The Boy Scouts On The Range

CHAPTER XIV.

A TOBOGGAN TO DISASTER

Pluckily forward plunged the pony, as if anxious to redeem his untimely stumble.

"It'll take them some time to get to their ponies and unhobble them," thought Rob. "If I've luck, I may get away yet."

Keeping steadily to the direction the girl had pointed out, the boy pressed on at as fast a clip as he dared. The farther he rode ahead of the pursuing tribe, the better chance he stood of getting beyond their earshot.

It was risky riding, though, through an unknown country on such a dark night. What sort of going it was under foot, Rob could only tell by the uncertain gait of the beast he bestrode. Bushes occasionally brushed in his face, scratching it, and once in a while an extra strong bunch of chaparral would press against his legs, almost brushing him from his pony's back.

Suddenly the way took a steep downward pitch.

"I hope this isn't another precipice," thought the boy, as the pony half-slid, half-clambered down in the darkness. Presently his hoofs splashed in water, and Rob knew they were crossing a creek. He drew back on his single rein and listened intently. Fortunately the wind, what there was of it, set toward him.

Borne on it he could hear distant shouts and cries. To his intense satisfaction, it seemed to him that they were farther off than when he had first heard them.

"Gained on them!" muttered Rob triumphantly. "Now, if daylight would only come along – "

But it was long to wait till daylight, and in the meantime Rob did not dare remain where he was. The Indians probably knew the mountains like a book, and would work them on a system. In such an event his only salvation lay in keeping moving. All at once he stopped, with a sudden heart leap, as his pony scrambled up the farther bank of the creek.

A shrill cry sounded close behind him.

Could it be possible that the advance guard of the Indians had approached him so nearly?

The next instant Rob gave a laugh of relief. The shrill cry came again.

"Whoo-to-too, who-o-o!"

"Only an owl," exclaimed the boy. "Hullo, though, that's funny! There's another answering it – and by George! there's another!"

From the woods to the right and left had come similar hoots to the owl-like sound he had noted behind him. At the same instant, the unmistakable sound of a dislodged stone bounding and rattling down the steep incline he had just descended was borne to his ears.

"That's no owl," gasped Rob, "it's Indians!"

As he realized how badly he had been fooled, his pony topped the rise. To any one below in the hollow, the outline of the pony and the boy showed blackly against the stars. Suddenly a sound like an angry bee in full flight hummed close to Rob's ear, and the next moment there came a sharp report behind him.

Instantaneously the hoots to the right and left flanks redoubled, and began closing in. All at once one of the birdlike cries sounded right in front of the escaping white boy.

He was hemmed in by Indians!

The craft of the red men had proven too much for Rob. Even the darkness had not prevented their unerringly tracking him. By their skillful woodcraft and keenness of perception they had succeeded in discovering him and surrounding him.

For an instant Rob's heart stood still. Then, as a second shot whizzed by his ear, aimed by the unseen marksman below, he urged his pony on over the rise.

The advance, however, over the rocky ground sounded as loud as the approach of a squadron of cavalry. Wild cries and yells rang out on every side of the boy. What was he to do?

One of those inspirations born in moments of keen stress came to him in his extremity. If all went well, he would fool the Indians yet, hard as they were to deceive.

Slipping noiselessly from his pony as he rode under a dark clump of piñon trees, the boy turned it loose. The little animal, to his surprise, immediately turned backward, heading round toward the camp. But this turn of events, at first alarming, ultimately proved to be the very best thing that could have happened for Rob, who had at first hoped that the pony would trot forward.

The Indians, hearing its rapid footsteps galloping back, reasoned that Rob, realizing that he was headed off, had turned his mount in a desperate effort to escape that way. Yelling like demons, and discharging their rifles in an almost continuous fusillade, the Indians wheeled and rode after the retreating pony. Naturally, the more they shouted and fired, the faster the little animal ran, and every step took them farther from Rob, who was crouching under his piñon trees.

Not till they got back to their camp did the redskins discover that the white boy had served craft with strategy, and outwitted them. It was then too late to follow up the pursuit that night. The redskins knew that any one cunning enough to have devised such a trick would not have stood still while they were chasing a will-o'-the-wisp in the opposite direction to their desired quarry.

And they were right in this assumption. Rob, as soon as the beat of their ponies' hoofs had grown faint, had chuckled to himself at their mistake, and silently as possible resumed his journey. If it had been a hard ride, it was a doubly hard tramp he had before him.

Susyjan had told him that a trail lay not so very far ahead. In the darkness it was possible that he might have lost it. If he had, without food or water, he would soon be in a serious position. But Rob, nevertheless, determined that his best course lay in pushing on, and through the darkness he steadily and pluckily advanced.

Presently he began to ascend what he knew must be a hill or mountainside. This complicated the problem. To go on along level ground was one thing, but to attempt to continue his way over an acclivity as steep as the one that faced him seemed foolhardy. Every step he took might be leading him farther and farther astray.

"Oh, for a nice soft bed!" muttered Rob. "But not having one, a good flat stone would do."

Soon afterward, following a lot of feeling about, he managed to find a flat-surfaced rock which seemed to promise well for a rough and ready couch. To the boy's delight, it retained some of the warmth of the sun which had beaten on it all day, and had he possessed a blanket to throw over it, might not have proved unacceptable as a sleeping place.

Casting himself down on it, Rob soon dozed off, nor did he awaken till the blackness turned to the gray that preceded the dawn. Viewed by daylight, Rob found his surroundings such that he was glad that he had not proceeded any farther during the night. He lay on a hillside behind a screen of chaparral. But what caused him to feel some apprehension, when he thought of what might have happened had he continued his journey, was the fact that below his rock quite a steep slope dropped down to the valley below. It was a drop of some thirty feet, and while in the daylight any active man or boy could have clambered down it without injury, in the dark night it might have meant broken bones.

But Rob had little time to think of such possibilities. Something else suddenly occupied all his attention, and that something was an odor of frying bacon!

Mingled with it came the unmistakable aroma of tobacco. Somebody was camped near him, that was a certainty. His first impulse was to shout, but he checked it. It speaks volumes for the Western training that the boy was rapidly acquiring when it is said that before he showed himself from behind his chaparral, he gazed cautiously through that leafy screen.

Below him he saw three figures seated about a fire, over which was frying the bacon that had aroused his hunger almost to the exclamation point. The three campers, whose ponies were tethered a short distance from them, had their backs turned to Rob, but presently one of them turned to reach something from a saddle bag. Rob came very near to uttering a startled exclamation and betraying his hiding place as he saw the man's features.

It was Hank Handcraft.

The former beachcomber wore Western clothes and had trimmed his once luxuriant and scraggly beard, but he was none the less unmistakably Handcraft. Nor, as almost simultaneously Hank's companions turned, was Rob's astonishment at all lessened, for one of them was Bill Bender and the other was the ranch boy to whom he had given a lesson in jiu jitsu – Clark Jennings.

"Hurry up and stow your grub, Hank," Clark was saying. "We've got to light out of this neighborhood for a while and stick around the ranch."

"You think that old Harkness is suspicious, then?" inquired Hank.

"No, our disguises were too good. I'll bet they're cussin' the Moquis now."

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Bill Bender. "That was a great idea, dressing up like Indians. I guess we got even on old Harkness for driving those sheep off his pastures."

"You bet! and we'll do worse to him before we get through," grunted Clark. "It's pie for me. More especially as I can get even, at the same time, with that young sniffler, Harry Harkness, and his friends from the East – your old pals, Bill."

"No pals of mine. You can bet your life on that," grunted Bill. "The best thing I'd heard for a long time was when you told me about Jack Curtiss shoving that kid Rob into the river. I'd like to have seen it. If it hadn't been for those Boy Scouts, as they call themselves, Hank and Jack and I would have been East now, instead of in this God-forsaken country."

"What are you kicking at?" laughed Clark. "You've done pretty well since you've been here, and if we can get that bunch of mavericks of Harkness's, we'll all have a pocketful of money."

"When are you going after them?" asked Hank, placing a big bit of bacon on a hunk of bread and gnawing on it in a satisfied way that set Rob half crazy to watch.

"Soon as they are turned out on the Far Pasture. When they get over the scare of the stampede, they'll leave the place unwatched, and we'll have our chance. We ought to get five hundred apiece out of it, anyhow."

"That would look good to me," grunted Hank.

"Oh, the scoundrels!" breathed Rob to himself. "They're plotting to steal some of Mr. Harkness's mavericks. I remember now hearing him speak of turning them out in the Far Pasture."

"Then we can clear out and get back East," concluded Bill, "and take poor old Jack with us. He isn't making out very well."

"Sort of hanger-on in that gambling place, isn't he?" asked Clark.

"I guess that's what you'd call it."

Soon after the group saddled up their ponies and prepared to leave their temporary camp. That they were on the trail, after having concluded their dastardly attempt to stampede Mr. Harkness's cattle, Rob had no doubt, judging by their conversation.

"Better put that fire out!" warned Clark. "Scatter the ashes. We don't want any one trailing us."

The three worthies bent together over the ashes, while their saddled ponies stood eying them at some short distance.

"Guess I'd better pull back out of this before they take it into their heads to look around," thought Rob, who in his eagerness to hear what was going forward below had thrust his head out through the bush which screened him.

With the object of drawing back again, he braced himself on one hand and pushed backward. How it happened he never knew, for he had been very careful, but suddenly the small rock on which the pressure of his hand rested gave way with a crash.

Clawing wildly at the bush, Rob sought to save himself from being flung headlong down the hill into the camp below him, but it was too late.

Down the hill he shot at lightning speed, in the midst of a roaring, rattling landslide of rocks and earth.

The men in the camp started and turned as the sudden uproar of Rob's involuntary toboggan slide reached their ears.

"What the – " shouted Hank Handcraft.

"Who is – " began Clark, when Rob's feet caught him in the stomach and cannoned him against Hank Handcraft. Clutching wildly to prevent his own fall, Hank caught Bill Bender's sleeve, and the next instant all three of the campers were rolling in a confused mass in the ashes of their fire.

"It's a bear!" yelled Hank.

"Bear nothing!" bellowed Clark Jennings, as Rob scrambled to his feet and darted off like a shot. "It's a boy!"

"After him!" shouted Bill Bender, snatching up a rifle and aiming it. "That kid's Rob Blake."

CHAPTER XV.

WHAT BECAME OF THE SCOUT?

But even as the former Long Islander raised the weapon to his shoulder, it was dashed down by Clark Jennings.

"Look out, you idiot!" he bellowed. "Do you want to kill the ponies?"

Rob, the instant he had recovered his self-possession, which preceded the recovery of the surprised plotters by some seconds, had made a dash for the ponies, which, as has been said, stood, saddled and bridled, near at hand.

"Yip-yip!" he screeched, as he leaped onto the back of the first one he reached.

Excited by the shouts and cries of the three amazed campers, and half-crazed by Rob's sudden leap onto its back, the animal plunged forward and vanished in a flash into the dark woods which veiled an abrupt turn in the trail.

"Now, shall we shoot, Clark?" urged Bill Bender.

"No, no; waste no time doing that. Hank, you stay here and look after things. Come, Bill – quick – the ponies!"

In a second Bill and Clark were mounted and dashing off down the trail in a cloud of dust, in hot pursuit of the lad.

"Do you think he heard what we were talking about?"

Clark Jennings propounded the question as they clattered down the trail. Not far in front they could hear the rapid hoof beats of Rob's mount.

"Don't know. The minute he came sky-hooting into the camp I'd a notion it was some one I've seen afore some place," rejoined Bill vaguely.

"Yes, yes; but do you think he overheard?"

"Dunno. We weren't expecting company, and therefore didn't lower our voices. Say, Clark, what if – what if he did hear?"

"Then Harkness will find out everything."

"Yes, if – "

"Well, if what?"

"If we don't bring him down. If we should kill him, we could easy blame it on the Indians. In fact, I guess the ranch folks would conclude the redskins did it, anyhow."

Clark's ruddy face grew pale at Bill's sinister suggestion.

"If he overheard, he knows enough to send us all to jail," prompted Bill.

"That's right, too. Do you think you could – "

Clark hesitated, as if the thought his mind held was too dreadful for him to voice.

"Bring him down, you mean?" inquired Bill cheerfully. "Don't know. We're hitting up a hot pace for good shooting."

"Say, Bill, I think you are the most cold-blooded fellow I ever met."

"Oh, I'm cool, all right, in such a case as this," rejoined Bill. "Hark!"

Both drew rein for a second and listened. The beat of hoofs in front of them suddenly slackened. So near was the sound that it seemed as if it could not have been more than a few feet ahead.

"Right through that brush there!" whispered Clark, and hot as the day was, he shivered as if stricken with a sudden fever.

Bill Bender coolly raised his rifle. He deliberately aimed it into the leafy screen. The next instant its deafening report rang out. It was followed by a loud crash from beyond the bushes, as if some heavy body had fallen.

Clark fairly turned his pony round. He was too much of a coward even to dare to ask the question that forced itself to his lips. No such qualms assailed Bill Bender, however. He pressed spurs to his pony, and in a second flashed round the trees that hid what lay on the trail beyond. A second later a loud cry of astonishment broke from his lips. It was mingled with curses.

"What's the matter?" hailed Clark tremblingly.

"Come here."

"Oh, Bill, I don't want to. I – "

"Come here, I say. There's nothing to be afraid of."

Thus urged, Clark, whose cheeks were still ashen under the bronze, urged his pony forward, and presently joined Bill. The latter had dismounted, and was standing over a dark, still object in the road.

It was the pony Rob had borrowed so hurriedly.

It lay stone dead, pierced in a vital spot by Bill Bender's bullet.

"But the b-b-boy, is he – " stuttered Clark.

"He's gone!" exclaimed Bill.

"Gone?" echoed Clark in an amazed tone.

"Yes, clean wiped out."

"But how?"

"Ask me an easy one."

"Hasn't he left a trail?"

"No, that's what makes it so queer. He must have had an aeroplane."

For half an hour or more both youths searched the dusty trail and beat in and out of the dense brush, but not a trace of the missing boy rewarded their close scrutiny of the surroundings. Had the earth opened at that spot and swallowed Rob up bodily, he could not have vanished more utterly. The only trace of the missing boy was his sombrero, lying by the dead pony.

Absolutely dumfounded with amazement, the two worthies finally gave up their search, and taking the saddle and bridle off the dead pony, made their way back to their camp, carrying Rob's broad-brimmed hat.

At about the same hour that Clark and Bill were searching among the piñon and scrub growth for some solution of the mystery of Rob's inexplicable disappearance, an equally perplexed party was assembled on a small rise some miles away. The latter group consisted of Mr. Harkness, his son, the Boy Scouts of the Ranger Patrol, Corporal Merritt Crawford and Tubby Hopkins, Blinky and two other cow-punchers.

The day before, following the rescued Tubby's return to the ranch with his companions, the expedition to find the missing Rob had been hurriedly formed. The cliff face had been reached in quicker time than would have seemed possible, and an examination by the cow-punchers and the Boy Scouts soon showed which way Rob had been carried off.

The broken shrub at the entrance to the tunnel, with the end pointing into the darkness, indicated clearly enough to Merritt that Rob had made a Boy Scout sign that his trail lay that way.

Leaving their ponies in charge of one of the cow-punchers who had accompanied them that far, the party had proceeded through the tunnel on foot. They were led by Blinky, who was almost as expert a trailer as an Indian, and had at the present moment arrived near the site of the Indian camp from which Rob had escaped the night before. Had the boy only known it, on his wild flight he had passed within a few miles of those who were searching for him in the darkness.

With the earliest light they had picked up the trail once more, and now they had reached its termination, the camp of the Moquis. But to reward their activity and perseverance they found only black ashes and scattered traces of cooking and stabling. Of the camp itself, all trace had vanished.

Blinky bent over the ashes and stirred them with his fingers.

"Been gone some hours," he announced, after an examination. "The ashes are plumb cold."

"How far do you think they will have proceeded by this time?" inquired Mr. Harkness.

"Maybe twenty miles or more," rejoined the cow-puncher. "It's hard to tell. These redskins travel fast, boss, as you know."

"Yes, I do know," rejoined the rancher bitterly; "especially when they have a good reason to. But what do you suppose they carried off the poor boy for?"

"Maybe they figgered he was a spy from the Indian territory, and maybe they thought they could get a good price for him if they held him long enough."

"I guess you are right, Blinky," said the rancher sadly, sitting down upon an outcropping rock.

He flicked his riding boots meditatively for some seconds with his rawhide quirt, which he still carried, and then spoke.

"Boys," he said, addressing the little party, "those Moquis have carried off Rob. There's no doubt of that. The question now is, shall we follow them up, or shall we go back and get the ponies, and thus lose valuable time? I think it only fair to tell you that I am for going forward."

"I guess there's no need to take a vote, Mr. Harkness," smiled Merritt, gazing at the determined faces of the Boy Scouts of the Ranger Patrol. Every member of the body was there. Harry and the telephone had seen to that as soon as they had made certain that Rob had been carried off.