Breakfast was cooked in the cool of the early dawn, long before the sun had pushed its burning course up above the desert sands. Though the boys had but little sleep, they tumbled out at the guide's first hail, full of joyous enthusiasm for what lay before them that day.
Stacy Brown emerged from his tent rubbing his eyes. The lads uttered a shout when they saw him.
"Look at him!" yelled Ned. "Look at Chunky's eye!"
The right eye was surrounded by a black ring, the eyelid being of the same dark shade, where the end of the telescope on his rifle had kicked him.
"Young man, you are a sight to behold," smiled the Professor.
"I don't care. I got the coyote," retorted Stacy, with a grin.
"And the gun got him," added Walter.
"Judging from your appearance, I should say that the butt of your rifle was almost as dangerous as the other end," laughed Tad.
"Come and get it!" called the guide.
The lads never had to be called twice for meals, and they were in their places at the breakfast table with a bound.
"Do you know, I'm beginning to like the sage brush taste in the food," said Walter.
Stacy made up a face.
"I should think you would be ashamed to sit down to a meal with that countenance of yours, Chunky," declared Ned.
"I might with some company."
"See here, Chunky Brown. Do you mean——"
"I mean that my face will get over what ails it, but yours won't," was the fat boy's keen-edged retort.
"All of which goes to prove," announced Tad wisely, "that you never can tell, by the looks of a toad, how far it will jump. I guess you'd better let Chunky alone after this. He's perfectly able to take care of himself, Ned."
Ned subsided and devoted his further attention to his breakfast. The meal finished, all hands set briskly to work to strike camp. In half an hour the burros were loaded ready for the day's journey. The boys set off singing.
"I don't see how you can tell where you are going," said the Professor. "There is no sun and you have no compass."
"We are traveling almost due southwest. I never use a compass. It is not necessary."
"There, I knew I had forgotten to get something," announced Tad.
"Forgotten what?" questioned Walter.
"To get a compass."
"You have a watch, have you not?" asked Tom Parry.
"Why, yes; but that's not a compass."
"Oh, yes, it is," smiled the guide. "You can get your direction just as well with that as you could with a tested compass."
"Never heard that before," muttered Tad.
"Nor I," added Ned, at once keenly interested.
"I'm easy. I'll ask how? What's the answer?" questioned Stacy, gazing innocently at Tom Parry.
"I am not joking, boys. Every watch is a compass. You can get your direction from it unerringly whenever you can see the sun."
"Indeed?" marveled the Professor.
"The method is very simple," continued Parry. "All you have to do is to point the hour hand directly at the sun. Half way between the hour hand and the figure twelve on the watch dial you will find is due south."
"I'll try it," answered Tad.
"There comes the sun now," said Ned.
The boys drew out their watches, having halted the ponies and turned facing the rising sun.
"Well, did you ever!" exclaimed the lads in one voice.
"It is, indeed, the fact," marveled the Professor.
"You can depend upon that whenever you have lost your way," said Tom Parry. "It has helped me out on many occasions."
"But what if there isn't any sun—what if the sky is clouded?" questioned Stacy.
"Then you'll have to sit down and wait for it," laughed the guide.
After this brief rest the party continued on its way. They had come out on the level plain, and before them for several miles stretched the white alkali of the Nevada Desert. As the sun rose higher, they found the glare of the glistening plain extremely trying to the eyes. The guide suggested that they put on their goggles. But the boys would have none of them. Stacy's right eye was badly swollen, yet he refused to cover it, though the fine dust of the plain got into it, causing it to smart until the tears ran down his cheek.
"Where do the wild horses congregate?" asked Tad, riding up beside the guide.
"Likely to see them anywhere, though they do not, as a rule, go far out on the desert on account of the scarcity of water. We may see some in the Little Smoky Valley and the Hot Creek Range when we reach there."
"Is it difficult to catch them?"
"Very. There is one magnificent white stallion that the horse-hunters have been trying to capture for the past five years."
"Why can't they get him?"
"Too smart for them. He knows what they are up to almost as well as if the hunters had confided their plans to him. Twice, in the beginning, the hunters succeeded in getting him in a trap, but he managed to get away from his would-be captors."
"I'd like to get a chance to take him," mused Tad Butler.
"I'm afraid you wouldn't have much luck, but we'll have a hunt when we get down in the horse country, and I promise you that you will see some exciting sport. Better than hunting coyotes by moonlight," laughed the guide.
"I'd like to capture and break a real live wild horse," said young Butler, his eyes sparkling at the thought. "It would be a fine prize to take away with me, now wouldn't it?"
"If you chanced to capture a good one, yes. The poor stock, however, has been pretty well taken up, so that the horses on the ranges now are splendid specimens."
"Anybody want to run a race?" interrupted Stacy, riding up near the head of the procession.
"Too hot," answered Tad.
"Just the kind of a day for a horse race. I'll run any of you to see who cooks the supper," persisted Stacy.
"Oh, go back with the burros. I wouldn't eat any supper that you cooked, anyway."
"I'll remember that, Ned. Well, if none of you has spunk enough to race with me, I'll run a race with myself."
"That a dare?" questioned Walter.
Stacy nodded, blinking his blackened eye nervously.
Walter shook out the reins.
"Come on, then. I suppose you won't be satisfied until you've gotten into more trouble. Where do you want to race to?"
"See that patch of ground whiter than the rest off there?"
"Yes."
"Well, we'll race there and back. How far is it from here, Mr. Parry?"
"'Bout half a mile, I should say," answered the guide, measuring the distance with his eyes.
"Whew! I didn't think it was so far," marveled Stacy. "But we'll run it, anyway."
"I'll be the starter," announced Ned. "If you break your neck, Chunky, remember that I am not to blame for it."
"If I break my neck I won't be likely to remember anything, so you're safe," retorted Stacy.
The others were too busy discussing wild-horse hunting to give heed to the boys' plan.
"All ready!"
"Yes."
"Go!"
Both lads uttered a sharp yell, at the same time giving their spurs a gentle pressure, and away they went across the blazing alkali, their tough little ponies steaming in the intense heat as they straightened out, entering into the spirit of the contest with evident enthusiasm.
"See those boys ride," laughed the guide, pausing in his argument on the wild-horse question: "I didn't suppose the fat boy could sit in a saddle like that."
"Oh, yes; he does well. You saw him master the bucker the other day in the mountains?"
"Yes, I remember. Whoa! Look out, there! There goes one of them! He took too short a turn."
"Walter's down!" cried Ned.
"Hope he isn't hurt."
"No; he's cleared all right. That was a mighty quick move the way he slipped out of that saddle. It would have broken his leg sure, if the pony had fallen on it," declared the guide.
Stacy had pulled up his own mount after making the turn safely. Then he rode slowly back.
"Hurt you any, Walt?" he asked.
"Jarred me a little, that's all. Why don't you go on and win the race?"
"Waiting for you," announced the fat boy laconically.
Walter swung into his saddle.
"Come on, then. Gid-ap!" he cried, shaking out the reins.
The two little animals sprang away like projectiles. But Stacy seemed not to be in his best form. He came in bobbing up and down, several lengths behind Walter.
"You won the race. I fell off," announced Walter, with his usual spirit of fairness.
"I guess not," drawled Stacy. "Now I'm going to do some stunts."
With that, the fat boy galloped out over the alkali again, riding off fully half a mile ahead of the party, where he jogged back and forth for a time, then began riding in a circle.
After a little they saw him toss his hat into the air ahead of him, and putting spurs to his pony dart under it, giving it a swift blow with his quirt, sending it spinning some distance away, at the same time uttering a shrill whoop.
"Thinks he's having the time of his life," grunted Ned.
"For a boy with a black eye, he is particularly cheerful, I should say," laughed Parry. "What's he going to do now!"
"Pick up his sombrero while at a gallop, I guess," replied Tad, shading his eyes and gazing off across the plain. "Yes, there he goes at it."
Stacy, with a graceful dip from his saddle, swooped down on the sombrero, scooping it up with a yell of triumph, then dashing madly across the desert to the westward.
All at once they saw his pony stumble.
"There he goes!" warned the guide. "He will break his neck!"
Down plunged the broncho, his nose scraping the ground, his hind feet beating the air wildly.
Stacy kept right on.
"The pony struck a thin crust on the alkali," explained the guide.
Almost before the words were out of his mouth Stacy Brown hit the desert broadside on. Then, to the amazed watchers, he seemed to disappear before their very eyes.
"He's gone! What does it mean?" cried the boys.
Where but a few seconds before had been a pony and a boy, there now remained only a kicking, floundering broncho.
Tom Parry put spurs to his mount and set off at top speed for the scene of the accident, followed by the others of the party strung out in single file.
Tad rapidly drew up on the guide.
"What has happened?" Butler cried as the two now raced along side by side.
"As I said before, the pony went through a thin crust——"
"Yes, but Chunky—what happened to him?" asked Tad.
"He went through when he struck the ground."
"I don't understand it at all."
"You will when you get there."
Tad was mystified. The solution of the mystery was beyond him.
"If he isn't drowned, he's in luck," snapped Parry.
"Drowned?" wondered his companion.
They cleared the intervening space that lay between them and the fat boy's pony in a series of convulsive leaps that the bronchos took under the urgent pressure of the rowels of their riders' spurs.
As they neared the scene Tad espied a hole in the desert, and began to understand. Stacy also had struck a thin crust and had broken through. Yet what had happened to him after that, Tad did not know.
Both would-be rescuers leaped from their ponies and ran to the spot.
With his body submerged, his head barely protruding above the water, sat Stacy, vigorously rubbing his eyes to get the brown alkali water out of them sufficiently to enable him to look about and determine what had happened to him.
The rest of the party dashed up with loud shouts of alarm, hurling a series of rapid-fire questions at the guide.
Parry and Tad grasped Stacy by the arms and hauled him, dripping, from the alkali sink into which he had plunged.
They shouted with laughter when they saw that he was not hurt seriously.
"Well, of all the blundering idiots——" began Ned.
"That will do," warned the Professor, hurrying to Stacy's side. "Hurt you much, lad?"
"I—I fell in," stammered Chunky.
"I should say you did. How in the world did it happen?"
The guide explained, that frequently these thin crusts were found on the desert, covering alkali sinks, some being dry, others having water in them.
"And of course Chunky had to find one. He's the original hoodoo," laughed Ned.
"Oh, I don't know," replied the guide. "He has done us a real service by falling in."
"How's that!" questioned Tad.
"Master Stacy has found a water hole, just what we need at this particular moment. The stock needs water, and especially the ponies that have been racing for the last half hour."
"You don't mean that we are to drink that stuff, do you?" demanded Walter.
"Not now. We still have some fairly good water in the water bags. Later on you may be glad to drink alkali water. Run up and down if you feel able. You'll dry off in a few minutes," suggested Parry, turning to Chunky.
"I—I don't want to. Feels nice and cool after my bath. Jump in and take a swim, fellows."
"No, thank you—not in that dirty water," objected Ned.
"I'll tell you what, boys," suggested Tad. "After the stock has had a drink we'll take off our shoes and put our feet in. Guess we can stand that much."
"That's a good idea," agreed Walter. "We'll all take a cold foot bath."
In the meantime, the guide had been busily engaged in breaking the crust around the sink, so that the stock might more easily get at the water within it. The animals were impatiently pawing and whinnying, anxious to get the water. They were now willing to drink any kind of water after their half day's journey across the burning alkali.
"You might unpack and get a cold lunch together, if you will," suggested Parry.
The boys soon had one of the tents erected, over which they stretched the fly, that the interior might be cooler.
Ned opened a can of pickled pigs' feet, which, with some hard rolls were spread out on a folding table under the tent. Tad, not to be out-done, dug some lemons from his saddle bag, with which he proceeded to make a pail of lemonade.
It was the first time they had had any such beverage since they began their summer trips. Tad had purchased the lemons back in Eureka. The lemonade made, it lacked only sweetening now.
"Where's the sugar?" he called.
"Where's the sugar?" echoed Chunky.
"We don't know," answered Ned and Walter in the same breath.
"Get busy and find it, then. If you don't want this lemonade I'll drink it myself. I don't care whether it is sweetened or not."
That threat was effective. The other three boys made a dive for the burros. An examination of the first pack failed to reveal the sweetening. The same was the case with the next, and before they had finished, their entire outfit was spread over the ground, tents, canned goods, cooking utensils, thrown helter-skelter over several rods of ground.
"Here, boys, boys!" chided the Professor. "This will never do. We can't afford to use our provisions in that way. Soon we'll have nothing."
"Regular rough house. Ought to be ashamed of yourselves," agreed Stacy, surveying the scattered outfit, while he secretly slipped two lumps of sugar into his mouth. "Here, cook, pick up your kitchen," to Ned.
"What you got in your mouth?" demanded Ned suspiciously.
"He's eating the sugar," spoke up Walter Perkins.
"Drop 'em!" roared Ned.
Stacy started to run, whereupon the boys fell upon him, and the next second he was at the bottom of the heap. The boys were rubbing his face in the sand in an effort to make him give up the sugar.
The Professor took a hand—two hands in fact—about this time. He made short work of the "goose pile," tossing the boys from the very much ruffled Stacy, whom he also jerked to his feet.
"What's all this disturbance about?" demanded Professor Zepplin. "First you strew the outfit all over the desert, then you get to pummeling each other."
"Chunky's been stealing sugar," volunteered Ned.
"Give back that sugar, instantly!" commanded the Professor.
The fat boy shook his head and grinned.
"Can't," he answered.
"And, why not?"
"'Cause they're inside of me."
"Now, now, now!" warned Ned. "You haven't chewed that hard sugar down this quick. I know better than that."
"No, I swallowed the lumps whole when you fellows jumped on me. Nearly choked me to death, 'cause one of 'em got stuck in my throat," Chunky explained.
Tad, in the meantime, had been busy gathering up the scattered provisions.
"Get to work, young gentlemen. Straighten up the camp," commanded the Professor.
"Don't we get any lunch?" begged Stacy.
"You're full of sugar. You don't need anything else," replied Walter.
"When you have set the outfit to rights, we'll all sit down and eat like civilized beings," asserted the Professor, with emphasis.
"Civilized beings making a meal on pigs' feet! Huh!" grumbled Chunky, picking up a can of tomatoes, then throwing it down again. After this, he slipped around to the opposite side of the tent. Crawling in under the fly he promptly went to sleep, the others being so busy that they had not observed his act.
The next Stacy knew was when he awakened to find himself being hauled out by one leg.
"Here, what are you doing? Leggo my foot."
"Lunch is ready. You ought to thank us, instead of finding fault because we woke you up. You might have slept right through the meal; then you wouldn't have had anything to eat," explained Walter.
Stacy shook his head.
"No danger. I wasn't afraid of that!"
"Not afraid of that? Why not?" demanded Ned.
"'Cause I knew you'd haul me out. Left my feet sticking out so you would."
Everybody roared. There was no resisting Stacy Brown's droll humor.
"Hopeless," averred the Professor, shrugging his shoulders.
"He's a wise one," differed the guide.
"Another name for laziness," nodded Ned.
"What's that disease they have down south?" asked Walter. "I heard the Professor and the postmaster talking about it back in Eureka."
"You mean the—the hook-worm disease?" grinned the guide.
"That's it. That's what Chunky's got. When a fellow is too lazy to do anything but eat, they say he's got the—the——"
"The hook——" finished the guide.
"That's what he ought to get," agreed Ned.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen!" corrected the Professor. "This is not a seemly topic for table discussion."
"But we eat pigs' feet," suggested Stacy in wide-eyed innocence.
The meal finished, amid laughter and jest, the party stowed their belongings, and after a brief rest, pushed on, having decided that they would feel the heat less in the saddle.
At sundown the travelers were still some distance from the water hole for which the guide was making.
"We'll have to go on," he said. "We may have to ride some time after dark."
"Will that be advisable?" questioned the Professor.
"Not advisable, but necessary. The stock must have their water you know."
So the party pushed on. The moon came up late in the evening, and the guide looking about him, discovered that they had borne too far to the east, which necessitated their covering some four miles more of alkali than would have been the case had they kept more closely to their course.
"It can't be helped," he laughed good-naturedly. "I guess the pigs' feet will last you until we make camp."
"How long will that be, Mr. Parry?" questioned Chunky anxiously.
"All of an hour and a half."
Stacy humorously took up his belt three holes.
"Got two more holes left to take in," he decided after examining the belt critically.
"That's a new way to measure distance and time, isn't it!" laughed the guide.
"How?" wondered Stacy.
"By the holes in your belt."
At eleven o'clock that night Tom Parry announced that they had arrived at the end of their day's journey.
"Where's the water? I don't see any water?" said Walter.
"After supper we'll look for it. I presume want something to eat first, don't you?" questioned the guide.
"Yes," shouted the lads in chorus. "We're nearly starved."
Bacon and coffee constituted the bill of fare for their late meal, which they ate out in the bright moonlight with the crackling camp-fire near by.
"This is fine," announced Tad, with which sentiment all the boys agreed. "Wish we could do this every night."
"Your supper would be breakfast after a few days," replied Parry.
"How's that!" questioned Ned.
"If you waited for moonlight, I mean. The moon comes up later every night, you know."
"That's so."
"We'd get hungry, wouldn't we?" chuckled Stacy.
"You wouldn't get. You always are," retorted Ned.
"Now, I'll show you how I know there is a water hole near here," said Parry after they had finished their late meal. "When I locate it, you boys may help me take the stock to it."
They walked back some twenty rods from where they had pitched the camp, Parry meanwhile hunting about as if in search of something that he had dropped.
"Nope. No water here," decided Stacy.
"You don't know. Ah! Here is what I am looking for."
The guide pointed to a heap of stones that rose some twelve inches above the ground. On the west side of the heap several stones had been placed in a row, thus forming an arm that extended or pointed almost due west.
"Know what that is?" asked Parry.
The lads shook their heads.
"That's a water marker. When a traveler across the desert finds a sink he indicates it either by a heap of stones, which he sticks in the ground, or by any other means at his command. For instance, this pile of stones tells me there is a water hole somewhere near by, and the arm points the way to it."
"Where is it, then?" wondered Walter. "I don't see any signs of water."
"Nor do I. We'll follow the direction indicated by the arm and see if we don't come up with a water tank somewhere close by," replied Parry.
With the guide leading the way, the others following in single file, they trailed away to the westward until, finally, they came to a slight depression in the ground.
"It should be near here," the guide informed them. "There it is. See that dark hole?"
The boys bounded forward, dropping on their knees by the opening into which they peered inquiringly.
Suddenly they uttered a yell, and, springing up, ran back as fast as their legs would carry them. As they did so, some dark object bounded from the water tank and leaped away into the sage brush.
"Goodness me, what was that?" cried Walter, after the boys had pulled up and faced about.
"Come back, come back. That was only a badger," laughed the guide.
"In the water?" asked Tad, who had stood his ground.
"No; so much the worse for us! There is no water there. No need to look. The tank is empty. Some wandering prospector has emptied it to save his burros and fill his canteen," announced the guide.
"What are we going to do, then!" queried Ned.
"Do without it. We shall have to give the stock a very little of our fresh supply, saving only enough out of it for our own breakfast and a canteen full apiece to take with us on the morrow. I think I shall be able to find a river about ten miles below here, providing it has not changed its course or gone dry. The water here in this country is as fickle as the desert itself."
"What if we should fail to find any?" breathed Tad.
"Well, you know, neither man nor beast can travel far on the desert without it. But we'll find some to-morrow. Don't worry," soothed the guide, though in his innermost heart he was troubled. That this water hole should prove to be dry did not promise well for those that were to follow.
"Where's that river you were talking about?" demanded the lads when the outfit pulled up at noon next day.
"Don't you see it?" smiled Parry.
"Not a river," answered Ned, gazing about him, then allowing his glance to rest on the face of the guide to determine if Parry were making sport of them.
"I am not sure myself. I know where it should be. Whether it's there or not is another matter. Fetch the shovels and we'll soon find out."
"Finding a river with shovels!" muttered Stacy. "Huh! Who ever heard of such a thing?"
But as soon as the boys had returned with the digging implements, Parry swung the tools over his shoulder and strode confidently to the left of where they were encamped for the noonday rest.
The boys followed him full of curiosity.
Finally the guide threw down the tools and began to run his hands over the hot, yellow soil.
"Guess the sun's gone to his head," muttered Ned, as he squatted down to observe more closely what the guide was doing. The other three lads followed his example. In a moment they were on all fours, hopping about like so many quadrupeds.
Parry was shaking with laughter as he observed them.
"Bow! Bow wow!" barked Chunky, jumping on hands and feet, snapping his teeth together suggestively.
The boys looked at each other and burst out laughing. They had discovered all at once what a ridiculous figure they were making.
"Sun gone to your head, too, Chunky?" chuckled Ned. "Oh, no, I forgot; it's dog days," he added maliciously.
"Your master had better get a collar and chain for you, then, Ned," laughed Stacy, in high good humor with himself.
The guide's voice put a sudden end to their merriment.
"Here's the river," he cried. "There is plenty of water in it, too."
The boys gathered about him quickly.
"I don't see any river," averred Walter.
"There isn't any," answered Ned, in a low voice.
"I'll show you whether there is or not," snapped Parry, who had overheard the remark. "You boys think I have gone crazy, don't you? You'll find there is something to learn about this old Nevada Desert—some things that you never even dreamed of. Hand me a shovel, please."
All at once Stacy began pushing his companions roughly aside.
"Here, here, Fatty! What are you trying to do?" the others demanded, beginning to struggle with him to prevent being bowled over.
"I'm saving your lives," cried the fat boy.
"Saving our lives?" cried Ned. "Go shake the alkali out of your eyes."
"Yes, you'll fall in and drown."
"In what?"
"In the river. Don't you see the river right there in front of you?" queried Stacy, his eyes fairly beaming with importance.
"No, I don't. If there was a river there you'd be the first one to fall in, and don't you forget that."
"What's this? What's this?" inquired the Professor, approaching.
"It's a river," answered Stacy solemnly.
"A river?"
"Yes, sir. Don't you hear it roar? Wish I had a boat."
"Is it water you are digging for, Mr. Parry?" asked Professor Zepplin.
But the guide did not hear the question. He was too busy with his mining operations at the moment.
"Come on, boys," he urged. "Get busy here."
"At what?" asked Ned. "We're with you, but we don't know what you want us to do."
"Yes; can we help you?" inquired Tad.
"Of course you can. Get those other shovels and dig."
"Where?"
"Right here. Make the dirt fly as fast as you want to. I'll show you something in a minute."
He did. All at once the sand beneath them gave way, and the Pony Rider Boys, all except Stacy Brown, uttered a yell as they sank waist deep into a sink of soft, wet sand.
Parry had felt the sand giving way, and with a warning had leaped from the hole. The lads had not been quick enough.
"There's no danger. Don't be alarmed. You'll get wet feet, that's all."
"What is it?" asked the Professor in amazement.
"Water, my dear sir. Water in plenty. It's a branch of the Pancake River. These streams run underground for great distances on the desert, but they change their course so often that you can't place any dependence on them. We're lucky, boys."
"Hurrah for the water!" shouted the lads.
"Keep on digging. We haven't got it yet. Master Stacy, will you run to the camp and bring the folding buckets? We'll soon have the hole cleaned so we can dip up some water."
"Sure," answered the fat boy, thrusting his hands in his trousers pockets and strolling off at a leisurely gait as if there were no necessity for haste.
"That's Chunky's idea of running," laughed Ned Rector, jerking his head in Stacy's direction.
The three lads finding there was no danger in their position, had made no attempt to clamber from the hole. Instead, they began digging, until the dirt flew so fast that the Professor was obliged to withdraw. Somehow most of the dirt seemed to be flying through the air right in his direction.
Now the water began to rise above the caved-in sand. It was a dirty yellow in color and the boys' clothing suffered as a result. But the youngsters did not care. Besides, they were cooling off.
At last the hole had been cleared sufficiently to enable them to dip up some water, but Stacy not having returned with the pails, the Professor was sent to fetch him. He found the lad enjoying himself tickling the nose of a drowsy burro.
Professor Zepplin led Chunky out to the water sink, by one ear. The lads now quickly dipped up pailful after pailful, which they passed to the guide on the bank. He ran with them to the stock, giving each of the animals a little, so that all might share in the first instalment. Ponies and burros were wide awake now, expressing their pleasure in loud whinnies and blatant brays.
"It's foggy on the river," laughed Ned. "The burros have started up their fog horns."
When Parry returned he brought with him the drinking cups, which he had taken from the saddles.
"Is it fit to drink?" asked Tad as the cups were passed down to them.
"It's wet."
"So are we," retorted Ned. "But we're dirty. Uh! That's horrible stuff."
"Strongly alkaline," nodded the Professor, after sipping gingerly at the brimming cup Parry had passed to him. "Do you not think we had better wait a little while until it settles?"
"Not a second, if you're thirsty," answered the guide shortly. "This stream is liable to change its course in the next ten minutes. Don't you take any chances with a desert stream. Fill the water bags and the canteens as fast as we can that's what we'll do. Then, if the water holds out, there will be time enough to empty out our supply and fill with fresh."
"Hey, Chunky! Haul those water bags over here," called Walter.
"Can't," called Stacy. He was sitting on the ground pulling off a shoe.
"What's the trouble now?" snorted Ned. "Got a cramp?"
"No; I've got a sore toe."
"Supposing we duck him," suggested Ned.
"We'll save all the water we have," warned the guide sharply. "No nonsense about it, either."
The party was in great good humor, now that they had found a water hole, and the animals had drunk until their sides were distended like balloons in process of being inflated.
"They've had enough," announced the guide, going to the animals and glancing over the herd sharply. "No more water for the present."
"Then perhaps we might as well be on our way," suggested the Professor.
Parry did not reply. He was shading his eyes with one hand, gazing intently off over the desert. The Professor, following the direction in which the guide was looking, discovered a cloud of dust rising into the air. The cloud was approaching them at a rapid rate.
"What is that?" questioned Professor Zepplin sharply.
"That's what I'm trying to make out," replied the guide.
"Looks like horsemen."
"Yes, it is. But I can't understand why they can be riding at that killing pace on a hot afternoon such as this."
About this time the boys' attention had been attracted to the yellow cloud by Stacy Brown, who, notwithstanding his apparent slowness, had sharp eyes when there was anything to be seen.
"Somebody's coming," he announced between sips.
"What's that?" demanded Tad, springing from the water hole, followed closely by Walter and Ned.
"Somebody coming to pay us an afternoon call. By the way they're whooping it up they must be in a hurry about something."
All hands ran to where Mr. Parry and the Professor were standing.
The yellow cloud was rolling toward them at a rapid pace, and ahead of it the boys discovered half a dozen horsemen, who had evidently discovered the white tent that the Pony Rider Boys had erected during their midday stop.
"Know them?" asked Tad.
"I'm not sure, but I think it's Bud Stevens and the wild-horse outfit. Judging from the way they ride they're pretty wild themselves."
With a series of shrill "y-e-o-w-s," the strangers bore down on the little desert camp. From the gray, alkali-flecked backs of the ponies clouds of steam were rising, their sides streaked with dust and sweat.
"Whoop! Hooray!" bellowed the newcomers, dashing up to the camp, letting go a volley of revolver shots right into the ground in front of the Pony Rider Boys.
Not a boy flinched.
"How!" said Tom Parry.
"How!" roared Bud Stevens, the leader, throwing himself from the back of his trembling mount.
"Where's the boss?" asked Parry.
"He's gone down Ralston way."
"Thought so. Where you headed?"
"San Antone Range after more hoss flesh. We'll rope the white stallion this time, and don't you forget it. Eh, kiddie? You're the little coyote what roped my pony and plunked me into the street back in Eureka, ain't you?"
Half jokingly, he swung a vicious blow at Tad with the flat of his hand. Had it landed it would have laid the lad flat.
Tad ducked and came up smiling.
"Wow! The kiddie's a regular little bantam. We'll have to take a fall out of you. Got to give you the desert initiation like they do in the secret societies back in Eureka."
He sought to close with Tad, but the boy eluded him easily.
"That'll do, Bud," warned the guide, stepping between them. "No rough house here. Want some water? We've got a water hole right over there."
"Water? Water? Call the stuff we get out of the ground here water?"
"He—he's had his head in soak already," piped Stacy, noting the perspiration dripping from the cowboy leader's face.
Parry gave the lad a warning look.
"They're good enough fellows, but they are full of pranks when they are not at work. No need to stir them up and make them mad."
"Got anything to eat?" demanded Bud.
"How would you like some coffee, sir?" asked Tad politely.
"Coffee?" jeered the cowboy. "Now what d'ye think of that, fellows? Ain't that right hospitable?"
"Yes, thank you, young man, I guess that would touch the spot," spoke up another of the band. "'Course we'll have some coffee."
"All right. Ned, will you and Walt fix something for the boys to eat? If you will lead your ponies over to the water hole I'll dip up some water for them in the meantime, gentlemen."
"Kiddie, yer all right," bellowed Bud Stevens. "But I've got to take a fall out of yer yet."
"Some other time," grinned Tad, who felt no fear of the hulking cowboy.
"See that nose?" demanded Bud, sticking out his head at Tad.
"Yes; what's the matter?"
"That's my nose. And that's where I barked it when you roped my pony tother day. Oh, I've got to take it out of yer hide, kiddie."
"Come along. We'll water the ponies. Chunky, help lead those bronchos to the water hole, will you?"
The two boys and the noisy plainsmen gathered the tired animals and led them to the hole that had been dug in the desert. Stacy sprang in and began dipping out pails of water.
Bud grabbed the first pailful, but instead of offering it to one of the thirsty animals, he deliberately emptied the contents over the head of the boy down in the hole.
"Hi, there! Stop that, will you?" howled Stacy Brown.
The fat boy was mad all through.
He scrambled from the hole, dragging a slopping pail of water after him, while Bud Stevens roared with delight. But his mirth was short-lived.
Stacy ran around the hole and straight at the cowboy who had soaked him with the yellow water. Up went the pail.
Splash!
The contents of it were hurled full in the face of the wild cowboy, who at that moment, having his mouth wide open, got a mouthful of it.
The battle was on instantly. Tad knew it was coming, but he did not think it would be directed at him this time, though he realized that he would have to protect his companion at any cost.
Choking and sputtering, Bud made a blind lunge at Tad, his eyes being so full of muddy water that he could barely make out the slender form of the Pony Rider Boy.
Tad ducked and dodged, hoping that Stevens would tire of pursuing him in a moment. The lad might have called to the others over by the camp, but he was too proud to do that. He would fight his own battles, no matter what the odds were against him.
"I've got to get in," muttered the lad. "He's seeing clearer every minute, and the longer I wait the less chance I'll have of getting out with a whole skin.
"I'm coming, kiddie!" roared Bud.
Tad made no reply.
Stooping as if for a spring, Butler launched himself straight at the pillar of brawn and muscle before him. Had he hesitated for the briefest part of a second—had he permitted those muscular arms to close about him, Tad Butler would have gone down to a quick and inglorious defeat.
But he did not wait.
The lad's right arm was brought sharply against the neck of his adversary, while at the same time his left arm was slipped under the cowboy's right leg. The result was that Stevens lurched to the left. A quick jerk and Bud was fairly lifted from the ground.
Tad gave a quick, forceful tug.
Bud Stevens landed on his head in the pool of yellow water, his feet beating the air wildly.