But presently something happened which put the thought of the mysterious shadows out of his mind. The wind began to abate. To be sure, at first it hardly seemed to have diminished its force, but in the course of half an hour or so the party could once more emerge, like so many ostriches, from their sand-piles, and gaze about them.
Very little sand was in the air now, but it was everywhere else. In their eyes, mouths, ears, while, if they shook their heads, a perfect little shower of it fell all about them. The animals, too, struggling to their feet out of the little mounds that had formed around them, were covered with a thick coat of grayish dust. It was a sorry-looking party. With red-rimmed eyes, cracked, parched lips and swollen tongues, they looked as if they had been dragged through a blast furnace.
The sky above them now shone with its brilliant, metallic blue once more, while ahead, the sun was sinking lower. In a short time it would have set, and, as Ralph Stetson, in a choked voice, called for "Water," the same thought flashed across the minds of all of them simultaneously.
If they didn't get water pretty soon, their predicament promised to be a serious one.
An examination of the canteens showed that not much more than a gallon remained. If only they could yet "pick up" the mesa before dark, this would not be so serious a matter, but, situated as they were, it was about as bad as bad could be.
"Waal," said Pete, at length, stroking the last grains of sand out of his bleached moustache, "waal, I reckon we might as well hang fer a sheep as er lamb, anyhow. Ef we don't hit water purty soon, we'll be thirstier yet, so we might as well fill up now."
"Illogical, but sensible," pronounced the professor, leading an eager rush for the water canteens, which were carried on the pack burros.
"Here, hold on; that's enough!" cried Jack, as Ralph Stetson bent over backward with the canteen still at his lips.
"Why, I haven't begun to drink yet," protested Ralph.
"Chaw on a bullet, son," advised Pete. "Thet's highly recommended for the thirst."
"Water suits me better," grumbled Ralph, nevertheless yielding the canteen to Jack. The lad drank sparingly, as did Pete and the others. Ralph, alone, of all the party, appeared not to realize how very precious even the little water that remained might become before long.
Refreshed even by the small quantity they had swallowed of the tepid stuff, they remounted, and Pete clambered up upon his saddle. While his pony stood motionless beneath him, he stood erect upon the leather seat. From this elevation, he scanned the horizon on every side. Far off to the southwest was sweeping a dun-colored curtain—the departing sand-storm, but that was all. Otherwise, the desert was unchanged from its previous aspect.
"Let me hev a look at thet thar compass," said Pete, resuming a sitting posture once more.
Jack extended his wrist.
"The compass is all right, I know," he said confidently.
"And I know that we've bin hitting the right trail," declared Pete. "Last time I come this way was with an old prospector who knew this part of the country well enough to 'pick up' a clump of cactus. If that compass is right, we're headed straight."
"Yes—if," put in the professor. "But are you quite sure it is?"
This was putting the matter in a new light. Not one of the party was so ignorant as not to know that, in the many miles they had traveled, the deflection of the needle, by even the smallest degree, might have meant a disastrous error.
"Why, I—I—how can it help being right?" asked Jack, a little uncertainly.
"Which side have you been carrying your revolver on?" asked the professor.
"Why, you know—on the left side," rejoined Jack, with some surprise.
"And the compass on the left wrist?"
"Yes. Why? Isn't it——"
"No, it ain't!" roared Pete. "I see it all now, perfusser; that thar shootin' iron has bin deflectin' ther needle."
"I fear so," rejoined the professor.
Under his direction, Jack moved the compass into various positions, and at the end of a quarter of an hour they arrived at the startling conclusion that they had travelled perhaps many miles out of their way. The metal of the weapons Jack carried having, as they saw only too clearly now, deflected the needle.
"What an idiot I was not to think of such a possibility!" exclaimed Jack bitterly.
"Not at all, my boy," comforted the professor. "The same thing has happened to experienced sea-captains, and they have navigated many miles off their course before they discovered their error."
"All of which, not bein' at' sea, don't help us any," grunted Pete. "Suppose now, perfusser, that you jes' figger out as well as you kin, how far wrong we hev gone."
"It will be a difficult task, I fear," said the professor.
"It'll be a heap difficulter task, ef we don't hit water purty soon," retorted the cow-puncher.
Thus admonished, Professor Wintergreen divested himself of his weapons, and, taking out a small notebook, began, with the compass before him, to make some calculations. At the end of ten minutes or so, he raised his head.
"Well?" asked Jack eagerly.
"Well," rejoined the professor, "it's not as bad as it might be. We are, according to my reckoning, about twenty-five miles farther to the south than we should be."
He consulted his notebook once more.
"The bearings of the mesa require us to travel in that direction." He indicated a point to the northward of where they were halted.
"And it's twenty-five miles, you say?" asked Pete.
"About that. It may be more, and again it may be less."
"Waal, the less it is, ther better it'll suit yours truly. This stock is jes' about tuckered."
With the professor now bearing the compass, they set out once more, this time taking the direction indicated by the man of science.
"Suppose the professor is wrong?" Ralph whispered to Jack, as they urged their almost exhausted cayuses onward.
Jack shrugged his shoulders.
"What's the use of supposing?" he said.
It was sun-down, and a welcome coolness had begun to be noticeable in the air, when Jack gave a shout and pointed directly ahead of them.
"Look, look!" he cried. "What's that?"
"That" was only a small purplish speck on the far horizon, but it broke the monotony of the sky-line sharply. Coyote Pete scrutinized it with keen eyes for a moment, narrowing his optics till they were mere slits. Then—
"Give me the glasses, perfusser," he requested. Every one in the party knew that their lives, or deaths probably, hung on the verdict of the next few seconds, but Pete's slow drawl was more pronounced and unperturbed than ever. He put the glasses to his eyes as unconcernedly as if he were searching for a bunch of estrays. Presently he lowered them.
"Is—is it——?" began Jack, while the others all bent forward in their saddles, hanging on the rejoinder.
"It is," declared Pete, and he might have said more, but the rest of his words were drowned in a ringing cheer.
CHAPTER III.
A NIGHT ALARM.
"How far distant do you imagine it is?" inquired the professor, as they rode forward with their drooping spirits considerably revived.
"Not more than fifteen miles—if it is that, 'cording ter my calcerlations," decided Pete.
"Then we should arrive there by ten o'clock to-night."
"About that time—yep. That is, if none of ther stock give out beforehand."
"Why do they call it the Haunted Mesa?" inquired Jack.
"Some fool old Injun notion 'bout ghosts er spirits hauntin' it," rejoined Pete.
"Just as well for us they have that idea," said Walt. "They'll give it a wide berth."
It flashed across Jack's mind at that moment to tell about the vague, gigantic shapes he had seen flit by in the gloom of the sand-storm. But, viewed in the present light, it seemed so absurd that the boy hesitated to do so.
"Maybe I was mistaken after all," he thought to himself. "There was so much sand blowing at
the time that I might very well have had a blurred vision."
The next minute he was doubly glad that he had refrained from telling of his weird experience, for the professor, in a scornful voice, spoke up.
"Such foolish superstitions did exist in the ancient days, when every bush held a spirit and every rock was supposed to be endowed with sentient life. Happily, nowadays, none but the very ignorant credit such things. By educated people they are laughed at."
Pete, who was jogging steadily on ahead of the rest of them, made no rejoinder. Ralph, however, spoke up.
"What would you do, if you were to see a spirit, professor?" he inquired, with an expression of great innocence in his round, plump face.
"I'd take after it with a good thick stick," was the ready reply. "That is, always supposing that one could see such a thing."
Darkness fell rapidly. Night, in fact, rushed down on them as soon almost as the sun sank behind the western rim of the desert. To the south some jagged sierras grew purple and then black in the fading light. Fortunately there was a moon, though the luminary of night was in her last quarter. However, the silvery light added to the brilliance of the desert stars, gave them all the radiance they needed to pursue their way.
The travelers could now perceive the outlines of the Haunted Mesa more clearly. It reared itself strangely out of the surrounding solitudes, almost as if it were the work of human hands, instead of the result of long-spent geological forces.
"Wish we were there now," breathed Ralph, patting his pony's sweating forequarters, "poor old Petticoats is about 'all in.'"
"It's purty hard to kill a cayuse," rejoined Pete. "I've seen 'em flourish on cottonwood leaves and alkali water—yep, and git fat on it, too. Be like a cayuse, my son, and adapt yourself to carcumstances."
"Very good advice," said the professor approvingly, as the desert philosopher concluded.
As Pete had conjectured, the ponies were far from being as tuckered out as they appeared, despite their sunken flanks and distended nostrils. As the cool night drew on, and they approached more nearly to the upraised form of the mesa, the little animals even began to prick their ears and whinny softly. The pack animals, too, seemed to pluck up spirits amazingly.
"They smell grass and water," commented Pete, as he observed these signs.
Shortly after ten, as had been surmised, they were among the bunch-grass surrounding the mesa. Striking such a spot after their long wanderings on the hot desert, was delightful, indeed. Presently, too, came to their ears the tinkling sound of flowing water.
"It's the overflow from them old-timers' well at the base of the mesa," pronounced Pete, listening.
"Yes, and here it is," cried Jack, who had been riding a short distance in advance, and had suddenly come across a small stream.
The water was but a tiny thread, but it looked as welcome just then as a whole lake. Cautioning the boys to keep their ponies back, Pete took a long-handled shovel from one of the packs, and soon excavated quite a little basin. While he had been doing this, the boys had had to restrain their thirst, for the ponies were almost crazy with impatience to get at the water. It required all the boys' management, in fact, to keep them from breaking away and getting at the water. In the heated condition of the little animals, this might have meant a case of foundering. At last Pete let the thirsty creatures take a little water, and afterward they were tethered to a clump of brush, while the boys themselves assuaged their pangs. After their first ravenous thirst was quenched—which was not soon—they took turns in dashing water over each other's heads, removing the last traces of the sand-storm. This done, they all declared that they felt like new men,—or boys,—and a unanimous cry for supper arose.
"Let me see, now," mused Pete, gazing up at the purplish, black heights of the mesa above them, "as I recollect it, there's only one path up thar. The good book says, foller the strait and narrer path, but it don't say nothing about doing it in the dark, so I reckon that the best thing we can do will be to camp right under that bluff thar, whar the water comes out, till it gets to be daylight."
This was agreed to be an excellent plan, and, accordingly, the stock having been tethered out amidst the bunch-grass, the packs were unloaded, and the work of getting a camp in shape proceeded apace. In that part of New Mexico, although it is warm enough by day, nightfall brings with it a sharp chill. It was decided, therefore, to rig up the tents and sleep under their protection. The three canvas shelters of the bell type were soon erected, and then, with mesquite roots, Coyote Pete kindled a fire and put the kettle on. Supper consisted of corned beef, canned corn and canned tomatoes, with coffee, hard biscuit and cheese.
"I'll bet we're the first folks that have eaten a meal here for many a long day," said Jack, looking about him, after his hunger had been satisfied.
"It is, in all probability, fifteen hundred years or more since the first inhabitants of this mesa dwelt here," announced the professor.
"My! My! You could boil an egg in that time," commented Pete, drawing out his old black briar and lighting it. He lay on one elbow and began to smoke contemplatively.
The others did not speak for a few moments, so engrossed were they with the ideas that the professor had summoned up. Once, perhaps, this dead, black, empty mesa above them had held busy, bustling life. Now it stood silently brooding amid the desolation stretched about it, as solitary as the Sphinx itself.
The spot at which they were camped was the sheer, or cliff side of the mesa. At the other side they knew, from Coyote Pete's description, were numerous openings and a zig-zag pathway leading up to the very summit. It was on this summit, which according to the most accurate information obtainable had once been used for the sacrificial rites of sun worship, that the professor expected to find the relics for which he was searching.
For an hour or two the lads discussed the dead-and-gone mesa dwellers, with an occasional word from the professor, who was deeply read on the subject. This was all so much Greek to Pete, who solemnly smoked away, every now and then putting in a word or two, but for the most part lying in silence, looking out beyond the black shadow of the mesa across the moonlit desert toward the rocky hills to the south.
Suddenly, the lanky cowboy leaped to his feet with a yell that punctured the silence like a pistol-shot. In two flying leaps, he had bounded clear over the professor's head, and was in among the tents, searching for his pistol. Before one of the amazed group about the fire could collect his senses at the sudden galvanizing of Coyote Pete, he was back among them again.
"Wow!" he yelled into the night, "come on, there, you, whoever you are! Come on, I say! I'll give you a fight! Yep, big as you are, I ain't skeered of you."
"Pete! Pete! Whatever is the matter?" gasped Jack, who, with the others, was by this time on his feet.
"Matter?" howled Pete. "Matter enough. I do begin to think this place shore is haunted, or suthin'. As I lay there, I felt suthin' tiptoeing about behind me, and when I whipped suddenly round ter see if one of the critters hadn't broken loose, what did I see but a great, big, enormous thing, as big as a house, looking down at me. Afore I could say a word, it was gone."
"Gone!" echoed the others. "What was it?"
"Wish you'd tell me," sputtered the cow-puncher, looking about him, and still gripping his gun, "I never saw the like in all my born days."
"Well, what did it look like?"
"Hard to tell you," rejoined Pete. "It was as big as that." He pointed right up at the moon.
"As tall as the moon? Oh, come, Pete, you had dropped off and were dreaming," laughed Ralph.
"Who said it was as tall as the moon?" demanded the excited cow-puncher angrily. "I only meant to convey to your benighted senses some idee uv what it luked like."
"Well, how high was it?" asked Jack, in whose tones was a curious note of interest, for a reason we can guess.
"About twenty feet, as near's I could judge. It had red eyes, that glared like the tail-lamps of a train, and it spat fire, and it——"
/> "Whoa! Whoa!" laughed Walt Phelps. "Now we know it was a nightmare, Pete. The dream of a rarebit fiend. You ate too much crackers and cheese at supper."
"How was it we didn't see it?" asked Ralph, who had not spoken up till now.
"Why, you were lying with your back toward the direction it came from," explained Pete.
"An interesting optical delusion," declared the professor. "I must make a note of it, and——"
"Wow! There it goes ag'in."
"Where? Where?" chorused the boys.
"Right off there! Look! Look!"
The lanky cow-puncher, fairly dancing about with excitement, pointed out beyond the shadow of the solitary mesa. Sure enough, there were three or four enormous, black, shadowy shapes, traveling across the sands at a seemingly great speed.
"Get your rifles, boys!" yelled Jack.
The weapons lay handy, and in a jiffy four beads had been drawn on the immense, vague shapes.
But even as their fingers pressed the triggers, and the four reports rang out as one, the indefinite forms vanished as mysteriously as they had appeared.
CHAPTER IV.
SOME QUEER TRACKS.
The hour, the surroundings, and the utter mystery of the whole affair combined to make the sudden appearance and vanishment of the great shadowy shapes the more inexplicable, not to say alarming. Small wonder was it that the inquiring faces that turned toward each other were a trifle whiter than usual.
"What do you make of it, Pete?" asked Jack.
"Stumped, by the big horn spoon!" was the expressive response.
"No doubt, some natural phenomena, with a simple explanation," came from the professor. It was noted, though, that his angular form seemed to be somewhat shivery as he spoke, and that his teeth chattered like dice rattling in a box.
"Natural phe-nothings!" burst out Pete. "The things, whatever they was, were as solid as you or me."
"How was it they didn't make any noise, then?" inquired Ralph, practically.
"Waal, son, you jes' take a run on the bunchgrass, and you'll see that you won't make no racket, nuther."
The Border Boys Across the Frontier Page 2
