"Embudo! Embudo!"
A brakeman shouted the name at the open door of a passenger car
northward bound on the Denver and Rio Grande. The train was stopping at
a small station in Northern New Mexico, some fifty miles north of Santa
Fe.
"Embudo! Embudo!"
Another brakeman shouted the name at the open door at the other end of
the car.
"Embudo! Hurrah!"
Several healthy young voices uttered the cry, and there was a general
bustling within that car.
"Here's where we leave the railroad and civilization behind, Inza,"
laughed Frank, who had been chatting with Inza Burrage, who occupied a
seat with a stern, hard-faced woman.
"Hurrah!" cried the girl, enthusiastically. "We're off to the land of
the Aborigines! What a jolly adventure it's bound to be!"
"Goodness!" said the hard-faced woman, reprovingly. "Any one would think
you a boy to hear you cheer like that, Inza. Don't do it again! It isn't
proper."
"Oh, what's the use to be so awfully proper all the time, Aunt Abby!"
laughed the girl, with a little pout. "How can a person help being
enthusiastic with the prospect of such adventures ahead! You'll see
things you never saw before, aunt."
"And goodness knows we shall all be scalped! I suppose I'm foolish to
accompany you on such a foolish expedition."
"Oh, Frank says there is not the least danger of anything like scalping,
and St. Geronimo Day is the great holiday with the Pueblo Indians. I
wouldn't miss it for anything."
"I assure you, Miss Gale, there is no danger of being scalped or
troubled at all by the Indians," said Frank, who with his friends were
bound for the Pueblo of Taos, where they were going to witness the
Indian celebration which takes place there each year on St. Geronimo
Day.
Inza had communicated with her maiden aunt, who lived in Sacramento,
after arriving in Santa Barbara, and Miss Gale had been so wrought up by
the girl's letter, which told how her father had tried to force her into
a marriage with a "horrid English reprobate," that she had packed a
trunk and hastened to Santa Barbara.
She found Inza had already "shaken" the Englishman, but Bernard Burrage
was such a physical wreck that the good-hearted spinster determined to
accompany Inza on the trip East and look out for her.
Mr. Burrage had stopped at Santa Fe, hoping the climate might agree with
him.
Frank had heard much about the affair at the Pueblo of Taos on St.
Geronimo Day, and he took a vote of the Yale Combine about attending.
The club was unanimously in favor of it, and thus we find them leaving
the train at Embudo, the nearest railway station to the Pueblo.
Frank had worked hard to make a favorable impression on Miss Abigail
Gale, and had succeeded very well, so he had induced her to take Inza to
witness the Indian celebration.
No one but Frank could have succeeded in this, for the spinster detested
and feared redskins, but Merry seemed to have some hypnotic influence
over her.
Hodge assisted Inza from the train, while Frank aided Miss Abigail to
alight, doing so with as much gallantry and grace as if she were a girl
of sixteen.
Indeed, her hard face seldom relaxed at all save when she looked at
Frank, and then, at times, an expression of positive gentleness would
soften her features somewhat.
Frank had not won her good will by aid of a flattering tongue. He
believed actions spoke louder than words, and he had taken pains to
study her peculiarities that he might know what to do to please her. In
this manner he had been remarkably successful with her, although it was
Miss Abagail's firm belief that the entire male sex "didn't amount to
nothing nohow."
"Look at Frankie, b'ys!" chuckled Barney, giving Ephraim and Hans each a
nudge. "It's a shlick lad he is. If it wasn't fer him, Inza'd nivver git
anywhere at all, at all; but he makes th' ould hen think she's a p'ach,
an' she'll be afther doin' onnything he loikes fer her to do."
"By gum! he's slick," grinned the boy from Vermont. "I ain't never seen
no female gal ur woman that he wasn't able to chop ice with when he sot
out."
"Yaw," nodded Hans, gravely; "he peen aple to chop ices mit der girls
ven I lets 'em alone. Uf course he don'd stood no show mit me against."
"Nivver a bit!" agreed Barney. "It's yersilf thot's a great masher.
Ye're a perfict Apollo."
"You pet my poots!" said the Dutch boy proudly. "I don'd bother Vrankie
mit pecause he vos a coot feller, und his feelings I don'd vant to
hurt."
"Go on!" snorted Ephraim, in disgust. "Ye make me sick! Whut sort of a
fool noshun hev yeou got inter your fat head? Do you think yeou could
cut Frank Merriwell aout with any girl?"
"Say, you peen careful how you talks to me!" said Hans, menacingly. "Uf
you don'd, I may be sorry for it! I know vot I can do mit der girls."
"Thot's roight, Ephraim," put in Barney, with a sly wink at the Yankee
boy; "he knows phwat he can do. Av he says he can cut Frankie out it's
himsilf thot can do th' same."
"Yaw; sometimes I done id shust to shown you."
Ephraim took his cue, having tumbled when Barney winked.
"Wal, darn my punkins!" he growled. "Yeou make me sick! Mebbe yeou
really do think yeou could cut Frank aout?"
"Uf I vant to tried him."
"Wall, I'll bet a 'hole barril of yaller-eye beans that yeou can't do
northin' of the kind, b'gosh! Yeou take me up, if you darst!"
"Betther be careful, Ephraim," said Barney, in a manner of mock warning.
"Ye won't have inny b'anes to ate nixt winther. Ye see Frankie is payin'
all his attintion to Miss Abigail noo, an' it's ounly himself as could
do innything wid th' loikes av her--onliss it is Hans."
"I'll stan' to my bet," said Gallup. "Hans never could do a dinged thing
with Miss Abigail."
"Vos dot vot I thought, eh?" excitedly exclaimed the Dutch lad. "Veil, I
proff him to you! I shown you britty queek alretty vot I done dot
directions in. I vos a hustler ven I started out, und don'd you forget
him!"
"All right," grinned Ephraim. "If yeou can cut Frank aout with Miss
Abigail darned if I don't deliver them beans!"
Then the Vermonter and the Irish lad chuckled and nudged each other,
anticipating no end of sport, for they knew Hans was in earnest and
would make an attempt to win the attention of the spinster.
Embudo is down on the railroad time tables, and that is about as near as
it comes to being on earth.
When the party reached the station platform they looked around for the
town. To their astonishment all they could see was the little red
station house and a lonely water tank. On both sides were towering
cliffs of lava, that looked as if they had been scorched and melted by
the fiercest of heats, and the boys found it difficult to believe that
the sickly creek in sight was the Rio Grande River. The little stream
made a great fuss as it dashed over a bed that was paved with blocks of
black basalt, as if seeking to call attention to itself and its
importance.
"Well!" exclaimed Harry, astonished; "jay I be miggered--I mean may I be
jiggered!"
"Golly sakes to goodness!" gasped Toots. "Where am we, chilluns?"
Bruce Browning groaned.
"Sold again!" he muttered, in despair. "Why, this is the next stop to
the infernal regions!"
"Where's the town?" asked Diamond.
A man who wore a silk hat on the back of his head and carried his hands
in the pockets of his striped trousers, which--marvel of marvels!--bore
traces of a crease, came forward and said:
"The town, gents, is right across the river there. It is not quite as
large as Santa Fe, but it serves as a stopping place all right, if you
are on your way to Taos, which I reckon you are."
He eyed them closely, as if sizing them up. His eyes were piercing, and
his mustache was coal-black. There was that in his appearance that
pronounced him a gambler.
The boys thanked him and looked for the town.
They discovered a long, low adobe building, and that constituted the
entire town. It was the post office, hotel and general store, and was
kept by a Mexican, who was on hand at the station to get the mail.
A number of passengers beside Frank and his friends left the train.
Frank went ahead toward the baggage car to look out for the luggage.
The station agent was a beardless youth, to whom the arrival of a train
was a most welcome break of the lonely monotony of the place. He was
hurrying about and showing his importance.
About the station were several loungers, Mexicans and Indians.
Barely had Frank gone forward when he was startled to hear a loud
scream, which he recognized as the voice of Inza.
That scream told him something of a startling nature had happened, and
like a flash he whirled about.
He was astonished to see Inza struggling in the the arms of a blanketed
Indian, who seemed attempting to lift her and carry her off bodily.
With a pantherlike bound, Merry sprang to the rescue.
Quick as he was, another person was on hand ahead of him.
A tall, swarthy young man, dressed in plain clothes, which seemed to fit
his magnificent form very well, leaped at the Indian and the girl, tore
them apart, and knocked the redskin down with a single
straight-from-the-shoulder blow.
It was all over in a second, and the rescuer was saying something to
reassure the frightened girl.
All over?
Not quite!
As the Indian who had been knocked down started up in a dazed way,
lifting himself with one hand, the man who wore the silk hat whipped out
a long-barreled revolver, coolly observing:
"Here is where I assist Uncle Sam in settling the Indian question."
In another moment he would have shot the Indian, but Frank was in time
to grasp his wrist and turn the revolver skyward.
The weapon spoke, and the bullet flattened against the face of the lava
cliff above.
The man turned his dark eyes on Frank, and the boy saw a blazing devil
in their depths. His face turned crimson, but his voice was still quite
cool, as he addressed Merriwell:
"My dear young man, do you know it is very dangerous to chip into a game
like that?"
"I saved you from committing murder, sir," said Frank, equally as cool.
The man's teeth seemed to gleam through that black mustache.
"Murder!" he said, scornfully. "You kept me from shooting a dog, that's
all. If you will take your hand off my wrist, I'll do the job now."
"No, you must not!"
Never had Frank seen a more dangerous look on the face of a living man.
He felt that wrist tremble beneath his fingers.
"You are a tenderfoot," said the owner of the silk hat. "If you were
anything else----Well, this would mean your funeral! I am ashamed to
shoot you, but I may forget myself if you do not withdraw from the
game."
"If you will promise to put up that gun and let this drunken Indian go,
I will withdraw."
"Did you ever hear of Dan Carver?"
"Yes."
"I am Carver."