Ralph did as he was directed, and it was really wonderful how silently he sped over the springy vegetation.
"Maybe it was somebody putting up a scare on us," suggested Walt, rather lamely.
"They couldn't rig up anything as big as that," said Jack decisively, "besides, there's another thing—I didn't tell you because I thought I might have been mistaken, but I saw those same things this afternoon."
"What?" went up in a perfect roar of incredulity.
"Say, is this some kind of a josh?" asked Coyote Pete suspiciously.
"Never more serious in my life," Jack assured him, and then went on to relate the strange experience that had befallen him when he had poked his head out from under the saddle in the sand-storm.
"If they weren't so enormous, I should say they was horses," said Pete; "but the biggest horses that ever growed never even approached them critters—spooks, er whatever they are."
"There are giants among men," suggested Walt, "why shouldn't there be giants among spooks, too?"
"You get to Halifax with that spook talk," said Coyote Pete scornfully. "I'll bet my Sunday sombrero that whatever them things is, there's some sore of human mischief back uv it. But what is it? Who put it up?"
"Yes, and what for, and why?" laughed Jack. "I tell you, fellows," he went on, "it's no use of our racking our brains to-night over this. The best thing we can do is to set a watch. Then, if they come again, we can try a shot at them. If not, why then in the morning we'll make an investigation; eh?"
"Durn good advice," grunted Coyote Pete. "Now, I'd suggest that ther perfusser takes ther fust watch, and——"
"No, no, my dear sir; really, I—I have a cold already. A-hem—ach-oo!"
The man of science, it seemed, had really developed serious bronchial trouble in record time.
"Why, professor," said Jack mischievously, "haven't I heard you say that you'd like a chance to investigate such a phenomenon as this?"
"Hum, yes—yes, my young friend. I may have said so, yes. And any other time I should be only too pleased to—Good Land! what's that?"
With the agility of a grasshopper, the professor had jumped fully three feet, as one of the pack-burros, nosing about behind him, accidentally butted him in the small of his back. The others burst into a roar of laughter, which they could not check. The professor, however, adjusted his spectacles solemnly and looked about him with much dignity.
"I thought I saw a book I had dropped, almost in the fire," he explained glibly, "so I jumped to get it before a hot ember fell on it."
"I had no idea you could jump like that, professor," laughed Jack. "You should have gone in for athletics at Stonefell."
It was finally decided that Walt and Ralph should stand the first watch, and Coyote Pete and Jack the last part of the night. The professor, after carefully drawing tight the curtain of his tent, "to keep the cold out," as he explained, retired. Soon after, Jack and the cow-puncher also went to bed till the watch should summon them to go on duty in their turn.
But the night passed without any reappearance of the strange shapes which had so upset the tranquility of the little camp, and, viewed in the fresh light of a new and glorious day, somehow the affair did not seem nearly so ominous and awe-inspiring as it had the night before. Breakfast, as you may imagine, was speedily disposed of, and, having seen to the stock, the party started out to explore the mesa itself.
As has been said, the side upon which they had camped the night before was nothing but a sheer cliff. Under the guidance of Coyote Pete, they now set out to encircle the strange precipitous formation. Their hearts beat high, and their eyes shone with an aroused sense of adventure as they strode along.
The professor carried with him a small volume containing a partial translation of the symbols and sign language of the ancient tribe whose domains they were about to invade. Jack had a coil of stout, half-inch manila rope, about two hundred feet in length. Walt Phelps' burden was a shovel, while Ralph Stetson carried an axe. All bore with them their revolvers, and Coyote Pete carried, in addition, a rifle.
"Are you afraid of anything?" the professor had asked him, as he noticed the sun-bronzed plainsman pick up this latter weapon.
"Waal," Pete had rejoined, with a portentous wink at the boys, "you never kin tell in this wale of tears what you're a-goin' up aginst—queer shapes, fer instance."
As they strode along, naturally the subject of the shadowy forms which had alarmed them the night before arose. Jack would have liked to investigate them right then and there, but, after all, he decided with the rest of the party, that an exploration of the mesa was the first thing of importance to be accomplished. And an interesting sight the great abandoned aboriginal beehive, was, as they rounded the inaccessible side and emerged upon the portion which faced toward the northwest.
Pete's recollection had not played him false. There was a rough pathway constructed up its face upon this side, and at the top were three tiers of holes bored in the rock face. These were evidently intended for windows, as a larger aperture was just as evidently meant for a door. The path, which zig-zagged up the face of the mesa was about eight inches in width, not more, at its base, and varied—so far as they could see from below—from that breadth to a foot, as it grew higher.
From the base to the summit the mesa was probably about one hundred and fifty feet in height, the windows not commencing till within twenty feet of the top. Its length at the base was, roughly, three hundred feet, and its thickness varied from three hundred feet or more at the center, to a few feet at each end. Roughly, then, its basic outline was that of an irregular parallelogram, while its profile was that of a flat-topped cone. For some moments the little group stood in silence as they gazed up at the yellowish-gray walls of the once-active mound.
Finally, recovering from their reverie, they set out after Coyote Pete to scale the narrow pathway leading to the summit. But, as the cow-puncher set his feet on the lowermost part of the path, he gave an exclamation of astonishment and pointed downward.
There in the dust was a footprint,—several of them, in fact.
It was a startling discovery in that isolated part of the desert to come upon the traces of human occupancy. Robinson Crusoe on his desert island could not have looked any more astonished at the imprint of the savage's sole, than did Coyote Pete. He stood looking down speechlessly at his discovery, while the others crowded about him, asking a dozen questions at once.
"If the sand-storm had hit this section, we'd been able to form some idee of how long ago them hoofs was planted there," said Pete; "but as it is, ther feller who wondered how ther apple got in ther dumpling didn't hev a harder problem than the nut we've got to crack."
"There must have been several of them," said Jack, who had been gazing in the dust, which lay thick on the pathway to the summit of the mesa.
"A dozen at least," nodded Pete. He tipped back his sombrero and scratched his ruffled hair, fairly at a standstill to account for what they had encountered.
"Mightn't it have been prospectors?" asked Ralph.
"Might hev bin, yes," agreed Pete; "but, fer one thing, my son, prospectors don't usually travel in dozens."
"Hum—that's so," assented Jack, who at first had greeted Ralph's suggestion eagerly.
"Look here!" cried Ralph suddenly, holding up a glittering object which he had just discerned in the bunch-grass at the base of the mesa.
"What is it, my boy?" inquired the professor.
Ralph extended the object for their inspection.
"A strange coin," cried Walt.
"Not so blamed strange, either," said Pete, picking it off the boy's palm and examining it. "It's a Mexican peso."
"Then the men who were here were Mexicans?" cried Jack.
"Not so fast, my boy," admonished Pete. "Might as well say that every feller who finds a Canadian dime in his pocket is a Kanuck. Say," he suggested suddenly, "suppose you boys jes' see if you can find any tracks around the base of the mesa."
Th
ey scattered and looked carefully about them, but the bunch-grass grew in quite a broad belt all about, and no footmarks could be discerned. Nor did a careful examination of the grass show any broken or trampled blades, as would have been the case had ponies been there recently.
"That decides it," announced Pete, after this last fact had been ascertained, "whoever made those foot-marks wasn't here recent, that's a fact. But who could they have been, and what brought them here?"
"Maybe Indians," suggested Ralph sagely.
"Yep, if Indians wore boots, which they don't," grinned Pete, while poor Ralph colored to the roots of his hair over the general laugh that arose at his expense.
"I think," announced the professor finally, "that it would be our best plan to go ahead exploring the mesa. After all, there is nothing here that can hurt us. Those ruffians of Black Ramon's have been driven out of the country, and, anyway, they would not be likely to come here. As for Indians, their reservation is many miles to the north-east. Whoever was here, was either on a scientific quest, like ourselves, or else unfortunately lost in the desert."
"Jes' ther same," grunted Pete, in a low voice that nobody overheard, "I'd like ter know what all this means: Big, shadowy shapes flitting around in ther night, and footsteps here in ther mornin'. It don't look right."
He took a swift glance all about him. In every direction lay the desert—glittering, far-reaching, lonely as the open sea. The only break in the monotony came to the south—on the border—where stretched the rocky, desolate ridge.
"No one wouldn't come here without an object," reasoned Pete to himself, as they began the ascent of the narrow, tortuous trail, "now, what in thunder could that objec' hev bin?"
CHAPTER V.
THE HOLLOW ALTAR.
"Magnificent indeed!"
The words, falling from the professor's lips, echoed hollowly against the walls of the lofty, vaulted chamber in which the adventurers found themselves, after traversing a narrow passage leading inward from the causeway.
The walls of this chamber, which must have been fully thirty feet in height at its greatest altitude, were formed of the soft rock, out of which it had been excavated apparently uncounted ages before. They were daubed with grotesque figures in faded, but still discernible, colors. Most of these figures had to do with scenes of violence, and in almost all of them the figure of what appeared to be an enormous rattlesnake, with human head and arms, predominated.
Among the mural decorations were some that puzzled the professor considerably. They were crude drawings of men in what appeared to be intended for boats. The professor found these inexplicable. The very idea of boats in that arid spot seemed absurdly out of place. Why, then, should the mesa-dwellers have depicted them?
Light was furnished to the chamber by an irregularly shaped hole in the roof above. Although there was plenty of illumination, it had yet been some moments before the adventurers, coming out of the brilliant sunlight outside, grew used enough to the gloom to make out their surroundings. When they did so, the first words uttered were those of the professor recorded above.
Like some queer, long-legged bird, the man of science, with a giant magnifying glass held up to his eye, sped hither and thither on his long, angular limbs, inspecting minutely the drawings and crude attempts at decoration. Already he had out his tape-measure and sketch-book, making observations and recording measurements. Presently, however, he recalled himself from the first heat of his enthusiasm.
"After all," he said, "we shall have plenty of time in which to explore this chamber, which seems to have been used as a council hall. Let us examine the remainder of this remarkable place."
"You may well call it that, perfusser," grunted Pete. "It's remarkable fer the dust thet's in it, if nothing else. But what I'd like to know," he added to himself, "is jes' whar the owners of them footsteps vanished themselves to."
Which brings us to a remarkable discovery, made a few moments before our party had entered the "Council Hall," as the professor called it.
As you may imagine, they had traced the footsteps with some care, hoping to come upon a solution of the mystery of their origin. Picture their astonishment, then, when you are told that the footsteps abruptly vanished at the summit of the zig-zag trail. Although dust lay thick on the chambers within the mesa, not a solitary foot-mark marred its soft gray surface. With the exception of the numerous footsteps on the trail to the summit, there was no other sign of human visitors.
Like most old plainsmen and all wild animals, Pete was suspicious of anything he couldn't understand, and it certainly did seem inexplicable that a party of men should have visited the mesa and contented themselves with running or walking up and down the causeway outside, or promenading the summit. Such, however, appeared to be the only explanation, and as such they were forced to accept it.
But such speculations as these were far from monopolizing the minds of the professor and the boys. They eagerly traversed chamber after chamber, finding these latter to be small "apartments," so to speak, giving upon a common passage just beyond the "Council Hall." The professor told them that each of these small chambers was formerly the home of an aboriginal family. In the floor of the passage he pointed to numerous bowl-like holes, which, according to him, had been used for the sharpening of spears and arrow heads.
In some of the small chambers specimens of rude pottery were found, all ornamented with the same figure of the human-headed rattlesnake. Evidently the form represented must have been a deity of the tribe. Each of the small chambers was lighted by one of the holes cut in the face of the cliff, which they had noticed from below. The boys darted in and out of the various rock chambers, like ferrets in a rabbit warren, followed at a more leisurely pace by the professor and Coyote Pete.
"Maybe we'll find some treasure," suggested Ralph Stetson, as, with flushed faces, plentifully begrimed with dust, they paused in the last of the rocky chambers.
"Say, you've got treasure on the brain, ever since we found that chest of Jim Hicks' in the passage-way under the old mission, and started our bank accounts," laughed Jack. "You must be forgetting that this mesa has been visited frequently by cattlemen and wandering prospectors."
"Well, I should hardly call it frequently, Jack," put in Professor Wintergreen, who was now standing with Coyote Pete at his elbow, in the narrow entrance to the rocky chamber.
"Nope," added Coyote Pete; "you can bet your boots we didn't come here except when we had to. In the past, though, it made a mighty good watering-place for the cattlemen driving from one section of this country to another. Sence they cut up that land over to the westward inter farms, though, the big cattle drives have stopped, and I don't suppose any one's bin around here for a long time, 'cepting those varmints whose feet-marks we seen."
"How do you know they are varmints?" laughed Walt Phelps.
"Don't see what business they'd hev here otherwise, and——" began Pete, but a perfect tempest of laughter at his expense drowned the rest of his speech.
"Well, now that we seem to have pretty well explored the habitation part of the mesa, let us make our way to the summit," suggested the professor.
With a whoop and yell, the excited boys followed the suggestion at once, and a dash up the narrow causeway followed at imminent risk of one of another losing his footing.
"Hey, hold on thar!" yelled Pete, as they dashed upward, "we don't want no funerals here, an' it's er drop of more'n a hundred feet to ther ground."
This rather checked the boys' enthusiasm, and they went more slowly thereafter.
The summit of the mesa was found to consist of a small plateau, about a quarter of an acre in extent, perfectly bare, and shaped like a saucer. Near the center was the hole which gave illumination to the council hall below them, while in a spot almost exactly in the middle of the queer elevation, was a rough, square erection of sun-baked brick. This was about twelve feet in length, five feet in height, and six feet or so through. Apparently it had once been a kind of an altar. The pr
ofessor thought this assumption tenable, as it was known that the aborigines who had once inhabited the mesa had been sun-worshipers.
"Ugh!" shuddered Jack, as he gazed at the altar. "And they used to offer human sacrifices here."
"I think it altogether likely," said the professor calmly; "probably that altar has witnessed the immolation of more than a hundred victims at a single tribal ceremony."
Ralph Stetson was clambering up on the altar as the professor spoke, but at hearing these words he hastily descended again.
"I guess I'll defer examining it till some other time," he said decidedly.
From the summit of the mesa a wonderful view could be obtained. At that altitude the rocky, desolate range of sierras to the south could be seen clearly, although a mile or so distant.
"Thar's the border yonder," said Pete, pointing.
"And over across there is father, I guess," said Jack. "I hope he found everything at the Esmeralda all right."
"Sure he did," said Pete confidently. "I tell you, these greaser uprisings don't amount to a busted gourd. Mister Diaz's tin soldiers come along, and 'pop-bang! Adios!' It's all over."
"But I have heard that in this case the insurrectionists of Northern Chihuahua are exceptionally well provided with arms and ammunition," objected the professor. "The American government can't make out from whence they are supplied with guns and munitions of war."
"Huh, where'd they git 'em from, I'd like to know?" snorted Pete. "The border is well guarded at any point where they would be likely to ship 'em across, and——"
"How about the unlikely points?" inquired the professor amiably.
"Um—ah—well," began Pete, somewhat stumped by this last, "I don't see what that's got to do with it."
"But I do. Mexicans, my friend, are, as you should know, a cunning race. Moreover, those of them who dwell along it know the border far better than any white could ever hope to. By the admission of our own secret agents, it has hitherto been impossible to find how the arms, which the Chihuahua rebels are receiving, can reach them. It is obvious, however, that there must be some way in which they do, hence——"
The Border Boys Across the Frontier Page 3
