CHAPTER III.
A NIGHT ALARM.
"How far distant do you imagine it is?" inquired the professor, as theyrode forward with their drooping spirits considerably revived.
"Not more than fifteen miles--if it is that, 'cording ter mycalcerlations," 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 outbeforehand."
"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 ita 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 boyhesitated to do so.
"Maybe I was mistaken after all," he thought to himself. "There was somuch sand blowing at the time that I might very well have had a blurredvision."
The next minute he was doubly glad that he had refrained from tellingof his weird experience, for the professor, in a scornful voice, spokeup.
"Such foolish superstitions did exist in the ancient days, when everybush held a spirit and every rock was supposed to be endowed withsentient life. Happily, nowadays, none but the very ignorant creditsuch things. By educated people they are laughed at."
Pete, who was jogging steadily on ahead of the rest of them, made norejoinder. Ralph, however, spoke up.
"What would you do, if you were to see a spirit, professor?" heinquired, with an expression of great innocence in his round, plumpface.
"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 soonalmost as the sun sank behind the western rim of the desert. To thesouth some jagged sierras grew purple and then black in the fadinglight. Fortunately there was a moon, though the luminary of night wasin her last quarter. However, the silvery light added to thebrilliance of the desert stars, gave them all the radiance they neededto pursue their way.
The travelers could now perceive the outlines of the Haunted Mesa moreclearly. It reared itself strangely out of the surrounding solitudes,almost as if it were the work of human hands, instead of the result oflong-spent geological forces.
"Wish we were there now," breathed Ralph, patting his pony's sweatingforequarters, "poor old Petticoats is about 'all in.'"
"It's purty hard to kill a cayuse," rejoined Pete. "I've seen 'emflourish 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 desertphilosopher concluded.
As Pete had conjectured, the ponies were far from being as tuckered outas they appeared, despite their sunken flanks and distended nostrils.As the cool night drew on, and they approached more nearly to theupraised form of the mesa, the little animals even began to prick theirears and whinny softly. The pack animals, too, seemed to pluck upspirits amazingly.
"They smell grass and water," commented Pete, as he observed thesesigns.
Shortly after ten, as had been surmised, they were among thebunch-grass surrounding the mesa. Striking such a spot after theirlong 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 distancein advance, and had suddenly come across a small stream.
The water was but a tiny thread, but it looked as welcome just then asa whole lake. Cautioning the boys to keep their ponies back, Pete tooka long-handled shovel from one of the packs, and soon excavated quite alittle basin. While he had been doing this, the boys had had torestrain their thirst, for the ponies were almost crazy with impatienceto get at the water. It required all the boys' management, in fact, tokeep them from breaking away and getting at the water. In the heatedcondition of the little animals, this might have meant a case offoundering. At last Pete let the thirsty creatures take a littlewater, and afterward they were tethered to a clump of brush, while theboys themselves assuaged their pangs. After their first ravenousthirst was quenched--which was not soon--they took turns in dashingwater over each other's heads, removing the last traces of thesand-storm. This done, they all declared that they felt like newmen,--or boys,--and a unanimous cry for supper arose.
"Let me see, now," mused Pete, gazing up at the purplish, black heightsof the mesa above them, "as I recollect it, there's only one path upthar. The good book says, foller the strait and narrer path, but itdon't say nothing about doing it in the dark, so I reckon that the bestthing we can do will be to camp right under that bluff thar, whar thewater comes out, till it gets to be daylight."
This was agreed to be an excellent plan, and, accordingly, the stockhaving been tethered out amidst the bunch-grass, the packs wereunloaded, and the work of getting a camp in shape proceeded apace. Inthat part of New Mexico, although it is warm enough by day, nightfallbrings with it a sharp chill. It was decided, therefore, to rig up thetents and sleep under their protection. The three canvas shelters ofthe bell type were soon erected, and then, with mesquite roots, CoyotePete kindled a fire and put the kettle on. Supper consisted of cornedbeef, canned corn and canned tomatoes, with coffee, hard biscuit andcheese.
"I'll bet we're the first folks that have eaten a meal here for many along day," said Jack, looking about him, after his hunger had beensatisfied.
"It is, in all probability, fifteen hundred years or more since thefirst inhabitants of this mesa dwelt here," announced the professor.
"My! My! You could boil an egg in that time," commented Pete, drawingout his old black briar and lighting it. He lay on one elbow and beganto smoke contemplatively.
The others did not speak for a few moments, so engrossed were they withthe ideas that the professor had summoned up. Once, perhaps, thisdead, black, empty mesa above them had held busy, bustling life. Nowit stood silently brooding amid the desolation stretched about it, assolitary as the Sphinx itself.
The spot at which they were camped was the sheer, or cliff side of themesa. At the other side they knew, from Coyote Pete's description,were numerous openings and a zig-zag pathway leading up to the verysummit. It was on this summit, which according to the most accurateinformation obtainable had once been used for the sacrificial rites ofsun worship, that the professor expected to find the relics for whichhe 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 thesubject. 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 partlying in silence, looking out beyond the black shadow of the mesaacross the moonlit desert toward the rocky hills to the south.
Suddenly, the lanky cowboy leaped to his feet with a yell thatpunctured the silence like a pistol-shot. In two flying leaps, he hadbounded clear over the professor's head, and was in among the tents,searching for his pistol. Before one of the amazed group about thefire 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'tskeered of you."
"Pete! Pete! Whatever is the matter?" gasped Jack, who, with theothers, was by this time on his feet.
"Matter?" howled Pete. "Matter enough. I do begin to think this placeshore is haunted, or suthin'. As I lay there, I felt suthin' tiptoeingabout behind me, and when I whipped suddenly round ter see if one ofthe 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 couldsay a word, it was gone."
"Gone!" echoed the others. "What was it?"
"Wish you'd tell me," sputtered the cow-puncher, looking about him, andstill 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 pointedright up at the moon.
"As tall as the moon? Oh, come, Pete, you had dropped off and weredreaming," laughed Ralph.
"Who said it was as tall as the moon?" demanded the excited cow-puncherangrily. "I only meant to convey to your benighted senses some idee uvwhat it luked like."
"Well, how high was it?" asked Jack, in whose tones was a curious noteof interest, for a reason we can guess.
"About twenty feet, as near's I could judge. It had red eyes, thatglared 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 andcheese at supper."
"How was it we didn't see it?" asked Ralph, who had not spoken up tillnow.
"Why, you were lying with your back toward the direction it came from,"explained Pete.
"An interesting optical delusion," declared the professor. "I mustmake 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, pointedout beyond the shadow of the solitary mesa. Sure enough, there werethree or four enormous, black, shadowy shapes, traveling across thesands 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 theimmense, vague shapes.
But even as their fingers pressed the triggers, and the four reportsrang out as one, the indefinite forms vanished as mysteriously as theyhad appeared.
Border Boys Across the Frontier Page 3