The desert water hole

As Rob toppled forward into vacancy, he received a startling momentary impression of familiarity from the tones of a loud laugh which rang out behind him. Fortunately for him, the water at the foot of the bridge abutment was some six or seven feet deep, and he struck it spread-eagle fashion, so that beyond the shock of his sudden fall he was uninjured. He at once struck out for the bank. When he stood again on the dry ground, shaking the water from himself, he began to rack his memory for the recollection of where and when he had heard a similar laugh to the one that had sounded in his ears as he plunged forward into space. Try as he would, however, he could not place it, and giving up the attempt finally, he made his way back to the hotel.

The checker players started up as the dripping figure of the Boy Scout leader entered the room, and naturally began to ply him with questions. Rob’s story of the events of the preceding few minutes was soon told, but so far as the shedding of any light on the mystery was concerned, it remained as blank a puzzle as ever.

“I’d like to think that I dreamed it all,” said Rob, “but these” wringing out his wet clothes “won’t let me.”

“Well, there’s no doubt that you were shoved over intentionally,” decided Harry Harkness, “but who is there out here who would do such a thing?”

“It might have been one of those two cow-punchers you had the row with this afternoon,” suggested Merritt.

“No. I saw Clark and Jess ride out of town a good half-hour before Rob could have been shoved over,” said Harry.

“Maybe they mistook me for some one else,” suggested Rob, as the easiest way of disposing of the matter. Privately, though, he entertained a different opinion. If he could only place that laugh! But try as he would, he could not for the life of him recall where he had heard it before.

Soon afterward the Boy Scouts and their ranch friend retired to bed, Tubby having been sufficiently aroused to make his way upstairs to their room. Tired out as Rob was, he sank into a deep sleep almost as soon as his head touched the pillow. With Tubby things were different, however. His nap in the chair had rendered him wakeful, and he tossed and turned till almost midnight before he began to grow drowsy. Just as he was dropping off, two persons entered the adjoining room. The partitions, as is usual in the West, were of the very thinnest wood, and he could easily hear every movement made by their neighbors.

“Well, Jack,” said one of the voices, evidently resuming a conversation that had been begun some time previously, “so you did the kid up, eh?”

“Yes, sent him head first over the bank. Wish he’d broken his neck. The kid is one of that bunch that was responsible for my leaving Hampton.”

“Is that so? I don’t wonder you are sore at him. Why didn’t you hit him a good crack on the head while you were about it?”

“Oh, I figured that a cold bath would do as a starter. Wait till that bunch gets up to the mountains. Clark and Jess and my friends, Bender and Handcraft, will attend to them.”

Tubby’s brain was in a whirl. He had had no difficulty in recalling one of the voices, that of the one who had spoken of sending Rob over the bank of the San Pedro. Who the other was he couldn’t imagine, however, except that he was evidently a crony of the first speaker. Impulsively the stout youth shook Rob’s shoulder, and as the other opened his eyes, enjoined him to silence.

“Say, Rob, who do you think is in the next room?” he gasped.

“I don’t know, I’m sure. The emperor of China?” asked Rob in a sleepy voice.

“Hush! don’t talk so loud. It’s Jack Curtiss!”

“What!”

“It is. I’m sure of it. He was boasting about having shoved you over the bank of the river.”

“Whatever can he be doing out here?”

“Living on the allowance his father sends him, I suppose. I heard before we left Hampton that he was some place in the West. I guess his father would soon stop his allowance if he knew he was up to his old tricks. Mr. Curtiss thinks that Jack is studying farming.”

“Raising a crop of mischief, I guess,” breathed Rob, in the same cautious undertone that the two boys had used throughout their conversation. “I wonder if Bill Bender and Hank Handcraft are with him?”

“That reminds me. I heard him mention them. They are on some ranch up in the mountains where we are going, I gathered.”

“That means trouble ahead,” mused Rob.

“Are you going to have Jack arrested?”

“No, how can I prove that it was he who shoved me in? Just overhearing a conversation is no proof. I know now, though, why that laugh I heard sounded so familiar.”

Both boys listened for some time, but they heard no further talk from Jack Curtiss and his companion regarding themselves. Their talk seemed to be about money matters, and as well as they could gather, Jack was in debt to some gamblers for a large sum which he despaired of raising.

“I’ve only got a month to get it in,” they heard him say.

“Well, we’ll hit upon a plan, never fear,” rejoined his companion.

The next morning Harry Harkness was told of the happenings of the night. He, of course, already knew of the bold attempt of the former bully of Hampton Academy to kidnap one of the Boy Scouts, as related in the first volume of this series, and was inclined to warn the boys to be careful of such a dangerous character. Viewed in the cheerful light of the early day, however, the boys did not regard the matter so seriously. Indeed, they forgot all about Jack and his threats in the bustle of preparation for their long trip across the waste lands.

Breakfast was soon disposed of, and then the boys in a body made for the corral. Jose had been told two hours earlier to catch up and hitch the mules, but the long-eared animals were still browsing at the hay pile, and not a vestige of Jose was to be seen when the boys emerged.

“There he is in the hay,” shouted Rob suddenly, pointing to two long, thin legs sticking out of the fodder heap.

“Asleep again, the rascal,” exclaimed Harry. “Come on, Rob; you lay hold of one leg, and I’ll take the other.”

Both boys seized hold of a designated limb, and soon the sleepy Jose, expostulating loudly, was hauled out into the sunlight.

“Why aren’t those mules hitched?” demanded Harry.

“Me go sleep,” grinned the Mexican teamster apologetically, showing a row of white teeth.

“We don’t need telling that. You are always asleep, except when you’re eating. Get busy now and hitch up.”

Urged thus, Jose soon had his rawhide rope circling, and in ten minutes had caught up the team with far more agility and skill than would have been suspected in such an easy-going individual.

The mules were soon attached to the heavy wagon and the single line which guided them threaded. This manner of driving was new to the boys, but they were soon to find that most teamsters in the far West use only a single rein attached to the lead mules on the right side. The others follow the leader. If the driver desires to turn his team to the left, instead of pulling the single line, he shouts, “Haugh!” and over swings the team.

The boys’ baggage had lain at the depot all night, and accordingly the first stop was made there. It was soon loaded on, and then, with a loud cry of, “Ge-ee, Fox! Gee-ee-e, Maud!” from Jose, the lead mules swung to the right. Over the bridge, beneath which Rob had met his misadventure of the night before, thundered the heavy vehicle. Swinging in a broad circle, they then headed toward the south, where the Santa Catapinas, blue and vague, were piled like clouds on the horizon.

Early as was the hour at which the start was made, however, two persons in Mesaville besides the hotel employees were up to see it. These were Jack Curtiss and the friend who had shared his room the night before. They peered out of the window at the four boys with eager glances.

“Look them over well, Emilio,” Jack urged his companion, who in the daylight was seen to have a swarthy skin and the cigarette-stained fingers of a Mexican town lounger. Emilio Aguarrdo was a half-breed gambler, and a thoroughly vicious type of man. In him were combined the vices and evil passions of two races. His thin lips curled back from his yellow teeth as he watched the boys, who, with shouts and laughter, were loading up their belongings, while Jose slept on his lofty seat.

“I won’t forget them, Jack,” he promised, as the wagon started off, the long whip cracking like a gatling gun.

All that morning the wagon lumbered on across the hot plains, an occasional jack-rabbit or coyote being the only sign of life to be seen. As the sun grew higher, the boys saw in the far distance the strange sight of the town of Mesaville, hotel and all, hanging upside down above the horizon. It was a mirage, as clear and puzzling as these strange phenomena of the desert always are.

As the hours wore on, the mountains, from mere wavy outlines of blue, began to take on definite form. They now showed formidable, seamed and rugged. As well as the boys could perceive at that distance, the hills were covered with dark trees to their summits and intersected by dense masses of shadow, marking canyons and abysses. A more forbidding-looking range could hardly be imagined, yet in the foothills to the southeast there grew great savannas of succulent bunch grass on which several ranges of cattle roamed.

The noon camp was made in the foothills near a small depression in which grew some scanty grass of a dried-up, melancholy hue. The wagon road was at some little distance from this, and as soon as a halt was made, Jose, at Harry’s orders, took a shovel from the wagon and started for the dip in the foothills.

“Going to dig potatoes?” asked Tubby casually, as he watched the lazy Mexican saunter off.

“No, water,” responded Harry. His serious tone precluded any possibility that he was joking. But the idea of water in that sterile land seemed so ridiculous to the boys that they burst into a laugh.

“I mean it,” declared Harry. “Here, you fellows, take those buckets from under the wagon. We carry them to water the mules. Pack them over to that dip and in half an hour you’ll be back with them full.”

“Huh! guess I could carry all the water that will come out of that place in one hand,” commented the fat boy.

“Don’t be rash,” laughed Harry; “before long you’ll take digging for water as a matter of course.”

“Wish you could dig for ice-cream sodas,” muttered the fat boy absently, picking up a bucket and starting off after Jose. Rob and Merritt followed, while Harry busied himself unhitching the mules for their noonday rest. This done, he lighted a fire of sage-brush roots, and awaited the return of the boys.

The first thing the boys saw Jose do when he got to the bottom of the dip was to lie flat on his stomach and place an ear to the ground.

“He’s going to sleep again,” suggested Merritt.

“Looks like it,” agreed Rob.

But this time the Mexican did not drop off into a peaceful slumber. Instead, he presently straightened up, and shouldering his shovel, began tramping off once more. The boys followed him over several dips and rises till at last he descended into another depression in which grew some scanty herbage. Here he repeated the other performance and arose with a grunt of satisfaction. Suddenly he began digging furiously.

“Wow! he’s making the dirt fly,” exclaimed Tubby, as the industrious Mexican dug as frantically as though his life depended on it. So fast did the work of excavation proceed that soon quite a large hole had been made in the soft ground.

“Pity they haven’t got him down at Panama,” commented Merritt dryly.

Jose had paid no attention to the boys hitherto, but now he suddenly shouted, pointing downward into the hole: “Mira qui!”

“What’s that about a key?” asked Tubby.

“Try to conceal your natural ignorance,” rejoined Merritt, with withering scorn. “He said, ‘Mira qui.’ That means ‘Look here.’”

“Oh, and ‘latcha-key’ means open the door, I suppose,” retorted the stout youth. “You’re a fine Spanish scholar, you are.”

“I’ve a good mind to throw you into that hole,” threatened Merritt.

“Try it,” shouted the stout youth, hopping about aggravatingly.

“I will.”

Merritt made a rush at the irritating Tubby, who leaped provokingly away. But suddenly he gave utterance to a yell of dismay, as in his efforts to retreat he stumbled into the hole which Jose had dug. By this time, to Rob’s astonishment, for he had been watching Jose’s methods with interest, quite a lot of muddy water had appeared, and into this accumulation of moisture the stout youth fell with a resounding splash.

Even the solemn Jose smiled as Tubby sputtered and splashed about in the pool.

“Come out of that water,” commanded Merritt.

“Call this water?” demanded Tubby, sputtering some of it out of his mouth. “Ugh! it tastes more like soap suds to me.”

“Him alkali,” grinned Jose, as Tubby scrambled out and stood, rather crestfallen, on the verge of the magic pool; “mucho malo.”

“What’s ’mucho malo’?” demanded Tubby of Merritt, the self-appointed interpreter.

“It means you’re a nuisance,” retorted Merritt, which reply almost brought on a renewal of hostilities. Rob checked them, however, by reminding the stout youth that the water was for drinking and not for bathing purposes. The boys were anxious to dip their buckets in and return to the wagon, but Jose told them they must wait till the water cleared.

“Pretty soon him like glass,” he said.

Sure enough, after a long interval of waiting, in which there was nothing to do but look at the sand and the burning blue sky above it, the previously muddy seepage water began to take on a green hue. With a yell, the boys rushed forward to dip it up.

But as they bent over the brink of the water hole a sudden shout from Jose made them look up. They echoed the Mexican’s yell as they did so, for outlined against the sky was a startling figure.

It was that of an Indian, his sinewy limbs draped in a blanket of gorgeous hue, and astride of a thin, active-looking calico pony. For an instant the piercing eyes of the red man and the white boys met, and then, with a strange cry, he wheeled his pony and vanished over the rim of the depression.

“Was that an Indian?” gasped Tubby, for the figure of the red man had appeared and vanished so swiftly that it seemed almost as if it might have been a delusion.

“Moqui, very bad Indian,” grunted the Mexican, who seemed nervous and fearful all of a sudden.

“Oh, I thought maybe it was a jack-in-the-box,” said Tubby, with a cheerful grin, which froze on his face, however, as suddenly as it had come.

The rim of the water hole was surrounded by twenty or more wild figures, the companions of the solitary horseman. They had appeared as if by magic.