When the boys woke in the morning, they were obliged to think several
minutes in order to remember and comprehend their situation. Only
twenty-four hours before they had waked in the ravine, after their
nerve-trying battle with the bandits, the misguided men whom they had
left lying there on the ground. Then followed their precipitate arrest,
and the escape which had been accomplished in such darkness that it
seemed a miracle that they should have been able to get away at all.
They wondered if they had chanced upon the one route that led to,
perhaps, the only unoccupied house in the village.
“I hardly have the courage to look out of the door, Ray,” said Sidney.
“I’m afraid we’ll find there are houses and people on all sides of us.”
“If there are, the people certainly don’t make much noise; we might be
in the middle of a cemetery for all we can hear.”
Raymond had hardly finished speaking when there came in at the door the
sound of a voice talking, seemingly so near that the boys were sure it
must be from some person just outside the door. Another voice replied,
and the two continued in a conversation.
The boys looked at each other in wide-eyed apprehension, then they
raised themselves cautiously from their blankets and stood, Raymond
with his revolver held at full cock. They expected every moment that
some one would enter through the door, and Raymond wondered if it
would not be foolish to resist, after all, if men came to arrest them.
He could, without doubt, shoot a man or two, perhaps all who came at
first, but they could hardly hope to get away even then.
The talking outside continued, yet no one appeared, and when the boys
were standing they could hear more distinctly, and the voices did
not seem quite so near as they had thought at first. They did not
dare to speak, but they tiptoed carefully to the door, and standing
just inside, listened again. They were greatly puzzled to locate the
voices; they seemed near, and yet not as though the persons talking
were on the terrace outside of the door. Finally, Raymond peered out,
and then stepped into the doorway, but just inside, where he would be
protected from possible observation except from directly in front.
There he was joined by Sidney.
For the first time the boys saw the prospect from the door, for
darkness had, of course, prevented their seeing anything before they
went to sleep. They observed that the space in front of the room where
they had slept was, in fact, a terrace. It was some fifteen feet wide
and was then cut square down. The voices which they heard rose from
some lower level which they could not see, apparently close under the
wall that descended from the edge of the terrace, and at no great
distance.
Beyond the level whence came the voices, however, the view was
unobstructed, and the boys were amazed by what they saw. The steep
slope below them was thickly clothed with houses constructed in
terraces, apparently with no intervening streets, the front yard of one
house being also the roof of the next house below. The buildings were
all of rough stone and the walls were not finished smooth with mortar
or plaster, so that, seen at a distance, the village might easily be
taken for a collection of rocks on the side of the mountain. On some of
the terraces in front of the houses they saw horses calmly eating their
provender on the roofs of their neighbors. They also saw people moving
about, undoubtedly attending to their customary occupations.
Beyond the village in front lay the narrow valley, and beyond that
mountains, but the great range extended across the horizon more to the
right, and rose high and formidable against the clear sky. The village,
plainly, was situated among the foothills, right at the base of the
towering range which they had yet to cross.
“I wonder,” said Sidney, after they had looked for a few moments in
silence, “if the houses continue up the mountain above this one. Do you
suppose we are surrounded by houses and people as thick as they are
below?”
“I wish we could see to the sides and back,” said Raymond. “There is
one thing sure, this terrace out here in front is the roof of a house.”
The conversation of their neighbors just below continued at intervals,
and the sound of the voices came up to them with great distinctness.
The boys imagined the two men who were talking to be sitting in the
sun in front of their own door. There were no sounds audible from the
rear, but if there were people above them, any noise which they made
would, of course, be heard more readily above than below. There were no
windows in the room where they had passed the night, no opening except
the door, and there seemed to be no way for them to obtain a view to
one side or the other except by exposing themselves in front.
“I’m going to see if I can’t look around the wall to one side without
being seen,” said Raymond, edging forward on one side of the doorway
as far as he could go without actually passing beyond the line of the
front wall.
“Gee! Sid,” he exclaimed, after taking a look, “the alley that we
came up last night is a street with houses opening on it. But I don’t
believe there are any more houses as high up as this one. You take a
look.” And he made way for Sidney.
“That’s right,” said Sidney, “and if you look sharp you can see the
tops of ladders on the line of the alley that runs down the hill. That
must be a favorite way of getting into the houses. They are regular
cliff-dwellers. I should think we’d have blundered into some of those
ladders last night; it’s lucky we didn’t.”
“Some of the doors must open on a level,” said Raymond, “and there must
be other alleys that run up through the houses; that’s the way those
horses got out there.”
“This is the last house up,” said Sidney, who had shifted to the other
side of the doorway and was looking out beyond the house to the right;
“there is nothing but mountain out there.”
“This is the first house on a new street, Sid. I guess it was built to
rent, and they hadn’t got a tenant yet.”
“I hope the owner won’t come to look at it to-day. If we can stay here
till night without being found, Ray, I’ll bet we can get away after
dark.”
“I wish we might step outside,” suggested Raymond, “and see how the
mountain looks. Maybe we could locate the trail where it leaves the
village.”
“That wouldn’t be safe,” replied his brother, “but I’m sure the trail
must go out up the valley, and then enter a ravine that narrows up. If
we go along the mountain beyond the houses and then drop down to the
valley, we can probably find it in the dark.”
“There may be half a dozen trails,” said Raymond, “that run out after
firewood, and it will be mighty ticklish business to pick out the main
one.”
“Yes, it will be,” replied Sidney, “but we’ll have to take that chance.”
The boys began to realize that they had had no breakfast, and the
situation was not made more cheerful when they remembered that the
knapsacks contained only dry bread and cheese. Moreover, the cheese was
very salty, and as there was no water they did not dare to eat it, for
fear of creating a consuming thirst which could not be allayed. So the
breakfast menu was reduced to dry bread only. They ate that as slowly
as possible, taking very small pieces and chewing each piece a long
time. Even with such a highly hygienic method as that the meal was only
too quickly finished. When breakfast was out of the way, Raymond took
up his new revolver, which he had not had time to examine.
“Now, Sid,” said he, “I’ll clean my gun while you are doing up the
dishes.”
“All right,” laughed Sidney; “when I get a lot of dishes in the rinsing
water, I’ll call on you to dry them.”
“If you do, I’ll drink some of the rinsing water first. Gee, but I’m
thirsty!” Raymond found that the gun was a six-shot revolver of English
make; rather antiquated in style but in serviceable condition. He
took it all apart and wiped the pieces and the inside of the barrel
carefully with a bit of rag, polishing the barrel until every atom
shone. He spent so much time on the work that Sidney, who had nothing
to do, became restless.
“What will you do, Ray,” he asked, “if some one comes before you put
your gun together again?”
“Oh, I’ll just point the barrel at them; that will scare them away. But
seriously, Sid, if somebody should come I don’t believe it would do to
try to stand them off. If I shot a man or two, it would probably only
be worse for us in the end, for we certainly couldn’t get away. If they
didn’t dare come right in and take us, it would only be a question of
starving us out.”
“Yes, that’s so. I guess we should have to take our medicine if we
were discovered.” Sidney had been watching his brother at work on the
gun. As he finished speaking he glanced up and there was a little
child peering in at the door. The little fellow, as soon as he saw the
boys, turned and fled. Sidney jumped up and ran to the door and saw
the child scampering away along the side of the mountain. Raymond, in
his occupation with the revolver, had not seen their visitor, but when
Sidney rushed so precipitately to the door, he followed in alarm.
“I guess it’s all up with us now, Sid,” he said when he saw the child.
“That little rascal is sure to tell that he saw us.”
“I don’t believe he will. He’s scared now, but he will forget all about
it as soon as he meets somebody. He’s too young to remember long.”
“Well, I shall have nervous prostration if we keep getting such jolts
as this all day. I shall be glad when it’s dark again.”
The day seemed interminable to the boys, for there was nothing to do,
and they did not dare even to step outside, for fear of being seen.
Raymond persisted in believing that the tiny spy who had looked in at
the door would report their presence. There was no alarm, however, as
the day wore on, and he was finally obliged to confess that Sidney’s
prediction was probably accurate, and that the child had forgotten the
incident as soon as it was past.
The varied noises of village life rose to the lonely house and gave
a pleasing sense of neighborliness to the boys in spite of the
possibility of danger that the sounds suggested. Three or four horsemen
galloped in, seemingly on the road by which the boys had arrived.
The sunlight glistened from the bright metal trimmings of saddle and
bridle, and from the guns and the silver cartridge cases which the men
wore on their coat fronts. If the arms had been omitted, the long dark
coats, with skirts that covered the horses’ sides, and the black lamb’s
wool caps worn by the men, would have made them appear like a company
of priests.
“Gee! don’t I wish I had one of those horses!” sighed Raymond. “It’s
hard lines for a Texan to have to go afoot.”
“Well,” said Sidney, “we proved, that winter in Mexico, that Texans can
walk if necessary.”
“Yes, but we never had such mountains as those to cross.” And Raymond
looked distrustfully on the tremendous range that rose above the
horizon.
“What bothers me most,” said Sidney, “is the thought of cold weather
and snow over the summit. It must get pretty cold up there a little
later. We’ll have to do our very best hiking as soon as we get out of
this place.”
As afternoon advanced the boys became so thirsty that hunger was
forgotten and they could not endure the thought of dry food. The desire
for water increased until it amounted to torture. They paced restlessly
across the room, back and forth, in absolute silence, with no heart for
talk.
“Sid,” asked Raymond, when the sun had dropped behind the mountain at
the back, and long shadows lay across the valley, “how much longer
will we have to wait?”
“Until it’s good and dark.”
“But then we shan’t know where to get water.”
“It can’t be far to the mouth of the cañon above the village, and we’re
almost sure to find water there.”
“I don’t see how I’m going to stand it, Sid. I’d go back to the jail if
I could have a good drink.”
“You see, Ray, it’s not just a question of going back to the jail. We
can’t tell what they would do with us for killing the bandits. I don’t
know of any way we could prove we did it in self-defense.”
“Well, I almost wish that policeman would find us; that would settle
it.”
“I’m surprised he hasn’t,” said Sidney, “but I think he must have
believed that we went back to Timour Khan Shoura. And I think, too,
that he was trying to work a little private graft of his own. I don’t
believe he reported that we got out. He probably went back on the road
to try to overtake and rob us.”
“And here we’ve had to stay all day,” growled Raymond, “with water in
the house right below us. I’ve a good mind to go down there now and get
a drink.” For the thought of the possible water so near was almost more
than the boy could endure.
“It won’t be long now, Ray,” said Sidney encouragingly; “see, it’s
almost dark down in the valley now. You’ve been too fine the last few
days to give up just because you’re thirsty.”
“Let’s stop talking about it, Sid,” groaned Raymond. “It makes me wild
to think of water.” And Raymond took up the endless tramp again to wear
away the time.