CHAPTER II
THE DESTROYER
"Who's that good-lookin' Indian, Jerry?" asked Fred, as the light ofFort Bayard came into sight.
"Araviapa Apache," came the reply. "He's been chasing around the Post'most all his life. Came from the San Carlos agency, I guess, so folkscalled him Carl. Used to be a Dutchman named Carl here, and the Greaserscalled the Injun Carlito, or Little Carl. He goes by both names. He'sthe cool guy, you bet, and a wise one, too."
"But what does he do?" persisted the practical Fred. "He can't live onair, can he? Does he get his living for nothing?"
"Don't you think it! Not him," returned Dunk warmly. "He does a lot ofwork for us--trailin', and things like that. He's a bird at it."
"Yes, and he's learned to read and write," added Fly. "You kids ought tosee some of the books and stuff he's got."
There was no more time for conversation, as they now drew into the Postgrounds and drove up to the house occupied by the Crawfords, where theguests were to stay. The captain and two or three of his brotherofficers met the new arrivals. At the tale of the runaway there wasgreat excitement on the veranda and Captain Crawford called Ike up fromthe drive. After examining the teamster and the boys, he gave up theeffort he was making to solve the mystery of the runaway.
"It must have been a bird," laughed Dr. Rivers, who bore the title oflieutenant.
"That seems to be the only explanation," admitted the captain. "Are yousure the thing hit you, Ike?"
"Yessah," maintained the teamster stoutly. "It was the s'prise more'nanythin' else that knocked me off, Cap'n. Felt like a bird, though."
"It was too large, father," protested Jerry. "There ain't no bird as bigas that. Mebbe it was an aeroplane."
The officers laughed, but Jerry stuck to it that the "thing" was not abird. The examination ended in nothing. The boys had brought the mailover with them, so as soon as the ladies had retired the officers wentover to the quartermaster's office while the four boys separated for thenight.
The next day was a perfect one such as only the New Mexican hills canproduce. To the north and west of Fort Bayard stretched a wilderness ofdeep valleys and mountain peaks as far as the Rio Gila. The BreadPudding ranch, as the Circle B P was locally known, lay five miles tothe east.
After breakfasting, Fred and his mother were driven around the garrison.There was plenty to be seen, and neither Jerry nor Fred realized how thetime was flying until Dunk approached.
"Hey, Jerry," called the latter, with some show of indignation. "What'sthe mater with you? We've been waiting more'n an hour."
After hastily explaining to the older members of the party that theywere going over to the ranch for the day, Jerry and Fred accompaniedDunk to the stables. Here they found Fly and Carlito waiting and aftersaddling up they speedily left Fort Bayard behind.
"Ever ride much?" asked Dunk, seeing that Fred experienced a littledifficulty with his saddle.
"Sure, lots!" replied the Cleveland boy.
"Never ran up against this kind of saddle, though. Spanish, ain't it?"
"Used to be," grinned Jerry. "Good U. S. now. Say, Carlito, what wasthat thing that scared our horses last night?"
"You'll hear more of that when we get to the ranch," replied the Apache,looking away. Fred noticed that Carlito spoke slowly and used exactEnglish, probably gained from books. "I do not know what it was but--"
"Well, but what?" prodded Dunk.
"I think it must have been the Thunder Bird!" concluded Carlito.
A shout went up from all except Fred, who asked wonderingly what theThunder Bird was.
"It's one of the old Injun gods, Windy," explained Dunk. "He made thelightning and thunder and had something to do with the rain and crops.General boss of the gods, wasn't he, Carlo?"
"Pretty near," nodded the Apache gravely. "The Thunder Bird not onlyrepresented the Deity but he had great power over rain, which isimportant in this part of the country. Our people used to have greatsacrifices to him twice a year."
"Human sacrifices?" asked Fred innocently. At this even Carlito burstout laughing.
"Where'm I off now?" cried Fred.
"There were no human sacrifices," replied the Indian boy. "Only theAztecs used to have them. Our people and the other Apaches, the Navajos,Moqui and neighboring tribes used to appoint deputies twice each year.They'd go to a certain place where the medicine men went throughelaborate rituals, the deputies representing the tribes. No people is sosymbolical as we are--or were. I mean by that in religious rites. Forinstance, every line of paint and every article used has a symbolicaland often mystical meaning."
"That Gov'ment shark from Washington," said Jerry, "who was here lastsummer, knew a lot about that. He sent dad one of his books, and thewhole thing explained a single six-day Zuni corn feast!"
"Say, speed up, fellows. You jog along as though we had all day andto-morrow," and Fly spurred up his pony, calling back, "Race you to theturn of the road."
For a few minutes the boys made the dust fly, and, despite the goodstart Fly had made, Windy came in first with Carlito a close second.They kept up a brisk canter all the way to the ranch.
"Here come the other fellows, Windy," said Dunk, as they reached the B.P. Windy saw two horses leave the corral now only a few hundred feetaway. The two approached at a gallop and a moment later met the Postboys with a yell. One of the B. P. boys was roughly and carelesslydressed and was brown as an Indian. He was introduced to Fred as HerbPhipps. The second wore a Boy Scout tenderfoot emblem on his flannelshirt. This was Howard Graystock, the New Yorker. His face lit up as hesaw the first-class and merit badges that decorated Fred's shirt.
"How long you been a scout, Windham?" he asked as the party whirled androde up to the corral.
"'Bout three years," replied Fred, dismounting.
"Wish I was first-class!" rejoined Gray. "I swore in about a week beforeI come out here." He lowered his voice slightly, "Say, you back me an'Phipps up strong, will you? Don't say anything--you'll see prettyquick."
Fred laughed assent as all dismounted, and they joined the others. Afterturning the horses into the corral the party started up to the house butwere stopped by a hail. Looking around, they saw a large man stridingaround the opposite end of the corral. The boys from the Fort gave him ashout of greeting and all waited for him to come up.
Brett Phipps was big in every sense of the word. He had fought his wayup from cowpuncher to millionaire by sheer strength of will and brains.Although he had started on a Texas ranch and fully shared the prejudicesof the cow-men against the sheepmen, he realized that there was bigmoney in sheep. Therefore he had started the large Circle B. P. sheepranch near Fort Bayard where there was good water, although he owned alarge cow range in the Taos country as well.
Like the boys he was dressed in flannel shirt and wide Stetson. Over histrousers he wore chaps of plain leather, to protect his clothes from thewear of the saddle, and his legs from rattlers. He greeted the partyvigorously.
"Well, I'm sure glad to see yuh, boys! Hullo, new member? Windham? Gladto meet yuh! Hang up on the veranda, boys, till I get these chaps off.Right back."
He disappeared inside the house, and the boys "hung up" on the wideveranda which was littered with canvas, reed and other easy-chairs.Indeed, the veranda of the ranch-house served largely as an office andliving room combined. Both Mr. Phipps and the boys spent a large shareof their time there.
In a few moments the rancher returned minus his chaps, followed by aChinaman, the ranch-house cook, who greeted the boys with a cheerfulgrin of recognition.
"What'll it be?" inquired Mr. Phipps, as he sank into a big chair andglanced around.
"Lemonade!" arose the shout, and the "Chink" vanished.
"Carl hinted last night that you had something special on, Herb," beganDunk to the rancher's son. Herb grinned and looked at his father.
"Not me," he said. "I reckon dad has somethin' under his hat, though."
At this moment the Celestial returned with a giga
ntic olla or Mexicanjar full of lemonade, together with glasses.
"Well, John, didn't take you long," said Mr. Phipps, as he tossed off aglass with a sigh of satisfaction.
"Him all leddy," grinned the Chinaman.
"Let's get together, boys," commanded Mr. Phipps, with a sweep of hisbroad hand. "I've got to get over to Three Mile Crick after lunch, so Ireckon we'll hold a confab right now."
The boys hitched their chairs up closer to Mr. Phipps and the lemonade,and when their glasses had been refilled the ranchman continued.
"Mebbe y'all don't know it, but there's been a lot o' devilment goin' onfor quite a spell back. We've kep' it dark, hopin' to catch whoever doneit, but no chance. There's somethin' or some one raisin' Cain with mysheep. We've missed a lot o' lambs, plumb gone. We've found sheep withpieces o' their backs clean torn out, an' last week I come across a bigram all smashed to bits like he'd been dropped off a cliff.
"Night 'fore last young Morales who has a hut ten mile north of here,hears somethin' doin' and rushes out of his hut. Bein' a Greaser hedon't know any better than to yell. Somethin' jabs him in the shoulderand he lets off his sixgun. Then, he swears he heard wings an' wascarried up in the air for a minute and was dropped. O' course all that'spure guff--yuh can't believe what a Greaser says nohow. But Jap Fisher,my foreman, finds him yesterday lyin' with his leg broke, a couplehundred yards from the hut."
"Mebbe he wasn't lyin', Mr. Phipps!" broke in Jerry excitedly. "Listen."And he rapidly sketched their adventure of the night before. It was nowthe turn of Herb and Gray to stare, while Mr. Phipps listened in growingsurprise.
"Jehosaphat!" he exclaimed when Jerry finished. "That sure beats me! Ifigured Morales was doin' a heap o' fabricatin', but he may 'a' told thetruth for once. Anyhow, here's what I had in mind. Gray has been fillin'me and Herb up with his Boy Scout stuff, so I want to know why y'alldon't get busy? If yuh will, I'll put up for the equipment on conditionthat yuh get right after what's raisin' thunder with them sheep. Youboys have a heap o' time hangin' heavy on your young hands, and yuhmight as well be doin' somethin' useful. It'll save me bringin' in a loto' men from Silver City, an' as far as brain goes yuh'll have 'em beat amile. How about it?"
Fred caught an appealing glance from Gray, and though he hesitated toput himself forward, he was a loyal scout, and as he had taken a decidedliking to the clean-cut New Yorker, he felt obliged to comply with theearnest request Gray had made when they met.
"I think it's bully, Mr. Phipps," Fred gathered courage to say. "Ofcourse I'm new out here an' all that, but I've been in the scouts prettynear three years now and it's done me a heap of good. More fun than acircus too."
"Sure, we'll do it!" cried Dunk. "We'll lay for that Thunder Bird ofyours, Carl, eh, Jerry?"
"Bet your life!" answered Jerry fervently.
"Here wait a minute," cried Mr. Phipps. "What's this about the ThunderBird, Carlito? What do you know 'bout this thing?"
"Nothing, sir," replied the young Apache with a smile. "I just guessedthat it was the Thunder Bird. Of course, I don't believe that. We couldcertainly have some fun besides being of possible use to you."
"Count me in too," cried Fly. "Aviator's badge for mine!"
"Same here," "Me too." "That's what I say," came from all the boys.
"Good," shouted Jerry enthusiastically. "Carl can run the trailin' endof it an' Dunk can boss the first-aid work an' Windy'll be chief cookand bottle washer o' the whole bunch!"
"There's the lunch gong," laughed Mr. Phipps, springing to his feet."Come on to grub pile! I've got to get away pretty quick, but y'all canhave the ranch to yourselves all day. Comin', Hop Sing, comin'. Chasealong, boys!"
Boy Scouts of the Air in Indian Land Page 2
