CHAPTER XVIII
LOST IN THE BAD LANDS
"Gum!" cried Jack. "Gum! That's the stuff, Budge!"
"The very thing!" added Tanker Ike. "I wonder I didn't think to ask forsome. That will be better than the pebbles. Pass it around, young man."
Budge handed out packages of gum, which he was seldom without, and soonall the travelers were busily engaged in chewing it. In a measure itrelieved their thirst at once, and their tongues felt less swollen, andnot so much like pieces of leather.
"'Stoobad," remarked Budge as he put in a fresh wad.
"What is?" asked Jack.
"That the horses can't chew," replied Budge.
"Hu! I guess it would take a bigger cud than you could muster to satisfya horse--or a mule," remarked Tanker Ike. "But it's lucky you had it forus. I was feeling pretty bad."
The little diversion caused by the production of the gum and the reliefit brought, helped them to pass over several miles in a comfortablefashion. But the terrible thirst did not leave them, and as for thehorses and mules, they were half crazed, or "locoed," as Tanker Ikeexpressed it.
How they traveled the remainder of that day none of them could tellexactly afterward. But they managed to keep on, and just as it wasbeginning to get dusk there was a sudden movement among the animals.
"They smell water," cried Ike as the mules, drawing the heavy wagon,broke into a run. "They smell water! They do, for sure!"
And he was right. Half an hour later they came to a small water hole,and here they slaked their thirst, drinking slowly at first, and keepingthe animals back from it by main force, until they had each been given apailful, which they drank greedily. Then, after the life-giving fluidhad had a chance to take off the first pangs of thirst, boys, men andhorses drank more freely.
"Petrified persimmons!" exclaimed Nat. "I used to think ice-cream sodaswere the best ever, but now I think a cupful of water from a mud hole isthe finest thing that ever came over the pike. Let's have another,boys!"
Their sufferings were at an end, and, their thirsts having been slaked,they ate a good meal and rested that night beside the water hole.
The next day they reached the Shoshone River and the end of the desert.
"Well, boys, now I'm going to leave you," said Tanker Ike. "Long Gunwill be here pretty soon, and he'll show you where to get some big game.Then you'll have to sort of shift for yourselves. Mexican Pete will takeyour camp stuff wherever you tell him to, and the rest depends on you."
"Oh, I guess we'll make out all right," replied Jack.
"But what about that Indian, Long Gun?" asked Sam. "I thought he was tomeet us here."
"He will," replied Tanker Ike confidently, and, sure enough, about anhour later there sauntered into the camp a tall, silent Indian guide,who, as he advanced to the fire, uttered but one word:
"How?"
"How?" responded the plainsman, and then he introduced the boys.
Long Gun merely grunted his salutations, and then seating himself nearthe fire, he took out his pipe and began to smoke.
"I wonder why he doesn't pass it around," whispered Nat to Jack.
"Pass what around?"
"His pipe? Isn't that a peace pipe? I thought Indians always smoked thepipe of peace with their friends."
Long Gun must have had good ears, for he looked up at Nat's words. Thenhe smiled grimly.
"No peace pipe. Corn-cob pipe--plenty bad, too," he said. "Yo' gotbetter one?"
"No, Long Gun, they don't use pipes," said Tanker Ike with a smile.
"Say, he understands English," remarked Sam.
"That's what," put in Bony.
"Pity he wouldn't," remarked Ike. "He's been guiding hunting parties ofwhite men for the last ten years."
Early the next morning Tanker Ike started back, taking a longer trail,that would not make it necessary for him to cross the desert. On theadvice of Long Gun the boys and Mexican Pete started off up into themountains, where they were to make a camp, and begin to hunt.
"Here good place," remarked Long Gun that afternoon, as they came to alevel clearing on the shoulder of the mountain. "Plenty much mule deerand sheep here. Like um jack-rabbits, or um bear? Plenty git here. Wecamp."
"Hu! Good!" grunted Mexican Pete, and he began to unload the wagon. In ashort time all the things Jack and the other boys had brought were onthe ground, beside the two tents that formed part of their outfit.
"At last it begins to look like camping," remarked Bony.
"It'll look a good deal more like it if you'll give us a correctimitation of a fellow helping put up a tent," said Jack. "Every one getbusy, now."
Mexican Pete started back with the freight wagon, agreeing to come andget the camp stuff whenever word was sent to Tanker Ike or him.
They pitched in with a will, Budge helping to good advantage, and soonthe canvas shelters were up, a fire built, and, under Jack's direction,a meal was in progress, Long Gun volunteering to oversee this.
It was no novelty for the boys to sleep in a tent at camp, but as thenight advanced they found that it was far from being summer, in spite ofthe hot days, and they were glad of heavy clothing and the blanketswhich they had brought along.
"Now for a hunt!" cried Jack the next morning, after a fine, hotbreakfast. "Long Gun, I want to get a big mule deer."
"I want a bear!" cried Sam.
"A big-horn sheep for mine!" was Nat's stipulation.
"I'd like a mountain lion," remarked Bony.
"How about you, Budge?" asked Jack.
"'FIkillanelkI'llbesatisfied," was the answer.
"An elk!" exclaimed Jack. "I guess so! Why, I'd like that myself."
"Well, I thought I might as well wish for something big while I was atit," said Budge calmly, as he stowed away some fresh gum.
Under the guidance of Long Gun they mounted their horses and started outfor their first hunt in that region. The Indian gave them some goodadvice about how to shoot, for going after big game was something new tothem.
"If git lost, fire gun," was the Indian's final word of caution.
They rode on together for a mile or more, but got no sight of any game.
"I think we'd better separate," suggested Jack. "We'll never getanything if we stick together. Let's try it alone. We can meet at somecentral point. Eh, Long Gun?"
"Hu!" grunted the Indian. "Git lost, maybe."
"That's right," assented Bony. "I don't want to go off alone."
"Well, Nat and I will strike off to the left," went on Jack. "You, Samand Budge can keep with Long Gun and go to the right. We'll meet by thatbig peak over there," and he pointed to one that could easily be seen.
This was agreed to, the Indian giving his consent with a grunt, and thenJack and Nat started off alone.
"I hope we get something," remarked Jack when they had traveled for amile or more.
"Same here," added Nat. "Let's go closer to that bad lands section LongGun told us of."
"I'm afraid we'll get lost," objected Jack.
The bad lands, as they are called, are a peculiar tract covered with tenthousand little sawtooth peaks and cones of earth and sandstone, risingabruptly from the plain, and so closely set together, and so lacking inany distinctive objects to mark them, that one can wander about in themas in a maze. The two lads had been hunting on the edge of them, but hadnot ventured in.
"Oh, I guess we can find our way back, if we don't go in too far," saidNat.
"Well," began Jack a little doubtfully, "I don't know----" And then hesaw something that made him change his mind.
"Look!" he whispered to Nat, and his chum, looking where Jack pointed,saw a big deer, just on the edge of the bad lands, and about to enterthem.
"It's a buck!" exclaimed Nat, bringing his rifle around.
"We'll follow him and get a shot," decided Jack, and they left theirhorses and began to stalk the big buck. Fortunately the wind was blowingfrom him to them, or the animal might have taken fright. As it was, theywere not far behind him when he e
ntered the maze of little peaks.
Several times they thought they were in a position to get a good shot,but each time the deer moved just as one or the other of the lads wasdrawing a bead on him.
Finally Jack got just the chance he wanted. Kneeling down he took quickaim and pulled the trigger. The report that followed nearly deafened himand Nat, so many were the echoes, but when the smoke cleared away theysaw the big deer lying on the ground not far away.
"KNEELING DOWN, HE TOOK QUICK AIM AND PULLED THETRIGGER."]
"You've got him!" cried Nat.
"Our first big game!" exclaimed Jack as he ran forward.
"My, but he's big!" commented Nat. "How we going back to camp?"
"Put him on the horses, of course," said Jack. "We can do it. We'll leadthem up here."
"Sure," responded Nat. "I forgot we had 'em. We'll go back and lead 'emin."
They started back, full of confidence in their ability to find wherethey had tethered the animals. They walked on for half an hour, and thenJack said:
"Say, it seems to me we're a long time finding those horses."
"That's right," agreed Nat. "We didn't take so long coming in here. Iguess we came the wrong way."
"I'm sure of it," declared Jack. "We should have gone to the right."
"No, the left."
They discussed it for some time, and finally decided to try the right.They went on for some distance, but no horses were seen.
"Let's go back to where we left the deer and begin over," proposed Jack.
They started, but the sawtooth peaks seemed to multiply. They turnedthis way and that, but could not find the place where they had madetheir first kill.
"Jack," said Nat at length, "do you know it's getting late?"
"It sure is," admitted his chum.
The sun was low in the western sky. The two boys stared about them. Onevery side were the peculiar peaks of the bad lands. Jack turned aroundin a circle. He was trying to see some landmark, by which he could tellwhether they had passed that spot before. He saw none.
"Nat," he said finally, "we're lost."
Jack Ranger's Gun Club; Or, From Schoolroom to Camp and Trail Page 19
