursing up of going down to the sheet of water and ridding himself of his hot tickling clothes so as to have a good swim before breakfast. That was all over now, for that splash told of alligators swimming in the lagoon to his heated imagination. He had never heard of the reptiles existing in that part of the country, but he knew that there were plenty in the swamps farther to the south, and there was no reason why there might not be some in the wild districts into which they were plunging.Another splashing noise succeeded, and he felt that it might have been made by a fish, and others which succeeded have been caused by waterfowl. But all idea of bathing was dismissed.At last, after a long hot lapse of time, during which he had given many a vicious rub to the unclothed parts of his body, and turned again, feeling as if there were far too many buttons on his clothes, which instead of confining themselves to their proper duty of holding the said garments in their places, felt as if they had become animate and were engaged in treating his flesh as if it was wax and they were seals.“Hah!” he sighed, at last, as the sounds grew apparently more dull and distant, Chris’s breathing heavy and regular, and a feeling of restful ease began to pervade his being.“Old Chris is fast asleep, and I’m going off at last. Oh, how tired, how sleepy I do—Ugh!”He did not rub now, he dared not, and that ejaculation was like a husky sigh—very low; but it was loud enough to rouse Chris into wakefulness.“What’s the matter?” he whispered.There was no reply for a few moments, and Chris repeated the question, adding, “Did you speak?”“I must have been dropping off and dreamed it,” thought Chris, but the next moment his name was uttered in a strange whisper.“Yes? All right! What is it?”“There’s something on me,” came back faintly.“Well, knock it off.”“I daren’t. I can’t move.”“What, is it so heavy?” said Chris mockingly.“N–no. I’m afraid it’ll bite.”“A skeeter?”“No,” said Ned, more faintly. “Call to your father for help.”“What for? Here, shall I strike a light?”“N–no. It might make it angry.”“It? It?” said Chris, with all the petulance of one who had been previously disturbed by his bed-fellow’s alarms. “What isit?”“Down by the pool—the hot sand—you know—amongst the stones.”“What! A snake?” whispered Chris, alarmed in turn now, and feeling the cold perspiration breaking out on his temples.“Yes—a rattler.”“Look here, you boys,” said a stern voice, in a whisper from close at hand, “I begged you to—”“A light, father! Be careful!” gasped Chris, and the next moment there was a sharp scratching sound, a flash, and a pale light played over the recumbent figures.“Now then, what is it?”“Oh, it’s gone now,” groaned Ned. “I felt it glide off when you struck the match, sir.”“Leap off, you mean,” said the doctor. “Rats don’t glide.”“Oh, it wasn’t a rat, sir,” said the boy faintly. “It was a rattler.”“Nonsense! Not here.”“Yes, sir; they swarm. Chris and I saw a big one down in the river-bed this afternoon.”“Pooh!” cried the doctor. “But this is your bed, not the river’s. It is not likely that one would be here. If there were any about, they’d be a deal more likely to favour me by the fire. You’ve been dreaming, my boy.”“Oh no, sir. It was too horribly real.”“Real enough, but some little animal—a mouse, more likely,” said the doctor, putting out the second match he had lit most carefully. “Look here, have you boys got matches?”“Yes, father.”“Be careful how you use them, then. This place is as dry as tinder. Now then, go to sleep.”He backed out of the place, and the boys lay listening to the rustle and crackle of his departing steps.“Think it was—not a snake, Chris?” said Ned, at last.“Yes. If it had been a rattler father wouldn’t have gone off like that. You didn’t feel it crawl, did you?”“Yes, right up in my chest, and I bore it till I felt it touch my neck, and then—Oh, it was a horrid sensation!”“Yes,” said Chris slowly, “a horrid sensation, but it wasn’t a rattler. I say, think you can go to sleep now?”“I’m going to try. But, I say, I never thought that sleeping out in the wilds—”“We haven’t got to the wilds yet,” said Chris.“No, no; but this is bad enough.”“Pooh! We shall get used to it, and think nothing of sleeping anywhere. I say, I was asleep, and you woke me out of a beautiful dream—such a lovely one.”“Did I?” said Ned, rather uneasily. “What was it?”“I dreamed that we had found the place just as it is on the map, and you couldn’t put your foot down anywhere without treading upon gold; and then your rattlesnake came and spoiled it. Here, I’m going to sleep again to finish that dream. Can’t you go now?”“I’ll try,” said Ned, who felt horribly ashamed about his false alarm.But it took no trying. Five minutes later both boys were sleeping soundly after this initiation in what they would have to encounter during their wild journey.

It had been decided that they should make for the farthest part known to them south and west, where the wildest country lay, and they had been twice before, Griggs having paid double that number of visits in search of game. There the cultivation ceased entirely, for the rich soil gave place to sage-brush and a far-stretching tract of salt or alkali desert, Griggs proposing that they should cross this, for after a good deal of questioning the settlers in that direction, he elicited the information that one of the settlers upon the verge of the good lands had seen a strange-looking tramp, as he called him, pass his lonely shanty one evening, but feeling no desire for any such company he had stood back among the trees, and his place had certainly not been seen by the stranger.

“That shows we should be a bit nearer where he came from,” said Griggs, “and it would be a fair day’s journey for a beginning. We could find a spot to camp out for the night, and start early the next morning to see if we could not cross the bad land before dark.”

“How far would it be?” asked Bourne.

“Ah, that we must find out from the man who lives nearest to the edge,” replied Griggs. “He’s pretty sure to have been some distance into the desert shooting, and even if he doesn’t know he’ll be able to tell us where we can find water, for that’s what we must always go by. When it’s too far off for a day’s journey we must take our bottles and the little casks full.”

The mules soon steadied down; the day was hot, but not unpleasantly so, and after crossing a very wild patch some miles in extent they picked up a track and followed it, to come upon cultivated land again, and the track led them to a shanty built upon the bank of a river also dried into a series of pools; but as they approached the house and obtained a near inspection of the cultivated ground it became very plain that no hoe had been between the rows of fruit-trees that year, and on riding up to the shingled wood house, they found no sign of living creature—no ducks paddling in the pool, or fowls pecking about near the enclosed yard; all was still and silent. They had come upon another sign of failure, for, as far as they could see, the place had been deserted for quite a year.

“A sign that we are not alone in giving up,” said the doctor; “but it will make a capital place for our first halt. Go and see what the water is like in that farthest pool, Chris. This one is nearly all mud.”

Chris urged his mustang forward towards where there was a glint of water through some trees four or five hundred yards ahead, but he had not gone one-fourth of the distance before he was overtaken by Ned, who was as eager as he to see what the place was like.

They soon knew—a carefully-tended Far West estate, given up and allowed to go back to a state of nature. Fruit-trees had been planted in abundance, but as the boys got farther from the house the wild vines and weeds were gradually mastering the useful trees, and in another year or two the plantations would have lost all trace of the hand of man and be wild jungle once more.

“I dare say there’ll be fish enough,” said Chris. “This is a deeper pool than we generally see. I say, how sandy the ground is here!”

The next minute they realised why it was so sandy, for instead of its being a cleared track it proved to be the dried-up bed of a little sandy river, one that linked the pools together when the wet season came on.

“It looks as if no water had been along here for a twelvemonth,” said Chris. “Look there.”

His cob had seen the object at which he pointed first, and stopped short with its ears pricked forward to where, grey and glistening, a snake lay basking in the hot sunshine amongst some stones, but now, alarmed by the snort given by Chris’s mustang, it began to glide away, passing amongst some dried-up reeds and leaves, giving forth its strange soft rattling sound with its tail the while.

“Well, we don’t want to waste powder and shot on him,” said Chris. “Come on,” and they rode on to the edge of what proved to be a shallow lagoon some acres in extent, from which they startled a few waterfowl into flight, the ducks, as they splashed along the surface before rising, starting off other occupants of the pool in turn, a little shoal of fish darting off and raising a wave which marked their course towards the middle, where, the water growing deeper, they disappeared.

“Well,” said Chris, “we know all we want to know now.—There are rattlers about, and if it wasn’t for them it wouldn’t be a bad place for a long halt.”

“We can take care to avoid the snakes,” said the doctor, “and as there is plenty of good water we’ll stay here till the morning; but as we are in such good time two or three of us will ride on to see what the country’s like further on. Perhaps the next plantation may have some one to give us a little information.”

Camp was formed then as far as was necessary, the fairly-well-built house offering plenty of shelter, and the place round, ample grazing-ground for the beasts.

A hasty meal was made, and then Wilton and Griggs were appointed scouts, riding off and returning at sundown with the information that the plantation they were on was the farthest to be seen—all beyond was wilderness, but with nothing in the shape of high ground beyond, save in one spot where a hill or two rose faintly blue against the sky.

“Isn’t it jolly!” said Ned, after they had partaken of an exceedingly muddly meal, the water being fetched from the lagoon, and the fire for boiling their coffee having been made of wood that was indisposed to burn, while no matter where they arranged the provisions it was only to have them attacked by insects, which came from under planks or stones, dropped from the rough ceiling of the decaying shanty, came flying, crawling, hopping, or with sharp raps as if they had formed part of the charge of a gun.

But it was a change. Everything was fresh, and this first start had ended the monotonous drudgery of their unsatisfactory life at the plantation.

So Ned had given his opinion that it was jolly, an idea which, now he had shaken off the feeling of depression at leaving what had for years been his home, Chris fully shared.

For the boys’ spirits had risen as they rode through the bright sunny day, and they only found disappointment in one thing—the fact of being compelled to regulate the pace of their mustangs by that of the heavily-laden mules, whose rate of progress was about equal to that of an ordinary British donkey driven in from a common.

Over and over again they longed to give their sturdy, well-chosen little nags a touch with the heel to send them racing along through the dusty-looking sage-brush; but they had to be contented with plodding steadily along behind the train, save when Chris found that there was something he wanted to ask Griggs, who kept on by the leading mule and its bell, and then the question seemed to be so important and weighty that it took two boys to carry it.

The first few times the doctor had taken no notice, but after Chris had cantered forward four times to rein up on one side of the American, with Ned on the other, his father said dryly when he overtook him—

“There’s a good old saying that has to do with thoughtfulness, Chris. It is this: Let your head save your heels. To apply it in this case, it should be, Save your pony’s heels.”

“I don’t understand you, father,” said the boy.

“Don’t you? I only meant, the next time you want to ask about something that has been left behind, keep it in your head till you think of the next thing, and the next. You might collect half-a-dozen, and then you could go and ask them altogether. Do you see?”

“Yes, father,” said Chris, who turned rather red.

“Be patient, my boy, and you’ll have plenty of hard riding, perhaps more than you anticipate.”

There seemed to be no necessity for the precaution so near home, but the doctor said that they had better begin as they would have to go on “when in the enemy’s country,” as he put it, with a smile.

“Before long we may be where there will be risk of our animals stampeding, or being stolen. Later on, when we are in the Indians’ country, we shall have to guard against attack, so we will divide the night into watches.”

This was before settling down for the night in and about the deserted fruit-farm.

“Oh,” cried Wilton; “but surely this is being too particular. Every one is tired. We have had a very wearing day, beginning so early as we did with the packing and getting off.”

“Yes,” said the doctor coldly, “but the success or failure of the expedition depends upon our being punctilious. A stitch in time saves nine, my dear boy.”

“But—” began Wilton, in a tone of protest.

“One moment,” said the doctor. “Let me make a suggestion. We want to start early every morning for Unknownia, if you will let me coin a name for the place of our search.”

“Of course,” said Bourne.

“We must always break the neck of our journey by getting over a good many miles before the heat of the day sets in.”

“That’s good advice,” cried Griggs.

“Very well, then,” continued the doctor; “we don’t want to waste time in lighting fires and hunting up horses and mules that have strayed no one knows where in the course of the night, do we?”

“No, of course not. I see,” said Wilton. “I give in.”

“The man who takes the morning watch will have breakfast ready before daybreak, and then there will be nothing to do but load up the mules and start off the moment it is light enough.”

There were no dissenters from the leader’s practical proposals, and he elected to take the first half of the night’s watch himself, Griggs to take the second, and soon afterwards the animals were hobbled and left to graze, one of the barn-like buildings was chosen for resting-place, and those who were free from duty lay down to sleep. The two boys naturally enough made up their bed of dry sage-brush on the decaying floor of the building, and then, in response to the doctor’s orders to get off to sleep at once so as to be well rested and fresh for the next day’s work, they lay wide awake, talking in whispers.

To do them justice, this was no fault of theirs. They were tired enough, but their eyelids felt as if they were furnished with springs which held them wide open, to stare through the open side of the barn at the glittering stars, while their ears were all on the strain to listen to the different sounds that came from all around.

At first there was the cropping of the horses and mules, as they feasted on the fresh shoots of the abundant growth, owing to the moisture beneath the little dry river-bed having kept the coarse grasses pretty succulent. There was the hum of mosquitoes and the boom of big beetles, and every now and then the cry and answering cry of some animal unknown from out in the sage-brush. But for a time the lads lay silent, till a peculiar mournful shout, as it seemed to be, came from the direction of the lagoon, sounding so mournful and human that it was too much for Ned, who whispered—

“Awake, Chris?”

“Of course. Who’s to go to sleep with millions of things getting up your legs and arms and down your neck? I wish I’d taken off my clothes. Isn’t it hot!”

“Yes, yes; but did you hear that?”

“Yes.”

“What was it?”

“Owl,” said Chris shortly.

“I know it was a howl,” said Ned, “but it was more like a shout or hail.”

“Owl, owl, hunting about over the brush for young hares or rats and mice.”

“Oh, of course. I never thought of that,” said Ned, and he settled down quietly for a few minutes, before saying in a whisper: “I say, isn’t it queer that one seems to hear hundreds of things now that one never noticed at home?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps we should have heard some of these ticks and squeaks and rustlings if we had lain awake. I say, Ned, I believe all the wild things from round about are coming to see what we want here.”

“Very likely. What’s that?”

“What?”

“That flash of light. Is it a storm coming?”

“Pooh! No. Father threw some bits of dry stuff on the fire.”

“To be sure. But I say, Chris, that’s why all these insects and things come creeping up. It’s the light that attracts them.”

“Of course it is. I wish you’d go to sleep.”

“I will as soon as I can, but you needn’t be so disagreeable.”

“Enough to make me. I’m tired, and you keep on talking like an old woman. Not frightened, are you?”

“Nonsense! No. Ugh!”

Ned started up, his action following the ejaculation belying his words, for all of a sudden from near at hand came a dull thud as if a heavy blow had been struck, followed by what sounded in Ned’s ears like a shriek of agony. “What’s that?” he gasped.

“One mule tried to bite another in the back, had a kick for his pains, and called ‘Murder!’ in mulese,” said Chris sourly. “I say, I shall have a bed-room to myself to-morrow night if you’re going on like this.”

Ned was silent, for his companion’s words rankled.

“Perhaps I ought to have known,” he said, “but it’s all so strange lying out here in the darkness.”

He turned over on the other side, determined to sleep now, and he tried hard for quite a quarter of an hour, the effort seeming to make him more wakeful than ever, for his senses were all upon the strain, while as the night progressed fresh noises, some of them quite peculiar, seemed to arise. Once he started, for there was a heavy splash which in the clear air sounded quite near, but which was evidently from the lagoon; and it put to flight an idea he had been nursing up of going down to the sheet of water and ridding himself of his hot tickling clothes so as to have a good swim before breakfast. That was all over now, for that splash told of alligators swimming in the lagoon to his heated imagination. He had never heard of the reptiles existing in that part of the country, but he knew that there were plenty in the swamps farther to the south, and there was no reason why there might not be some in the wild districts into which they were plunging.

Another splashing noise succeeded, and he felt that it might have been made by a fish, and others which succeeded have been caused by waterfowl. But all idea of bathing was dismissed.

At last, after a long hot lapse of time, during which he had given many a vicious rub to the unclothed parts of his body, and turned again, feeling as if there were far too many buttons on his clothes, which instead of confining themselves to their proper duty of holding the said garments in their places, felt as if they had become animate and were engaged in treating his flesh as if it was wax and they were seals.

“Hah!” he sighed, at last, as the sounds grew apparently more dull and distant, Chris’s breathing heavy and regular, and a feeling of restful ease began to pervade his being.

“Old Chris is fast asleep, and I’m going off at last. Oh, how tired, how sleepy I do—Ugh!”

He did not rub now, he dared not, and that ejaculation was like a husky sigh—very low; but it was loud enough to rouse Chris into wakefulness.

“What’s the matter?” he whispered.

There was no reply for a few moments, and Chris repeated the question, adding, “Did you speak?”

“I must have been dropping off and dreamed it,” thought Chris, but the next moment his name was uttered in a strange whisper.

“Yes? All right! What is it?”

“There’s something on me,” came back faintly.

“Well, knock it off.”

“I daren’t. I can’t move.”

“What, is it so heavy?” said Chris mockingly.

“N–no. I’m afraid it’ll bite.”

“A skeeter?”

“No,” said Ned, more faintly. “Call to your father for help.”

“What for? Here, shall I strike a light?”

“N–no. It might make it angry.”

“It? It?” said Chris, with all the petulance of one who had been previously disturbed by his bed-fellow’s alarms. “What isit?”

“Down by the pool—the hot sand—you know—amongst the stones.”

“What! A snake?” whispered Chris, alarmed in turn now, and feeling the cold perspiration breaking out on his temples.

“Yes—a rattler.”

“Look here, you boys,” said a stern voice, in a whisper from close at hand, “I begged you to—”

“A light, father! Be careful!” gasped Chris, and the next moment there was a sharp scratching sound, a flash, and a pale light played over the recumbent figures.

“Now then, what is it?”

“Oh, it’s gone now,” groaned Ned. “I felt it glide off when you struck the match, sir.”

“Leap off, you mean,” said the doctor. “Rats don’t glide.”

“Oh, it wasn’t a rat, sir,” said the boy faintly. “It was a rattler.”

“Nonsense! Not here.”

“Yes, sir; they swarm. Chris and I saw a big one down in the river-bed this afternoon.”

“Pooh!” cried the doctor. “But this is your bed, not the river’s. It is not likely that one would be here. If there were any about, they’d be a deal more likely to favour me by the fire. You’ve been dreaming, my boy.”

“Oh no, sir. It was too horribly real.”

“Real enough, but some little animal—a mouse, more likely,” said the doctor, putting out the second match he had lit most carefully. “Look here, have you boys got matches?”

“Yes, father.”

“Be careful how you use them, then. This place is as dry as tinder. Now then, go to sleep.”

He backed out of the place, and the boys lay listening to the rustle and crackle of his departing steps.

“Think it was—not a snake, Chris?” said Ned, at last.

“Yes. If it had been a rattler father wouldn’t have gone off like that. You didn’t feel it crawl, did you?”

“Yes, right up in my chest, and I bore it till I felt it touch my neck, and then—Oh, it was a horrid sensation!”

“Yes,” said Chris slowly, “a horrid sensation, but it wasn’t a rattler. I say, think you can go to sleep now?”

“I’m going to try. But, I say, I never thought that sleeping out in the wilds—”

“We haven’t got to the wilds yet,” said Chris.

“No, no; but this is bad enough.”

“Pooh! We shall get used to it, and think nothing of sleeping anywhere. I say, I was asleep, and you woke me out of a beautiful dream—such a lovely one.”

“Did I?” said Ned, rather uneasily. “What was it?”

“I dreamed that we had found the place just as it is on the map, and you couldn’t put your foot down anywhere without treading upon gold; and then your rattlesnake came and spoiled it. Here, I’m going to sleep again to finish that dream. Can’t you go now?”

“I’ll try,” said Ned, who felt horribly ashamed about his false alarm.

But it took no trying. Five minutes later both boys were sleeping soundly after this initiation in what they would have to encounter during their wild journey.

Chapter Ten.On the Way.Ned was ready to laugh at his scare when riding forward in the sunshine of a brilliant morning. He had been awakened by Griggs with a cheery hail, to find the cool damp air of morning impregnated with the agreeable odour of coffee fuming away over the embers of a crackling fire which showed up the browsing animals here and there in the darkness. Then came a hearty breakfast, over which the day’s proceedings were discussed, and the doctor’s decision accepted that they could not do better than strike right away in the direction of the hill seen the previous afternoon, making that their observatory for deciding future proceedings.“Our plan of campaign is simple enough,” he said; “we must avoid all traces of civilisation, and keep to the wilds. The rest lies with chance and good fortune.”It was only beginning to get light when all set to loading up the mules, to find it nearly as hard a task as before; but it was mastered, a sharp lookout given round to make sure that nothing was left behind, and then the order was given, “Forward!” Griggs led off once more, with the biting mule’s bell jingling, and the low brush, wet with dew, giving out a peculiar rustling as it was trampled down or passed through, the direction of the hill being determined by compass, the result of their leader’s observation taken the day before.But soon after the darkness grew grey, there was a faint band visible in the heavens which gradually broadened, trees started into view to right and left, and after progressing some distance in silence, Chris and Ned, who had taken up their positions on starting right and left of Griggs, began to find their tongues and make remarks about the faint streaks of orange colour which lit up the zenith. Soon after it was as if the coming light of day was illumining them as well as the landscape, and they ended by asking questions and then talking loudly about what had passed in the night.Griggs was ready enough to reply in a bantering, boyish spirit in response to one of Chris’s questions.“Yes,” he said; “your dad roused me up out of about the most delicious sleep I ever remember to have had. Oh, it’s just grand sleeping out in the open. You have so much room to breathe.”“Why, you slept in the house place the same as we did,” cried Ned. “I saw where you lay down.”“Likely enough, but you didn’t see me get up again. It was too hot and stuffy in there, with things creeping into your hair and ears. I soon got up and shook them off so as to go and pick a place near where the doctor was watching, so that he should know where to find me. Then I lay down on one of nature’s own spring mattresses, made by spreading a blanket over the sage-brush, and the next minute I was asleep.”“But suppose there had been a rattler under where you lay down?” cried Ned.“Well, then he’d have just had time to take one bite at the blanket and fill his teeth full of wool before I’d squeezed him flat. I weigh nigh upon twelve stone, horseman’s weight, and that would have taken all the music out of his tail if he’d been there. But don’t you make any mistake about those gentlemen; they’ve an ugly way of biting if they’re obliged, but from what I know, the first thing a rattler does when he hears feet coming is to take himself away somewhere so that no one shall tread on his music.”It was then that Chris annoyed his companion by relating the night alarm, though Ned was ready enough to join in the laugh against himself.“Say,” said Griggs suddenly, as they passed a clump of trees standing like an island upon a little elevation above the monotonous plain which had succeeded the oasis where the fruit-farm lay in the solitude, and he pointed off to his left.“Say what? Can you see anything?” asked Chris.“Yes; ain’t that the hill we’ve got to make ’smorning?”“Yes; of course,” cried Chris, shading his eyes from the level sunbeams.“Then we’re leaving it too much to the left.”The opinion was endorsed before anything had been done, by an order from their leader, who had been using his glass, and now shouted from the rear that they should bear off to the left and then make straight for the elevation dimly-seen like a low cloud in their front.“Our boss is going to keep us all up to the mark, and no mistake,” said Griggs, “only I hope he’s going to play fair with us.”“Why, of course he will,” cried Chris indignantly.“I don’t know,” said the American, with a curious smile about the corners of his lips and a twinkle in his eye. “I don’t think he was quite square in the night.”“Why not?”“Well, you see, he had to rouse me up to relieve him about midnight, when I was in such a beautiful sleep that it was a sin to break it, and what does he do but snap it in two about an hour before he ought.”“I don’t believe he would,” cried Chris.“No, you don’t, because he’s your father. He ain’t my father, and so I believe he did.”“But did you look at your watch?”“Nay, but I felt as if his must have been an hour too fast if he looked at it and found it twelve o’clock. Say, we might as well let watches take their chance now, and trust to the sun. He don’t want any winding up, and we shall have plenty to do without seeing to keys and that sort of thing.”“I shall keep mine wound up,” said Chris decisively.“So shall I,” cried Ned. “We don’t want to turn savages because we are going into the wilds.”“Just as you like, squires, but you’ll do more good, I say, by being sure to wind up your revolvers and setting your rifles ready to strike one or two when they’re wanted. I say, we must talk to the boss about having some shooting if we see a chance.”“There’s one then for the shot-barrel,” cried Chris excitedly, as he pointed to a hare—a jack-rabbit, as they called it—just startled by their animals’ feet, and bounding away as hard as he could go.“Nay, we’re not going to waste powder and shot upon those things. I don’t like that bitter sort of meat.”“They are bitter,” observed Ned. “My father says it’s because they eat so many of the artemisia shoots.”“Eh? What shoots?” cried Griggs.“Artemisia—this stuff we’re riding through.”“Oh, the sage-brush! Well, p’r’aps it is, but I allus thought it was from swallowing so much alkali dust. Regular soda plain, this.”“What are we likely to find farther on, Griggs?” said Chris, after that gentleman had been remonstrating a little with the bell-mule for trying to bite Ned’s mustang, the said remonstrating being performed with the butt of his rifle, which had to be applied hard upon the vicious animal’s head.“What are we likely to find to shoot?” replied Griggs, with a satisfied grunt, for the mule was plodding steadily on again. “Well, Indians.”“But we can’t eat them,” cried Chris, laughing.“No, my lad; I should say buck Indian would be as tough as his own teepee (skin lodge, hut, or tent). Matter o’ taste, though, I s’pose. No cannibal that I ever heard of in our family.”“No nonsense, Griggs,” said Ned. “What are we really likely to find?”“The gold if we’re lucky,” said the American dryly.“I mean, what are we likely to shoot for the pot?”“All depends how far south we get, and whether we come into woods and mountains. If we strike them we may drop upon a flock of gobblers now and then.”“What! Turkeys?”“Yes.”“Splendid!” cried the boys in a breath. “But do you really think we shall find them?”“Like enough; if we’re far enough away from settlements and Indians.”“But if we don’t find turkeys, what then?” asked Chris.“I dunno. We’re going into the wildest parts we can find, places that haven’t been hunted over. We might come upon buffalo or a deer now and then. All depends upon our getting into quite lonely spots. But there you are,” continued the speaker, pointing with his piece, and then administering another punch to the mule, who was beginning to smile previous to making a bite.“What are you pointing at?” asked Ned.“Can’t you see those birds skimming along just over the brush, my lads?”“No,” said Ned.“Yes,” cried Chris. “I see them—partridges.”“Something of that kind. Prairie hens, or cocks. They’re good to eat sometimes.”“Of course; we’ve often had them.”“Here, I must cut a good thick cudgel first chance on purpose for this lovely playful insect here. We ought to christen him Mosquito. He’s always trying for a bite out of something—hungry beggar. I say, dessay he wouldn’t mind trying a bit of Indian.”“Give him another punch with your rifle.”“No!” cried Griggs emphatically. “Never again. I did that idiotic thing twice over before I thought what a fool I was towards myself, and teaching you two lads at the same time.”“How? What do you mean?”“Doing what is sure to mean an accident some day. Can’t you see, one holds by the barrel and reaches down the butt?”“Of course.”“Well, some day that means jarring the rifle off and sending its charge into you who hold the barrel. Never try such a thing, whatever you do. It’s the work of an idiot, my lads. A man that does such a thing oughtn’t to be trusted with a gun.”“Then we ought to take Mr Nathaniel Griggs’ rifle away from him, Ned,” said Chris, with mock seriousness.“Ah, you may laugh, my lads, but I deserve it,” said the American seriously. “It gave me a cold shudder just now when I thought of what a mad thing I had done. There’s more fooling about with guns than people think. Every now and then a donkey comes into a room, sees a gun, picks it up, and presents it, saying to some one, ‘I’ll shoot you,’ and pulls the trigger, bringing some poor fellow down. If ever you see any one aim at a person with a gun, knock him over, and save accident. A poor boy or girl is shot, and then the idiot says, ‘Oh, I didn’t know it was loaded!’ It oughtn’t to have been, but at such times guns generally are. I don’t know how many accidents of that kind I’ve heard of. We’re always going to be carrying our pieces on this journey, and never ought to have one out of our hands, so we should be the more careful. I don’t want to be buried out here in the desert, nor yet go home again without a head. What would be the use of the gold to me then?” he added, with a dry chuckle.“Ah, what indeed?” said Chris seriously. “But don’t talk about it. I say, when you were keeping watch in the night, did you hear or see anything?”“Didn’t see much, but I seemed to hear a good deal that was a bit strange.”“What?” asked Chris eagerly.“Oh, I don’t know; creepy sounds in the black darkness under the trees, and splashings in the big pool, just as if it was full of six-foot alligators waiting for something or some one to eat.”“I heard that,” said Chris; “but it was only fish.”“Like enough, my lad. I never heard of any ’gators in these parts. Hallo! That was something.—Nearly had me off.”“A snake!” cried Chris, for Griggs’ mustang had suddenly plunged, bounding sidewise with a jerk to its rider which nearly sent him out of his saddle.“Rattler, I expect; nearly trod on him. Isn’t bitten, or he wouldn’t go on so quietly,” added the American, turning in his saddle to look back at the trampled track they had made through the brush, but nothing was to be seen.“Oughtn’t we to ride back and warn the others?” said Chris.“No need, my lad; that gentleman, if he was a rattler, has gone to earth fast enough, and won’t show himself till we’re gone. Yes, I don’t think my nag was touched. I shouldn’t like that. Deal rather Master Skeeter here got it. A bite would make him smile and look more handsome than he does now.”

Ned was ready to laugh at his scare when riding forward in the sunshine of a brilliant morning. He had been awakened by Griggs with a cheery hail, to find the cool damp air of morning impregnated with the agreeable odour of coffee fuming away over the embers of a crackling fire which showed up the browsing animals here and there in the darkness. Then came a hearty breakfast, over which the day’s proceedings were discussed, and the doctor’s decision accepted that they could not do better than strike right away in the direction of the hill seen the previous afternoon, making that their observatory for deciding future proceedings.

“Our plan of campaign is simple enough,” he said; “we must avoid all traces of civilisation, and keep to the wilds. The rest lies with chance and good fortune.”

It was only beginning to get light when all set to loading up the mules, to find it nearly as hard a task as before; but it was mastered, a sharp lookout given round to make sure that nothing was left behind, and then the order was given, “Forward!” Griggs led off once more, with the biting mule’s bell jingling, and the low brush, wet with dew, giving out a peculiar rustling as it was trampled down or passed through, the direction of the hill being determined by compass, the result of their leader’s observation taken the day before.

But soon after the darkness grew grey, there was a faint band visible in the heavens which gradually broadened, trees started into view to right and left, and after progressing some distance in silence, Chris and Ned, who had taken up their positions on starting right and left of Griggs, began to find their tongues and make remarks about the faint streaks of orange colour which lit up the zenith. Soon after it was as if the coming light of day was illumining them as well as the landscape, and they ended by asking questions and then talking loudly about what had passed in the night.

Griggs was ready enough to reply in a bantering, boyish spirit in response to one of Chris’s questions.

“Yes,” he said; “your dad roused me up out of about the most delicious sleep I ever remember to have had. Oh, it’s just grand sleeping out in the open. You have so much room to breathe.”

“Why, you slept in the house place the same as we did,” cried Ned. “I saw where you lay down.”

“Likely enough, but you didn’t see me get up again. It was too hot and stuffy in there, with things creeping into your hair and ears. I soon got up and shook them off so as to go and pick a place near where the doctor was watching, so that he should know where to find me. Then I lay down on one of nature’s own spring mattresses, made by spreading a blanket over the sage-brush, and the next minute I was asleep.”

“But suppose there had been a rattler under where you lay down?” cried Ned.

“Well, then he’d have just had time to take one bite at the blanket and fill his teeth full of wool before I’d squeezed him flat. I weigh nigh upon twelve stone, horseman’s weight, and that would have taken all the music out of his tail if he’d been there. But don’t you make any mistake about those gentlemen; they’ve an ugly way of biting if they’re obliged, but from what I know, the first thing a rattler does when he hears feet coming is to take himself away somewhere so that no one shall tread on his music.”

It was then that Chris annoyed his companion by relating the night alarm, though Ned was ready enough to join in the laugh against himself.

“Say,” said Griggs suddenly, as they passed a clump of trees standing like an island upon a little elevation above the monotonous plain which had succeeded the oasis where the fruit-farm lay in the solitude, and he pointed off to his left.

“Say what? Can you see anything?” asked Chris.

“Yes; ain’t that the hill we’ve got to make ’smorning?”

“Yes; of course,” cried Chris, shading his eyes from the level sunbeams.

“Then we’re leaving it too much to the left.”

The opinion was endorsed before anything had been done, by an order from their leader, who had been using his glass, and now shouted from the rear that they should bear off to the left and then make straight for the elevation dimly-seen like a low cloud in their front.

“Our boss is going to keep us all up to the mark, and no mistake,” said Griggs, “only I hope he’s going to play fair with us.”

“Why, of course he will,” cried Chris indignantly.

“I don’t know,” said the American, with a curious smile about the corners of his lips and a twinkle in his eye. “I don’t think he was quite square in the night.”

“Why not?”

“Well, you see, he had to rouse me up to relieve him about midnight, when I was in such a beautiful sleep that it was a sin to break it, and what does he do but snap it in two about an hour before he ought.”

“I don’t believe he would,” cried Chris.

“No, you don’t, because he’s your father. He ain’t my father, and so I believe he did.”

“But did you look at your watch?”

“Nay, but I felt as if his must have been an hour too fast if he looked at it and found it twelve o’clock. Say, we might as well let watches take their chance now, and trust to the sun. He don’t want any winding up, and we shall have plenty to do without seeing to keys and that sort of thing.”

“I shall keep mine wound up,” said Chris decisively.

“So shall I,” cried Ned. “We don’t want to turn savages because we are going into the wilds.”

“Just as you like, squires, but you’ll do more good, I say, by being sure to wind up your revolvers and setting your rifles ready to strike one or two when they’re wanted. I say, we must talk to the boss about having some shooting if we see a chance.”

“There’s one then for the shot-barrel,” cried Chris excitedly, as he pointed to a hare—a jack-rabbit, as they called it—just startled by their animals’ feet, and bounding away as hard as he could go.

“Nay, we’re not going to waste powder and shot upon those things. I don’t like that bitter sort of meat.”

“They are bitter,” observed Ned. “My father says it’s because they eat so many of the artemisia shoots.”

“Eh? What shoots?” cried Griggs.

“Artemisia—this stuff we’re riding through.”

“Oh, the sage-brush! Well, p’r’aps it is, but I allus thought it was from swallowing so much alkali dust. Regular soda plain, this.”

“What are we likely to find farther on, Griggs?” said Chris, after that gentleman had been remonstrating a little with the bell-mule for trying to bite Ned’s mustang, the said remonstrating being performed with the butt of his rifle, which had to be applied hard upon the vicious animal’s head.

“What are we likely to find to shoot?” replied Griggs, with a satisfied grunt, for the mule was plodding steadily on again. “Well, Indians.”

“But we can’t eat them,” cried Chris, laughing.

“No, my lad; I should say buck Indian would be as tough as his own teepee (skin lodge, hut, or tent). Matter o’ taste, though, I s’pose. No cannibal that I ever heard of in our family.”

“No nonsense, Griggs,” said Ned. “What are we really likely to find?”

“The gold if we’re lucky,” said the American dryly.

“I mean, what are we likely to shoot for the pot?”

“All depends how far south we get, and whether we come into woods and mountains. If we strike them we may drop upon a flock of gobblers now and then.”

“What! Turkeys?”

“Yes.”

“Splendid!” cried the boys in a breath. “But do you really think we shall find them?”

“Like enough; if we’re far enough away from settlements and Indians.”

“But if we don’t find turkeys, what then?” asked Chris.

“I dunno. We’re going into the wildest parts we can find, places that haven’t been hunted over. We might come upon buffalo or a deer now and then. All depends upon our getting into quite lonely spots. But there you are,” continued the speaker, pointing with his piece, and then administering another punch to the mule, who was beginning to smile previous to making a bite.

“What are you pointing at?” asked Ned.

“Can’t you see those birds skimming along just over the brush, my lads?”

“No,” said Ned.

“Yes,” cried Chris. “I see them—partridges.”

“Something of that kind. Prairie hens, or cocks. They’re good to eat sometimes.”

“Of course; we’ve often had them.”

“Here, I must cut a good thick cudgel first chance on purpose for this lovely playful insect here. We ought to christen him Mosquito. He’s always trying for a bite out of something—hungry beggar. I say, dessay he wouldn’t mind trying a bit of Indian.”

“Give him another punch with your rifle.”

“No!” cried Griggs emphatically. “Never again. I did that idiotic thing twice over before I thought what a fool I was towards myself, and teaching you two lads at the same time.”

“How? What do you mean?”

“Doing what is sure to mean an accident some day. Can’t you see, one holds by the barrel and reaches down the butt?”

“Of course.”

“Well, some day that means jarring the rifle off and sending its charge into you who hold the barrel. Never try such a thing, whatever you do. It’s the work of an idiot, my lads. A man that does such a thing oughtn’t to be trusted with a gun.”

“Then we ought to take Mr Nathaniel Griggs’ rifle away from him, Ned,” said Chris, with mock seriousness.

“Ah, you may laugh, my lads, but I deserve it,” said the American seriously. “It gave me a cold shudder just now when I thought of what a mad thing I had done. There’s more fooling about with guns than people think. Every now and then a donkey comes into a room, sees a gun, picks it up, and presents it, saying to some one, ‘I’ll shoot you,’ and pulls the trigger, bringing some poor fellow down. If ever you see any one aim at a person with a gun, knock him over, and save accident. A poor boy or girl is shot, and then the idiot says, ‘Oh, I didn’t know it was loaded!’ It oughtn’t to have been, but at such times guns generally are. I don’t know how many accidents of that kind I’ve heard of. We’re always going to be carrying our pieces on this journey, and never ought to have one out of our hands, so we should be the more careful. I don’t want to be buried out here in the desert, nor yet go home again without a head. What would be the use of the gold to me then?” he added, with a dry chuckle.

“Ah, what indeed?” said Chris seriously. “But don’t talk about it. I say, when you were keeping watch in the night, did you hear or see anything?”

“Didn’t see much, but I seemed to hear a good deal that was a bit strange.”

“What?” asked Chris eagerly.

“Oh, I don’t know; creepy sounds in the black darkness under the trees, and splashings in the big pool, just as if it was full of six-foot alligators waiting for something or some one to eat.”

“I heard that,” said Chris; “but it was only fish.”

“Like enough, my lad. I never heard of any ’gators in these parts. Hallo! That was something.—Nearly had me off.”

“A snake!” cried Chris, for Griggs’ mustang had suddenly plunged, bounding sidewise with a jerk to its rider which nearly sent him out of his saddle.

“Rattler, I expect; nearly trod on him. Isn’t bitten, or he wouldn’t go on so quietly,” added the American, turning in his saddle to look back at the trampled track they had made through the brush, but nothing was to be seen.

“Oughtn’t we to ride back and warn the others?” said Chris.

“No need, my lad; that gentleman, if he was a rattler, has gone to earth fast enough, and won’t show himself till we’re gone. Yes, I don’t think my nag was touched. I shouldn’t like that. Deal rather Master Skeeter here got it. A bite would make him smile and look more handsome than he does now.”

Chapter Eleven.Ned Sees Something.“No luck yet, Griggs,” said the doctor, riding up to the head of the little caravan one morning, after many, many days of travel since the party made its first plunge into the unknown, untraversed wilds, to keep trudging on at the rate dictated by the mules, which, laden as they were, could not be hurried. Sometimes when the track they made for themselves was easy and level a good many miles were got over; at others the hindrances seemed to multiply, and Griggs laughingly said it never rained but it poured, and then the tale of miles traversed became very few at the end of the day.But the American worked harder than any one, and always with unfailing good-humour. There were times when he seemed to be furious, raging out in language especially his own, the vocabulary being wonderful, the names he called astounding in their fluency, novelty, and peculiarity; still the objects of these displays of temper were never his fellow-travellers, but the mules, and as soon as he had roared himself hoarse he stood wiping his perspiring face, smiling contentedly, to say to one, the other, or both of the boys, “I feel a deal better for having got rid of all that nasty stuff. It kinder eases my mind, youngsters, and now look at ’em,” he continued, pointing at his obstinate charges; “see how nicely they go. Don’t you ever tell me that mules have no brains. Look at Skeeter, how he’s listening to my voice, and you wait a moment and you’ll see him begin working those ears of his about. There, do you see? That’s his way of telegraphing his opinions about what he has heard to all the rest. There’s a deal more in mules than people think.”Be this right or wrong, the baggage-carrying animals did their best when Griggs was near them, and a few absurd words from his powerful lungs stopped kicking, biting, and squealing when a revolution seemed to be on the way, and a fight of heels had begun, to the imminent risk of disaster to the packs.“No luck yet, sir?” cried Griggs, when the doctor had spoken on that particular morning. “Why, I was just thinking how lucky we had been.”“How?” said the doctor, and the boys pricked up their ears to listen to the conversation.“Haven’t lost a mule; always got over some of the ground to bring us nearer to the place we’re looking for; and the way in which we are enjoying ourselves in this compound frolic of a picnic is wonderful.”“Enjoying, eh? Well, I’m glad you take it so.”“Oh, I think we’re been wonderfully lucky, seeing what might have happened.”“Do you hear, boys?” said the doctor. “That’s the spirit to take our journey in. But look here, Griggs, we’ve been trenching too much on our stores, and that’s bad.”“The mules don’t think so, sir,” said the American, laughing; “but as we can’t buy fresh, going on in this way, perhaps we had better be on the lookout a little more for the pot, and leave the stores as much alone as we can.”“Yes,” said the doctor. “I say, don’t let anything eatable go by. By the way, you’re deviating a little from the course we laid down this morning.”“Just a little, sir,” replied Griggs. “It was Skeeter’s doing.”“Oh, I did not know that the mule took the lead.”“He doesn’t always, sir, but sometimes he stops short, lifts up that muzzle of his, lays his ears flat down, and sings one of those pleasant little airs of his; and when he does that I’ve noticed more than once that it means he smells water somewhere. So this time when he snapped at a fly trying to lay eggs in his skin, and bore off a little to the left, I didn’t interfere.”“But the lookout forward does not seem promising,” said the doctor, raising his double glass to his eyes and sweeping the horizon.“No, sir, it looks like warm stuff out of the kegs to-night, and none to spare for a wash.”“I’m afraid so,” said the doctor, closing his glass and drawing rein so as to let Wilton and Bourne close up. “Tired, Chris—Ned?”“Oh no,” they replied.“It’s soon in the day yet, father,” added Chris.“That seems a pity about the water, Griggs,” said Ned, as they rose slowly on. “Oh how I should like a good swim in a clear river!”“Wouldn’t be amiss; but when you can’t get beef, mutton ain’t bad.”“I knew that,” said Chris dryly.“But you don’t seem to know that when you can’t get plenty of water for bathing, nice clean sand isn’t a bad thing for a good dry wash. It’s better without soap too.”Chris laughed.“Ah, you may grin, but it’s a nasty habit, I think, that of rubbing grease turned into what you call soap all over your skin. Look yonder on that patch of sand,” he continued, pointing, for his keen eyes seemed to miss nothing.“Snakes!” cried Chris, bringing his rifle sharply round.“Nay, nay, don’t shoot. What’s the good? You might scare something better.”“Better!” said Ned, with his upper lip curling up and the corners of his mouth going down.“Yes; I don’t care about snake,” said the American dryly, “but I hev heard that some of the Injuns cut the rattlers’ heads off and roast them in wood-ashes, and that they’re uncommonly good.”“Ugh!” ejaculated Ned.“Yes, that’s just how I feel, my lad,” continued Griggs, in his calm, dry manner. “I’m like that countryman of mine who was hard up for tuck, out in the backwoods, and when some one asked him afterwards how he managed to live, he said he shot and cooked the crows.”“Horrid!” cried Ned.“Yes, that’s what t’other one said; and then he says, ‘But surely you don’t like crows?’ ‘No,’ says the first one, ‘I don’t kind o’ hanker arter them.’ It’s the same here, I don’t kind o’ hanker arter snake; but it’s all a matter o’ habit.”“Oh, ugh!” cried Ned.“Ah, you may say ugh, but it all depends; when a fellow’s hungry he’s got to eat something, and I don’t see why a snake shouldn’t be as good to eat as an eel.”“But they’re poisonous,” cried Chris.“Only in the head, and it’s easy to cut that off. Now, look yonder; there lie four fine fat rattlers, fast asleep on that patch of sand. We’re not exactly short of food, but a little extra would be very useful, and as rattlers are so plentiful it seems almost a pity that we can’t make them good to eat, and knock over all we come across.”“How can you talk in that horrid way, Griggs!” cried Chris, with a shudder.“I don’t see nothing horrid about it. Snake’s a nice clean enough sort of thing; and, as I say, it’s all a matter of habit. They tell me frogs are delicious, but I’d as soon eat snake.”“Reptiles! Ugh!” cried Ned.“So’s turtle reptile,” said Griggs. “Nasty-looking thing too. Might just as well eat alligator. I’ve a good mind to get down and cripple two or three of those rattlers, so as to try how they eat.”“No, no, don’t!” cried the boys in a breath, and before the others grasped what he was about to do, Chris pulled up, slipped off his mustang, gathered up a handful of small stones, and sent a shower amongst the sleeping reptiles.In an instant there was a scattering of sand and a rush for safety, the snakes taking refuge amongst the brush around, leaving not a sign of their presence.“There goes dinner for six,” said Griggs dryly. “I say, there’s plenty of those creeping gentry about here.”“Almost the only inhabitants,” said Chris. “Well, if we do have to come to eat ’em, perhaps we shall get monuments set up to us in our honour for introducing a new kind of useful food of which there’s plenty being wasted in the far west. Pity they’re so small. They’d shrink too in the cooking. Why, a hungry man would be able to polish off one easy.”“Do you want to make me ill, Griggs?” said Ned, shuddering.“Certainly not, my lad.”“But I say, Griggs,” cried Chris, “how big do those things grow—how long were the largest you ever saw?”“Oh, they don’t come quite up to boa constrictors. Let me see, the largest I ever saw measured was—was—”“Twenty-five feet?”“Nay, nay, nay, not quite as long as that, but quite six feet, which is bigger than I like, after all. Most of ’em’s little, like those. Dangerous sort of things, and don’t the horses and mules understand! Don’t catch them going near a rattler if they know it.”“My nag has shied four times this morning at the poisonous brutes,” said Chris.“Seems to me,” said Griggs, “that they like this part of the country. I’d be pretty careful about walking about when we get down. It’d be as well to ride about a bit when we stop for camping, so as to scare the beggars away. We don’t want to get bitten.”But from that time, oddly enough, they saw no sign or trace of the reptiles. The sun grew hotter and hotter, but neither in sandy level nor rugged stony patch was a snake seen basking. Nothing was visible but lizards, and they disappeared when the doctor called a halt in the most rugged part of a stony waste where there was an overhanging cliff and a broken gully which promised at a distance to be the home of a spring; but though it had evidently been at one time a pool overhung by rocks, there was not a trace of moisture. It afforded a little shelter, however, in an overhanging part where there was a rugged projecting shelf, and there being nothing better, the halt was made there, only to prove too hot a one for endurance, the rocks seeming to glow, and keeping off such air as was astir as well as the sun; so after a short time the doctor decided to go on once more in search of some more likely place.In those hot, weary hours the elasticity and cheerfulness of the boys died away. In the early morning it had been all laugh and chat and notice of everything they passed that seemed novel, but with the coming of noon quite a change came over them, and Ned took to sighing from time to time, then to murmuring, and at last after a long, low expiration of the breath—“Oh dear,” he cried, “I am getting so tired of this!”“Well, you are a fellow!” grumbled Chris. “Only an hour or two ago you talked as if you liked it.”“Ah, I wasn’t so hot and fagged out then. It gets so jolly monotonous. Here we go on, ride and tramp, ride and tramp, day after day, seeing nothing but sand and sage-brush, sand and sage-brush. Always tired, always being scorched by the sun till one’s giddy, and—”“Here, father!” cried Chris, but without turning his head.“What are you going to do?” said Ned, in a hurried whisper.“Call father up, for you to grumble to him.”“Nonsense!” whispered Ned. “Don’t be a stupid donkey. Can’t I say a word or two without you wanting to tell tales?”“I don’t want to tell tales; I want for you to tell father yourself. You talked as if you had had enough of it, and wanted to go back.”“Who wants to go back?” cried Ned angrily. “Nice thing if one can’t say what one likes about one’s feelings! I only said what I did because I was hot and tired, and it is so tiresome, one day just like another, and not a bit of adventure to go through. Why, I expected no end of fun in that way—I mean, no end of excitement.”“Do you understand what he means, Griggs?” said Chris. “I think you’ve upset him by talking about cooking and eating snake.”“It wasn’t that,” said Griggs. “He must have got out of bed the wrong way this morning.”“Yes; a nice sort of bed! Nothing but rough sage-brush, crumbling up as soon as it’s moved, and looking like so much gritty imitation tea.”“Same sort of bed as we had, squire, and we don’t grumble. Why, you’re not half a fellow. Like to go back perhaps?”“That I shouldn’t!” snapped out Ned, so suddenly that his mustang started and had to be checked and soothed. “Can’t a fellow speak? I don’t want to grumble, but it is so monotonous.”“You said that before,” cried Chris banteringly.“I know, Clevershakes!” retorted Ned. “And now I say it again. I’ve as good a right to speak as you have. If you don’t like the word monotonous, I’ll say dull and stupid. It’s ride and walk, ride and walk.”“And walk and ride, walk and ride,” said Chris, imitating his old companion’s words and tones. “No adventures—nothing to see.”“Not even a rattlesnake,” said Griggs softly.“Look here, Mr Griggs,” snapped out Ned, “I wish you wouldn’t keep interrupting me when I’m speaking. It’s precious rude.”“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Griggs politely.“Well, don’t do it again,” said Ned shortly.—“Phew! How hot it is! I’m sure it’s ever so much hotter than it has been before.”“Much,” said Chris, with his eyes twinkling, but he looked straight before him. So did Griggs, and Ned went on—“It’s just as if the sand got to be red-hot and all the heat was reflected back in one’s face. I wouldn’t care, though, only it’s so dull and monot—dreary!” the boy snapped out, looking sharply from one to the other as if to see whether another remark was about to be made respecting his repetition; but neither of his companions moved a muscle of his face, and he went on murmuring in the same irritable way—“There seem to be no fish to catch, no birds to shoot. I wouldn’t have believed that there could have been so much miserable desert if I hadn’t seen it. I quite thought that by this time, after getting right away from all settlements and into the wildest of the wild country—”“What!” said Griggs sharply. “Oh, nonsense! Wildest of the wild? Why, this is nothing to what we’ve got to come. We haven’t seen a regular good mountain yet.”“No, nor yet a wild beast. I thought we should have had plenty of adventures with them by now.”“Oh, that’s what you mean, is it?” cried Griggs, with mock seriousness, giving Chris a peculiar look at the same time, as if asking him to back up any assertions that he might make. “You expected that we would spend half our time shooting lions and stalking tigers?”“Yes,” said Ned, passing his hand over his eyes and shaking his head, as if the heat had made him sleepy and giddy. “No, no!” he added hastily. “Of course I know that there are no lions and tigers here. You’re laughing at me.”“Well, it’s enough to make a cat laugh to hear you go on finding fault, when here we are in a regular wonderful country, such as I should never have expected to find so soon. Of course I know that it wouldn’t do for a plantation, but here we are, just at the beginning of rising ground, and a mile or two further we shall be all amongst rocks and stones, and, for all we can tell, we shall come upon the sugar up yonder among those mountains rising up as if they were growing out of what was a plain.”“Sugar? What sugar?” said Ned, staring.“Well, the gold amongst the three sugar-loaf mountains shown on the chart.”“I only wish we could find it,” said Chris.“Well, have patience, and the more patience you use up the more you’ll want. We shan’t find the gold without.”“But I’m like Ned,” said Chris thoughtfully; “I think as he does, that it does seem wonderful that there should be such a lot of regularly useless land in the world. Look at this: as far as we can see it’s so salt and dry that nothing will grow. Stones and sand, and sand and stones, and all of no use at all.”“Who says so?” said Griggs coolly.“Why, I do; you heard me.”“Yes, you say so, but what do you know about it? You say it’s of no use because it’s of no use to you; but you know nothing at all about what may be underneath all this sand and stone.”“Nothing at all; not even water,” cried Chris.“You don’t know. There may be gold or silver or lead, tin or copper, or some of those minerals that chemists and such folk use. I don’t like to hear you grumble, my lad, about things when you’ve only just looked and not tried. What about precious stones—diamonds and rubies?”“Or pearls perhaps,” said Ned, with a sneer.“Yes, or pearls,” said Griggs, and the boys both burst out laughing heartily.Ned’s tide of ill-humour had turned.“Got me?” said Griggs gravely. “I say, you are clever ones!”“Well, I like to hear you make a blunder sometimes, Griggs. You often have the laugh at us; now we’ve got one at you.”“Yes, you are clever ones,” said the American grimly, “but you’re wrong this time. You’re both grinning and looking at one another as much as to say, Hark at old Griggs! He’s forgotten that pearls come out of oysters and oysters live in the sea.”“Of course,” cried the boys together.“Yes, of course, and I don’t know that there mayn’t be fossil oyster shells somewhere about here with pearls still in them. I’ve seen shells sometimes looking quite pearly inside though they’ve been buried in rock no end of time. You didn’t hear your father say only day before yesterday that all this salt desert land must at one time have been the bottom of the sea. What do you say to that?”“Oh!” said Chris thoughtfully, and Ned pushed his broad-leaved hat a little on one side so as to scratch his ear.“You’re right, though, after all, about lions and tigers, and so was I. Only they’re American lions and tigers—pumas and jaguars, and pumas without any manes, and jaguars with spots instead of stripes. Wait a bit, and we shall come upon some of them. Not here, though; it’s not likely sort of country for them, but there’s mountain land yonder piled-up higher than we shall be able to take our mustangs and mules. We shall find watercourses soon, and that means trees and grass and quite a different climate. The sort of place where we’re quite likely to find Uncle Ephraim at home.”“What, grizzly bear?” cried Chris excitedly.“That’s the gentleman,” replied Griggs; “and as like as not after crossing a ridge or two we may come upon buffalo.”“What, in the mountains?”“Perhaps. More likely in the plains. There, don’t you chaps grumble any more. Your fathers have got quite enough to think about without having to talk to you about being a little more plucky and patient.”“Yes, I know,” cried Chris, wincing; “we’re only grumbling to you.”“Oh, then I don’t matter?”“Not a bit. You’re such a good-tempered, patient chap, and you seem like one of us. But I say, Griggs, do you really think we are going to find a change in the country soon?”“Certain.”“Oh come, that’s better! We have had enough of sand and sage-brush, and we do want a regular change.”“You’ll get it, then, and I dare say before night. Can’t you see that we’re on the slope of the mountains now?”“No, not a bit of it.”“But we are; just slowly rising, and by night we shall find that we are in quite a different place, hundreds of feet higher than where we had breakfast this morning.”“Well, I hope you’re right,” said Chris.No more was said then, the two boys sometimes riding, sometimes walking, till after some hours Griggs pulled up, to point to the fact that they had reached what seemed to be the summit of an enormous land-wave heaved up and rising for miles either way across the desert, but right in front descending slowly into a vast hollow plain which glistened in its desolation as if frosted with silver.“Why, it must be silver,” cried Ned enthusiastically.“Nay, nay, only salt, my lad. Looks like a dried-up lake.”“Yes; where’s your herd of buffaloes?” cried Chris. “Oh, shouldn’t I like for us to shoot one and have some beef!”“Yes; buffalo hump isn’t bad,” said Griggs. “It’s rich and tender and gravyish.”“But where is it?” said Ned.“Higher up, I suppose, where there’s prairie-land and grass. You don’t expect to see buffler where there’s nothing to graze on, do you? Look at the stones, though. Regular rocky ridges rising up one above the other on the other side of that frosty lake part. Shouldn’t wonder if we found something fresh there.”He pointed to his left, where there was a manifest change in the scenery as seen through the shimmering haze which hindered the view.“Yes,” he cried eagerly, “if you look hard you can just get a glimpse of a great ridge, and just beyond—ragh! There are the mountains at last!”“I can’t see them,” said Chris thoughtfully. “Are they near?”“No; but near enough for us to reach to-morrow night.”“But what about to-night? I say, that isn’t salt. I can see it glittering quite plainly; it’s water.”“No, my lad; no water there. I wish there was,” added Griggs to himself.“Then what are we to do for water to-night?”“There’ll be enough to make our tea.”“But the horses and mules?” said Chris.“We must try and find a hollow with some shrubby stuff that they can chew, poor beasts, for they’ll get nothing else. What are you pointing at, squire?”Ned made no answer, but sat fast where he had checked his pony, pointing to where hundreds, perhaps thousands, of heavy grey stones lay scattered widely about over the sandy slope.“Well, I can see them; stones, looking as if a mountain had crumbled all away in an earthquake, or in some volcanic explosion which had shattered it all to pieces.”“No, no,” said Ned huskily; “not there. More to the left. It is that tree I mean.”“Tree? There’s no tree there.”“Yes, that great one that was turned over in the earthquake, and all of the trunk and top buried in the stones.”“I say, my lad,” said Griggs anxiously, “has the heat been too much for you?”“Yes, it made my head ache.”“That’s it, then. Made you fancy you can see a tree upside down.”“’Tisn’t fancy,” said Ned huskily. “I can see plain enough, but it isn’t natural. It’s all alive, and the roots are twisting and twining about as if the tree was alive and in pain.”“Here, don’t stare at it. Shut your eyes for a bit, my lad. I’ll take your mustang’s rein.”“But I must look at it,” cried Ned excitedly. “I can’t help it. Horrid! Here, you two are not looking the right way.”“I’m looking at you, my lad,” said Griggs kindly.“And so are you, Chris. Don’t—please don’t. Look there; I want you to see what it means.”“Ugh!” gasped Chris, as he turned his eyes in the direction pointed out by his companion, and that which he saw then was evidently seen now by his nag, which started violently, and but for the tight hand the lad had upon the rein it would have dashed off.“Here, have you got it too?” cried Griggs. “There, sit still till the water-kegs come up, and you must have a drink apiece. The sun has been too much for you, and—”He said no more, but sat staring in one direction with his mouth wide open and his eyes seeming ready to start out of his head.“Hallo, here! hallo!” cried the doctor, cantering up, closely followed by Wilton and Bourne, leaving their position in the rear unguarded. “What’s the matter—the boys taken ill?”“Snakes,” cried Griggs hoarsely. “Look yonder.”Griggs’ words were unnecessary, for the doctor’s eyes had lighted upon the extraordinary sight that had startled Ned into his wild announcement.The next moment his companions had grasped the phenomenon, and had hard work to keep their mounts from dashing frantically away.For about a hundred yards from them, half-hidden among the stones, was something which pretty well warranted Ned’s comparison to a tree turned wrong way up, so that only its roots were visible above the ground, the object being, in fact, a monstrous knot of hundreds of snakes twined together as if they were all engaged in the attempt to get their heads into the centre of the tangled mass which, all in motion, heaved and sank and rolled from side to side, the lower portions of the serpents’ bodies and their tails being free to lash and writhe about in the air, while at a second glance the spectators began to realise the fact that all around, gliding in and out amongst the stones, were hundreds upon hundreds more of the reptiles, apparently urged on by some savage instinct to form other knots, till the whole of the hollow in front seemed to be alive with the loathsome creatures.“Did you ever see anything like this before, Griggs?” said the doctor, who was the first to speak.“Never, sir; but an old gold prospector once told me that he had seen just such a sight, only I put it down to being a yarn told to cram me.”“But they’re not poisonous—not rattlesnakes, surely?” said Bourne.“They surely are,” cried Wilton. “Hark! Can’t you hear? It’s like a dull thrilling sound. Here, I don’t want to be the first to run, but I can’t stand this; I’m off.”“We’d better all be off,” cried the doctor. “Here, Griggs, head round your bell-mule and let’s get away. You seem to have led us right into the empire of snakes. Quick, look alive, or the poor brutes will be right amongst the reptiles.”“Not they, sir; they smell ’em now. Come and help, or we shall have a stampede.”

“No luck yet, Griggs,” said the doctor, riding up to the head of the little caravan one morning, after many, many days of travel since the party made its first plunge into the unknown, untraversed wilds, to keep trudging on at the rate dictated by the mules, which, laden as they were, could not be hurried. Sometimes when the track they made for themselves was easy and level a good many miles were got over; at others the hindrances seemed to multiply, and Griggs laughingly said it never rained but it poured, and then the tale of miles traversed became very few at the end of the day.

But the American worked harder than any one, and always with unfailing good-humour. There were times when he seemed to be furious, raging out in language especially his own, the vocabulary being wonderful, the names he called astounding in their fluency, novelty, and peculiarity; still the objects of these displays of temper were never his fellow-travellers, but the mules, and as soon as he had roared himself hoarse he stood wiping his perspiring face, smiling contentedly, to say to one, the other, or both of the boys, “I feel a deal better for having got rid of all that nasty stuff. It kinder eases my mind, youngsters, and now look at ’em,” he continued, pointing at his obstinate charges; “see how nicely they go. Don’t you ever tell me that mules have no brains. Look at Skeeter, how he’s listening to my voice, and you wait a moment and you’ll see him begin working those ears of his about. There, do you see? That’s his way of telegraphing his opinions about what he has heard to all the rest. There’s a deal more in mules than people think.”

Be this right or wrong, the baggage-carrying animals did their best when Griggs was near them, and a few absurd words from his powerful lungs stopped kicking, biting, and squealing when a revolution seemed to be on the way, and a fight of heels had begun, to the imminent risk of disaster to the packs.

“No luck yet, sir?” cried Griggs, when the doctor had spoken on that particular morning. “Why, I was just thinking how lucky we had been.”

“How?” said the doctor, and the boys pricked up their ears to listen to the conversation.

“Haven’t lost a mule; always got over some of the ground to bring us nearer to the place we’re looking for; and the way in which we are enjoying ourselves in this compound frolic of a picnic is wonderful.”

“Enjoying, eh? Well, I’m glad you take it so.”

“Oh, I think we’re been wonderfully lucky, seeing what might have happened.”

“Do you hear, boys?” said the doctor. “That’s the spirit to take our journey in. But look here, Griggs, we’ve been trenching too much on our stores, and that’s bad.”

“The mules don’t think so, sir,” said the American, laughing; “but as we can’t buy fresh, going on in this way, perhaps we had better be on the lookout a little more for the pot, and leave the stores as much alone as we can.”

“Yes,” said the doctor. “I say, don’t let anything eatable go by. By the way, you’re deviating a little from the course we laid down this morning.”

“Just a little, sir,” replied Griggs. “It was Skeeter’s doing.”

“Oh, I did not know that the mule took the lead.”

“He doesn’t always, sir, but sometimes he stops short, lifts up that muzzle of his, lays his ears flat down, and sings one of those pleasant little airs of his; and when he does that I’ve noticed more than once that it means he smells water somewhere. So this time when he snapped at a fly trying to lay eggs in his skin, and bore off a little to the left, I didn’t interfere.”

“But the lookout forward does not seem promising,” said the doctor, raising his double glass to his eyes and sweeping the horizon.

“No, sir, it looks like warm stuff out of the kegs to-night, and none to spare for a wash.”

“I’m afraid so,” said the doctor, closing his glass and drawing rein so as to let Wilton and Bourne close up. “Tired, Chris—Ned?”

“Oh no,” they replied.

“It’s soon in the day yet, father,” added Chris.

“That seems a pity about the water, Griggs,” said Ned, as they rose slowly on. “Oh how I should like a good swim in a clear river!”

“Wouldn’t be amiss; but when you can’t get beef, mutton ain’t bad.”

“I knew that,” said Chris dryly.

“But you don’t seem to know that when you can’t get plenty of water for bathing, nice clean sand isn’t a bad thing for a good dry wash. It’s better without soap too.”

Chris laughed.

“Ah, you may grin, but it’s a nasty habit, I think, that of rubbing grease turned into what you call soap all over your skin. Look yonder on that patch of sand,” he continued, pointing, for his keen eyes seemed to miss nothing.

“Snakes!” cried Chris, bringing his rifle sharply round.

“Nay, nay, don’t shoot. What’s the good? You might scare something better.”

“Better!” said Ned, with his upper lip curling up and the corners of his mouth going down.

“Yes; I don’t care about snake,” said the American dryly, “but I hev heard that some of the Injuns cut the rattlers’ heads off and roast them in wood-ashes, and that they’re uncommonly good.”

“Ugh!” ejaculated Ned.

“Yes, that’s just how I feel, my lad,” continued Griggs, in his calm, dry manner. “I’m like that countryman of mine who was hard up for tuck, out in the backwoods, and when some one asked him afterwards how he managed to live, he said he shot and cooked the crows.”

“Horrid!” cried Ned.

“Yes, that’s what t’other one said; and then he says, ‘But surely you don’t like crows?’ ‘No,’ says the first one, ‘I don’t kind o’ hanker arter them.’ It’s the same here, I don’t kind o’ hanker arter snake; but it’s all a matter o’ habit.”

“Oh, ugh!” cried Ned.

“Ah, you may say ugh, but it all depends; when a fellow’s hungry he’s got to eat something, and I don’t see why a snake shouldn’t be as good to eat as an eel.”

“But they’re poisonous,” cried Chris.

“Only in the head, and it’s easy to cut that off. Now, look yonder; there lie four fine fat rattlers, fast asleep on that patch of sand. We’re not exactly short of food, but a little extra would be very useful, and as rattlers are so plentiful it seems almost a pity that we can’t make them good to eat, and knock over all we come across.”

“How can you talk in that horrid way, Griggs!” cried Chris, with a shudder.

“I don’t see nothing horrid about it. Snake’s a nice clean enough sort of thing; and, as I say, it’s all a matter of habit. They tell me frogs are delicious, but I’d as soon eat snake.”

“Reptiles! Ugh!” cried Ned.

“So’s turtle reptile,” said Griggs. “Nasty-looking thing too. Might just as well eat alligator. I’ve a good mind to get down and cripple two or three of those rattlers, so as to try how they eat.”

“No, no, don’t!” cried the boys in a breath, and before the others grasped what he was about to do, Chris pulled up, slipped off his mustang, gathered up a handful of small stones, and sent a shower amongst the sleeping reptiles.

In an instant there was a scattering of sand and a rush for safety, the snakes taking refuge amongst the brush around, leaving not a sign of their presence.

“There goes dinner for six,” said Griggs dryly. “I say, there’s plenty of those creeping gentry about here.”

“Almost the only inhabitants,” said Chris. “Well, if we do have to come to eat ’em, perhaps we shall get monuments set up to us in our honour for introducing a new kind of useful food of which there’s plenty being wasted in the far west. Pity they’re so small. They’d shrink too in the cooking. Why, a hungry man would be able to polish off one easy.”

“Do you want to make me ill, Griggs?” said Ned, shuddering.

“Certainly not, my lad.”

“But I say, Griggs,” cried Chris, “how big do those things grow—how long were the largest you ever saw?”

“Oh, they don’t come quite up to boa constrictors. Let me see, the largest I ever saw measured was—was—”

“Twenty-five feet?”

“Nay, nay, nay, not quite as long as that, but quite six feet, which is bigger than I like, after all. Most of ’em’s little, like those. Dangerous sort of things, and don’t the horses and mules understand! Don’t catch them going near a rattler if they know it.”

“My nag has shied four times this morning at the poisonous brutes,” said Chris.

“Seems to me,” said Griggs, “that they like this part of the country. I’d be pretty careful about walking about when we get down. It’d be as well to ride about a bit when we stop for camping, so as to scare the beggars away. We don’t want to get bitten.”

But from that time, oddly enough, they saw no sign or trace of the reptiles. The sun grew hotter and hotter, but neither in sandy level nor rugged stony patch was a snake seen basking. Nothing was visible but lizards, and they disappeared when the doctor called a halt in the most rugged part of a stony waste where there was an overhanging cliff and a broken gully which promised at a distance to be the home of a spring; but though it had evidently been at one time a pool overhung by rocks, there was not a trace of moisture. It afforded a little shelter, however, in an overhanging part where there was a rugged projecting shelf, and there being nothing better, the halt was made there, only to prove too hot a one for endurance, the rocks seeming to glow, and keeping off such air as was astir as well as the sun; so after a short time the doctor decided to go on once more in search of some more likely place.

In those hot, weary hours the elasticity and cheerfulness of the boys died away. In the early morning it had been all laugh and chat and notice of everything they passed that seemed novel, but with the coming of noon quite a change came over them, and Ned took to sighing from time to time, then to murmuring, and at last after a long, low expiration of the breath—

“Oh dear,” he cried, “I am getting so tired of this!”

“Well, you are a fellow!” grumbled Chris. “Only an hour or two ago you talked as if you liked it.”

“Ah, I wasn’t so hot and fagged out then. It gets so jolly monotonous. Here we go on, ride and tramp, ride and tramp, day after day, seeing nothing but sand and sage-brush, sand and sage-brush. Always tired, always being scorched by the sun till one’s giddy, and—”

“Here, father!” cried Chris, but without turning his head.

“What are you going to do?” said Ned, in a hurried whisper.

“Call father up, for you to grumble to him.”

“Nonsense!” whispered Ned. “Don’t be a stupid donkey. Can’t I say a word or two without you wanting to tell tales?”

“I don’t want to tell tales; I want for you to tell father yourself. You talked as if you had had enough of it, and wanted to go back.”

“Who wants to go back?” cried Ned angrily. “Nice thing if one can’t say what one likes about one’s feelings! I only said what I did because I was hot and tired, and it is so tiresome, one day just like another, and not a bit of adventure to go through. Why, I expected no end of fun in that way—I mean, no end of excitement.”

“Do you understand what he means, Griggs?” said Chris. “I think you’ve upset him by talking about cooking and eating snake.”

“It wasn’t that,” said Griggs. “He must have got out of bed the wrong way this morning.”

“Yes; a nice sort of bed! Nothing but rough sage-brush, crumbling up as soon as it’s moved, and looking like so much gritty imitation tea.”

“Same sort of bed as we had, squire, and we don’t grumble. Why, you’re not half a fellow. Like to go back perhaps?”

“That I shouldn’t!” snapped out Ned, so suddenly that his mustang started and had to be checked and soothed. “Can’t a fellow speak? I don’t want to grumble, but it is so monotonous.”

“You said that before,” cried Chris banteringly.

“I know, Clevershakes!” retorted Ned. “And now I say it again. I’ve as good a right to speak as you have. If you don’t like the word monotonous, I’ll say dull and stupid. It’s ride and walk, ride and walk.”

“And walk and ride, walk and ride,” said Chris, imitating his old companion’s words and tones. “No adventures—nothing to see.”

“Not even a rattlesnake,” said Griggs softly.

“Look here, Mr Griggs,” snapped out Ned, “I wish you wouldn’t keep interrupting me when I’m speaking. It’s precious rude.”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Griggs politely.

“Well, don’t do it again,” said Ned shortly.—“Phew! How hot it is! I’m sure it’s ever so much hotter than it has been before.”

“Much,” said Chris, with his eyes twinkling, but he looked straight before him. So did Griggs, and Ned went on—

“It’s just as if the sand got to be red-hot and all the heat was reflected back in one’s face. I wouldn’t care, though, only it’s so dull and monot—dreary!” the boy snapped out, looking sharply from one to the other as if to see whether another remark was about to be made respecting his repetition; but neither of his companions moved a muscle of his face, and he went on murmuring in the same irritable way—

“There seem to be no fish to catch, no birds to shoot. I wouldn’t have believed that there could have been so much miserable desert if I hadn’t seen it. I quite thought that by this time, after getting right away from all settlements and into the wildest of the wild country—”

“What!” said Griggs sharply. “Oh, nonsense! Wildest of the wild? Why, this is nothing to what we’ve got to come. We haven’t seen a regular good mountain yet.”

“No, nor yet a wild beast. I thought we should have had plenty of adventures with them by now.”

“Oh, that’s what you mean, is it?” cried Griggs, with mock seriousness, giving Chris a peculiar look at the same time, as if asking him to back up any assertions that he might make. “You expected that we would spend half our time shooting lions and stalking tigers?”

“Yes,” said Ned, passing his hand over his eyes and shaking his head, as if the heat had made him sleepy and giddy. “No, no!” he added hastily. “Of course I know that there are no lions and tigers here. You’re laughing at me.”

“Well, it’s enough to make a cat laugh to hear you go on finding fault, when here we are in a regular wonderful country, such as I should never have expected to find so soon. Of course I know that it wouldn’t do for a plantation, but here we are, just at the beginning of rising ground, and a mile or two further we shall be all amongst rocks and stones, and, for all we can tell, we shall come upon the sugar up yonder among those mountains rising up as if they were growing out of what was a plain.”

“Sugar? What sugar?” said Ned, staring.

“Well, the gold amongst the three sugar-loaf mountains shown on the chart.”

“I only wish we could find it,” said Chris.

“Well, have patience, and the more patience you use up the more you’ll want. We shan’t find the gold without.”

“But I’m like Ned,” said Chris thoughtfully; “I think as he does, that it does seem wonderful that there should be such a lot of regularly useless land in the world. Look at this: as far as we can see it’s so salt and dry that nothing will grow. Stones and sand, and sand and stones, and all of no use at all.”

“Who says so?” said Griggs coolly.

“Why, I do; you heard me.”

“Yes, you say so, but what do you know about it? You say it’s of no use because it’s of no use to you; but you know nothing at all about what may be underneath all this sand and stone.”

“Nothing at all; not even water,” cried Chris.

“You don’t know. There may be gold or silver or lead, tin or copper, or some of those minerals that chemists and such folk use. I don’t like to hear you grumble, my lad, about things when you’ve only just looked and not tried. What about precious stones—diamonds and rubies?”

“Or pearls perhaps,” said Ned, with a sneer.

“Yes, or pearls,” said Griggs, and the boys both burst out laughing heartily.

Ned’s tide of ill-humour had turned.

“Got me?” said Griggs gravely. “I say, you are clever ones!”

“Well, I like to hear you make a blunder sometimes, Griggs. You often have the laugh at us; now we’ve got one at you.”

“Yes, you are clever ones,” said the American grimly, “but you’re wrong this time. You’re both grinning and looking at one another as much as to say, Hark at old Griggs! He’s forgotten that pearls come out of oysters and oysters live in the sea.”

“Of course,” cried the boys together.

“Yes, of course, and I don’t know that there mayn’t be fossil oyster shells somewhere about here with pearls still in them. I’ve seen shells sometimes looking quite pearly inside though they’ve been buried in rock no end of time. You didn’t hear your father say only day before yesterday that all this salt desert land must at one time have been the bottom of the sea. What do you say to that?”

“Oh!” said Chris thoughtfully, and Ned pushed his broad-leaved hat a little on one side so as to scratch his ear.

“You’re right, though, after all, about lions and tigers, and so was I. Only they’re American lions and tigers—pumas and jaguars, and pumas without any manes, and jaguars with spots instead of stripes. Wait a bit, and we shall come upon some of them. Not here, though; it’s not likely sort of country for them, but there’s mountain land yonder piled-up higher than we shall be able to take our mustangs and mules. We shall find watercourses soon, and that means trees and grass and quite a different climate. The sort of place where we’re quite likely to find Uncle Ephraim at home.”

“What, grizzly bear?” cried Chris excitedly.

“That’s the gentleman,” replied Griggs; “and as like as not after crossing a ridge or two we may come upon buffalo.”

“What, in the mountains?”

“Perhaps. More likely in the plains. There, don’t you chaps grumble any more. Your fathers have got quite enough to think about without having to talk to you about being a little more plucky and patient.”

“Yes, I know,” cried Chris, wincing; “we’re only grumbling to you.”

“Oh, then I don’t matter?”

“Not a bit. You’re such a good-tempered, patient chap, and you seem like one of us. But I say, Griggs, do you really think we are going to find a change in the country soon?”

“Certain.”

“Oh come, that’s better! We have had enough of sand and sage-brush, and we do want a regular change.”

“You’ll get it, then, and I dare say before night. Can’t you see that we’re on the slope of the mountains now?”

“No, not a bit of it.”

“But we are; just slowly rising, and by night we shall find that we are in quite a different place, hundreds of feet higher than where we had breakfast this morning.”

“Well, I hope you’re right,” said Chris.

No more was said then, the two boys sometimes riding, sometimes walking, till after some hours Griggs pulled up, to point to the fact that they had reached what seemed to be the summit of an enormous land-wave heaved up and rising for miles either way across the desert, but right in front descending slowly into a vast hollow plain which glistened in its desolation as if frosted with silver.

“Why, it must be silver,” cried Ned enthusiastically.

“Nay, nay, only salt, my lad. Looks like a dried-up lake.”

“Yes; where’s your herd of buffaloes?” cried Chris. “Oh, shouldn’t I like for us to shoot one and have some beef!”

“Yes; buffalo hump isn’t bad,” said Griggs. “It’s rich and tender and gravyish.”

“But where is it?” said Ned.

“Higher up, I suppose, where there’s prairie-land and grass. You don’t expect to see buffler where there’s nothing to graze on, do you? Look at the stones, though. Regular rocky ridges rising up one above the other on the other side of that frosty lake part. Shouldn’t wonder if we found something fresh there.”

He pointed to his left, where there was a manifest change in the scenery as seen through the shimmering haze which hindered the view.

“Yes,” he cried eagerly, “if you look hard you can just get a glimpse of a great ridge, and just beyond—ragh! There are the mountains at last!”

“I can’t see them,” said Chris thoughtfully. “Are they near?”

“No; but near enough for us to reach to-morrow night.”

“But what about to-night? I say, that isn’t salt. I can see it glittering quite plainly; it’s water.”

“No, my lad; no water there. I wish there was,” added Griggs to himself.

“Then what are we to do for water to-night?”

“There’ll be enough to make our tea.”

“But the horses and mules?” said Chris.

“We must try and find a hollow with some shrubby stuff that they can chew, poor beasts, for they’ll get nothing else. What are you pointing at, squire?”

Ned made no answer, but sat fast where he had checked his pony, pointing to where hundreds, perhaps thousands, of heavy grey stones lay scattered widely about over the sandy slope.

“Well, I can see them; stones, looking as if a mountain had crumbled all away in an earthquake, or in some volcanic explosion which had shattered it all to pieces.”

“No, no,” said Ned huskily; “not there. More to the left. It is that tree I mean.”

“Tree? There’s no tree there.”

“Yes, that great one that was turned over in the earthquake, and all of the trunk and top buried in the stones.”

“I say, my lad,” said Griggs anxiously, “has the heat been too much for you?”

“Yes, it made my head ache.”

“That’s it, then. Made you fancy you can see a tree upside down.”

“’Tisn’t fancy,” said Ned huskily. “I can see plain enough, but it isn’t natural. It’s all alive, and the roots are twisting and twining about as if the tree was alive and in pain.”

“Here, don’t stare at it. Shut your eyes for a bit, my lad. I’ll take your mustang’s rein.”

“But I must look at it,” cried Ned excitedly. “I can’t help it. Horrid! Here, you two are not looking the right way.”

“I’m looking at you, my lad,” said Griggs kindly.

“And so are you, Chris. Don’t—please don’t. Look there; I want you to see what it means.”

“Ugh!” gasped Chris, as he turned his eyes in the direction pointed out by his companion, and that which he saw then was evidently seen now by his nag, which started violently, and but for the tight hand the lad had upon the rein it would have dashed off.

“Here, have you got it too?” cried Griggs. “There, sit still till the water-kegs come up, and you must have a drink apiece. The sun has been too much for you, and—”

He said no more, but sat staring in one direction with his mouth wide open and his eyes seeming ready to start out of his head.

“Hallo, here! hallo!” cried the doctor, cantering up, closely followed by Wilton and Bourne, leaving their position in the rear unguarded. “What’s the matter—the boys taken ill?”

“Snakes,” cried Griggs hoarsely. “Look yonder.”

Griggs’ words were unnecessary, for the doctor’s eyes had lighted upon the extraordinary sight that had startled Ned into his wild announcement.

The next moment his companions had grasped the phenomenon, and had hard work to keep their mounts from dashing frantically away.

For about a hundred yards from them, half-hidden among the stones, was something which pretty well warranted Ned’s comparison to a tree turned wrong way up, so that only its roots were visible above the ground, the object being, in fact, a monstrous knot of hundreds of snakes twined together as if they were all engaged in the attempt to get their heads into the centre of the tangled mass which, all in motion, heaved and sank and rolled from side to side, the lower portions of the serpents’ bodies and their tails being free to lash and writhe about in the air, while at a second glance the spectators began to realise the fact that all around, gliding in and out amongst the stones, were hundreds upon hundreds more of the reptiles, apparently urged on by some savage instinct to form other knots, till the whole of the hollow in front seemed to be alive with the loathsome creatures.

“Did you ever see anything like this before, Griggs?” said the doctor, who was the first to speak.

“Never, sir; but an old gold prospector once told me that he had seen just such a sight, only I put it down to being a yarn told to cram me.”

“But they’re not poisonous—not rattlesnakes, surely?” said Bourne.

“They surely are,” cried Wilton. “Hark! Can’t you hear? It’s like a dull thrilling sound. Here, I don’t want to be the first to run, but I can’t stand this; I’m off.”

“We’d better all be off,” cried the doctor. “Here, Griggs, head round your bell-mule and let’s get away. You seem to have led us right into the empire of snakes. Quick, look alive, or the poor brutes will be right amongst the reptiles.”

“Not they, sir; they smell ’em now. Come and help, or we shall have a stampede.”

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