CHAPTER II.
THE SAND STORM.
As he spoke, a queer, moaning sort of sound, something like the low,distant bellow of a steer in pain, could be heard. The air seemedfilled with it. Coming from no definite direction, it yet impregnatedthe atmosphere. The air, too, began noticeably to thicken, until thesun, from a pallid disc--a mere ghost of its former blazing self--wasblotted out altogether. A hot wind sprang up and swept witheringlyabout the travelers.
"Ouch!" exclaimed Ralph Stetson suddenly. "Something stung me!"
"That's the sand, son," said Coyote Pete. "The wind's commencin' terdrive it."
"Is it going to get any worse?" inquired the professor anxiously.
"A whole lot, afore it gits any better," was the disconcerting reply.
"What'll we do, Pete?" asked Jack, turning to the cow-puncher.
It had now grown so dark that he could hardly see Pete's face. It washot, too, with a heavy, suffocating sort of heat. The wind that drovethe myriads upon myriads of tiny sand grains now darkening the air, wasardent as the blast from an opened oven-door.
"Get your saddles off, quick! Lie down, and put your heads under 'em,"ordered the cow-puncher, briskly swinging himself out of his saddle ashe spoke.
The others hastened to follow his example. It was not a minute toosoon. Already their mouths were full of gritty particles, and theireyes smarted as if they had been seared with hot irons. The poniescould hardly be induced to stand up while the process of unsaddling wasgone through. As for the burros, those intelligent beasts had thrownthemselves down as soon as the halt was made. With their heads laid aslow as possible, and their hind quarters turned to the direction of thehot blast, they were as well prepared to weather the sand storm as theycould be.
The instant the saddles were off the ponies, down they flopped, too, inthe same positions as their long-eared cousins. The bipeds of theparty made haste to follow their animals' example, only, in their case,their heads were sheltered as snugly as if under a tent, by the big,high-peaked, broad-flapped Mexican saddles.
It was well they had made haste, for, as Pete had said, the sand stormwas evidently going to get "a whole lot worse before it got better."The air grew almost as black as night, and the wind fairly screamed asit swept over them. Jack could feel little piles of sand drifting upabout them, just as driven snow forms in drifts when it strikes anobstruction. How hot it was under the saddles! The boys' mouths feltas if they would crack, so dry and feverish had they become.
"Oh, for a drink of water!" thought Jack, trying in vain to moisten hismouth by moving his tongue about within it.
All at once, above the screaming of the wind, the lad caught anothersound--the galloping of hoofs coming toward them at a rapid rate. Foran instant the thought flashed across him that it was their own stockthat had stampeded. He stuck his head out to see, braving the furioussweep of the stinging sand.
He withdrew it like a tortoise beneath its cover, with a cry that wasonly half of pain. Through the driving sand he had distinctly seenthree enormous forms sweep by, seen like dim shadows in the gloomaround. What could they have been? In vain Jack cudgeled his brainsfor a solution to the mystery.
The forms he had seen drift by had been larger than any horse. Sovague had their outlines been in the semi-darkness, however, thatbeyond an impression of their great size, he had no more definite ideaof the apparitions. That they were travelling at a tremendous pace wasdoubtless, for hardly had he sighted them before they vanished, and hecould not have had his head out of its shelter for more than a secondor so.
While the lad lay in the semi-suffocation of the saddle, his mindrevolved the problem, but no explanation that he could think of wouldfit the case. "Might they not have been wild horses?" he thought.
But no,--these were three times the size of any horse he had ever seen.Besides, their blotty-looking outlines bore no semblance to the form ofa horse.
But presently something happened which put the thought of themysterious shadows out of his mind. The wind began to abate. To besure, at first it hardly seemed to have diminished its force, but inthe course of half an hour or so the party could once more emerge, likeso many ostriches, from their sand-piles, and gaze about them.
Very little sand was in the air now, but it was everywhere else. Intheir eyes, mouths, ears, while, if they shook their heads, a perfectlittle shower of it fell all about them. The animals, too, strugglingto 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-lookingparty. With red-rimmed eyes, cracked, parched lips and swollentongues, they looked as if they had been dragged through a blastfurnace.
The sky above them now shone with its brilliant, metallic blue oncemore, while ahead, the sun was sinking lower. In a short time it wouldhave 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 bea serious one.
An examination of the canteens showed that not much more than a gallonremained. If only they could yet "pick up" the mesa before dark, thiswould not be so serious a matter, but, situated as they were, it wasabout as bad as bad could be.
"Waal," said Pete, at length, stroking the last grains of sand out ofhis bleached moustache, "waal, I reckon we might as well hang fer asheep as er lamb, anyhow. Ef we don't hit water purty soon, we'll bethirstier yet, so we might as well fill up now."
"Illogical, but sensible," pronounced the professor, leading an eagerrush for the water canteens, which were carried on the pack burros.
"Here, hold on; that's enough!" cried Jack, as Ralph Stetson bent overbackward 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 forthe thirst."
"Water suits me better," grumbled Ralph, nevertheless yielding thecanteen to Jack. The lad drank sparingly, as did Pete and the others.Ralph, alone, of all the party, appeared not to realize how veryprecious even the little water that remained might become before long.
Refreshed even by the small quantity they had swallowed of the tepidstuff, they remounted, and Pete clambered up upon his saddle. Whilehis pony stood motionless beneath him, he stood erect upon the leatherseat. From this elevation, he scanned the horizon on every side. Faroff to the southwest was sweeping a dun-colored curtain--the departingsand-storm, but that was all. Otherwise, the desert was unchanged fromits previous aspect.
"Let me hev a look at thet thar compass," said Pete, resuming a sittingposture 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 thispart of the country well enough to 'pick up' a clump of cactus. Ifthat 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 wasso ignorant as not to know that, in the many miles they had traveled,the deflection of the needle, by even the smallest degree, might havemeant a disastrous error.
"Why, I--I--how can it help being right?" asked Jack, a littleuncertainly.
"Which side have you been carrying your revolver on?" asked theprofessor.
"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 tharshootin' iron has bin deflectin' ther needle."
"I fear so," rejoined the professor.
Under his direction, Jack moved the compass into various positions, andat the end of a quarter of an hour they arrived at the startlingconclusion that they had
travelled perhaps many miles out of their way.The metal of the weapons Jack carried having, as they saw only tooclearly now, deflected the needle.
"What an idiot I was not to think of such a possibility!" exclaimedJack bitterly.
"Not at all, my boy," comforted the professor. "The same thing hashappened to experienced sea-captains, and they have navigated manymiles 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 raisedhis head.
"Well?" asked Jack eagerly.
"Well," rejoined the professor, "it's not as bad as it might be. Weare, according to my reckoning, about twenty-five miles farther to thesouth than we should be."
He consulted his notebook once more.
"The bearings of the mesa require us to travel in that direction." Heindicated 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 stockis 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 theyurged 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 inthe 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 brokethe monotony of the sky-line sharply. Coyote Pete scrutinized it withkeen eyes for a moment, narrowing his optics till they were mere slits.Then--
"Give me the glasses, perfusser," he requested. Every one in the partyknew that their lives, or deaths probably, hung on the verdict of thenext few seconds, but Pete's slow drawl was more pronounced andunperturbed than ever. He put the glasses to his eyes as unconcernedlyas if he were searching for a bunch of estrays. Presently he loweredthem.
"Is--is it----?" began Jack, while the others all bent forward in theirsaddles, hanging on the rejoinder.
"It is," declared Pete, and he might have said more, but the rest ofhis words were drowned in a ringing cheer.
Border Boys Across the Frontier Page 2