ON THE TRAIL TO THE ZUNI VILLAGE.
"Well, here we are on the road to the Zuni village, and with pretty near
a whole day's journey to the good behind us!"
Broncho Billie said this as he rode close behind his two chums. Several
days had passed since that thrilling adventure with the rattlesnakes of
the rocky den; and the boys had made ample preparations for their trip.
As it was so much more comfortable to sleep under some sort of shelter,
at the earnest solicitation of Billie, who liked comfort when he could
have it, they had accepted the offer of a tent from Corse Tibbals, the
overseer and head man at the mine, being one that had served him many a
time in the past, but which he felt he could easily spare, seeing that
these lads had worked a miracle in the way things were happening at the
Red Spar Mine.
This same tent was loaded upon an extra mount, a sorrel mule that the
boys had named "Bray," because that seemed to be his favorite amusement
at various times during the day and night. And there were also many
bundles fastened to the back of the pack animal, said to contain all
sorts of food, and presents from the miners and their wives; all of whom
felt so grateful to Donald and his chums because they had brought the
dangerous condition of affairs to an end, and by making new contracts
with the men, caused happiness to dwell in the shanties that composed
the little mining hamlet near the Red Spar.
Billie liked to lead Bray. Many were the glances he cast during the day
upon those various packages, the contents of which appealed to him
greatly; because it happened that the fat boy possessed a pretty healthy
appetite, and the subject of gratifying the same occupied considerable
of his attention when awake.
They had really put in quite an arduous eight hours, and boys, as well
as ponies, showed more or less signs of being tired as the afternoon
shadows lengthened, and it seemed as though the day would soon come to a
close, when they might be looking for a decent camping spot in order to
pass the first night out on the trail.
Donald turned his head to glance at the fat boy when Billie made the
assertion which starts this chapter.
"All of which is true enough, Billie," he remarked, with a twinkle in
his eye; "and given a couple more such days we ought to get to where
we're aiming for. But you know from past experiences, you never can tell
what's going to happen in this Arizona country. Any time a fellow is apt
to run across some sort of an outlaw cattle rustler, and be taken in by
him as an easy mark!"
At that Adrian could be heard chuckling; while Billie turned fiery red,
and appeared to bristle up more or less, as he hastily went on to say:
"Oh! go on and have your little joke, if it gives you any pleasure,
fellows. But I'd do that same thing again, I reckon under similar
circumstances. That poor chap was in a bad way, what with his cuts, and
being nigh starved. I own up I didn't just like his looks, but he was in
a peck of trouble, and I just didn't have the heart to desert him till
he'd got to feeling better, and said he thought he might get on alone.
Never thought to ask his name either; and when I told the boys all about
it, and described him as a fellow with a squint in his left eye, why,
they just laughed themselves sick over it, and told me I'd been playing
nurse to the meanest rascal that ever went unhung."
"Yes, not a man around the Red Spar has a good word to say about that
Tod Harkness," ventured Donald, still grinning; "he's been a cattle
rustler and a general all-round shirk, a thief and everything that's
bad. They thought you'd been sold the worst kind. Why, some of the men
wanted to know if the sneak hadn't stolen your pocketbook while you were
helping him walk to a place where you meant to camp, that night you got
lost."
"Well, he didn't, and that's all there is about it," said Billie,
firmly. "Mebbe Tod Harkness is everything you say; but he was a mighty
sick man right then and there. So please forget it. I know I'm soft, and
most anybody can impose on me; but I was born that way; and they say the
leopard just can't change his spots. Let that little episode drop. I
ain't sorry one whit, I tell you. Do it again if I ran across a sick
man, don't care if he was the Old Nick himself. So there!"
Donald gave Adrian a nod as if to say "just see how set he is in his
ways;" but neither of them continued making any further remark upon the
subject which was such a sore one with their stout chum.
Indeed, further conversation was rendered out of the question by Bray,
for the pack mule took a sudden notion to give tongue; and when he let
out his voice no human tones could prevail against the raucous sounds.
"I think I can see where we're going to put up tonight!" Donald called
out, some ten minutes afterwards.
At that Billie brightened visibly.
"Oh! that's the best thing I've heard you say for a whole hour, Donald,"
he declared, with some signs of excitement. "Then, chances are we'll be
getting busy with supper before a great while. That always pleases me,
you know, boys."
"Yes, and it's a lucky thing for all of us that the wives of those
miners saw fit to make up that hunky-dory pack of supplies, when they
heard where we meant to head for, before starting back to Keystone
ranch," Adrian went on to say.
"Oh! I'm always free to admit that I've got some appetite along with
me," acknowledged Billie, complacently; for nothing they could ever say
along these lines seemed to disturb him in the least.
Before twenty minutes had come and gone they were proceeding to get the
tent in position; at least Billie and Adrian set about accomplishing
this task, after the horses had been staked out where they could nibble
at the grass growing near the spring hole; while Donald arranged a
fireplace out of convenient stones, hunter-fashion, it being wider in
front for the frying-pan to set there, while the coffee-pot could
straddle the narrow section in the rear.
Billie was as happy as a lark; he always acted that way when a bustle in
the way of getting ready to eat came along.
"It's hard for me to believe that, after dreaming about it for years,
I'm going to actually set eyes on them queer Zunis in a couple of days,"
he started to say; and then turning quickly on Donald, as though he had
remembered something he may have intended asking, he went on: "didn't
you say that this was about the time of year when they had all their
dances, and carried on such high jinks?"
"I wouldn't be surprised, from what Corse Tibbals told me, if we just
happened to hit it about right for all the ceremonies they go through
with every year," Donald replied. "And I reckon, now, that you mean to
try and get some snapshots while that native circus is going on, don't
you, Billie?"
"Just what I'm thinking of trying," admitted the other, naively. "Course
I've got a heap of pictures of the Zunis and Hopis at home, but that
ain't the same as snapping 'em off all by yourself. I'd rather have a
poor picture that I'd taken myself, than the finest any artist could
produce. Ain't that right, Adrian?"
He always appealed to the other when making any statement of this sort;
and as usual Adrian quickly backed him up.
"Of course you would, and rightly too, Billie; because that shows you
were on deck when the dancing was going on. For a fellow couldn't very
well take a picture of a thing unless he was there, could he?"
"Sure he couldn't, 'less he piked a copy from another picture," Billie
declared. "And I only hope I'll get chances to use up a whole string of
films, with the girls and their queer head-dresses showing like the Hopi
Indians do, and p'raps the old medicine-man all dressed up in his togs
adoing a two-step, while he shakes his gourds and rattles, and tinkles
his little bells in great style. Oh! I'm cram full of the subject, let
me tell you, boys; and I'll never be happy till I see it all with my
very eyes."
"Well, what are we going to have for supper?" asked Donald, who knew
very well that only in this way could the talkative Billie be made to
branch off the subject that had begun to be wearisome to the rest of the
little party.
The ruse succeeded, too, as it always did; and Billie was quickly at
work undoing several of those mysterious packages which the grateful
wives of the miners had made up for the trio of saddle pards.
His various exclamations of delight must have early convinced both
Adrian and Donald that the fat boy had made numerous satisfactory
discoveries. And later on, when that supper was cooked, and they sat
around in easy attitudes, consuming the same, they voted that the women
of the Red Spar camp were all "trumps" of the first water; because they
knew what hungry boys liked most.
"Had we better keep any sort of watch tonight?" asked Billie, yawning, a
couple of hours after they had finished eating; the interval that had
elapsed having been occupied with much talk along various interesting
lines, during which Billie managed as usual to soak up a great deal of
information.
"Well, of course the horses are about as good as a sentry," admitted
Donald, who had trained his pony, Wireless, to snort, and wake him up in
case enemies came prowling around; "but all the same we'd better sleep
with one eye open. It's a mighty poor policy to wait till the horse is
stolen before you lock the stable door, so my dad always says. And there
might be some rustler in this section like, well, Billie's good friend,
Tod, you know; who just couldn't keep from grabbing our mounts, no
matter how hard he tried."
"Yes," added Adrian, as though to put a clincher in the assertion made
by his chum, "and it'd be no joke for us to be left on foot away off
here, hundreds of miles from home. We'll keep our arms handy, and if any
sneak gives us a call, why we can make him sorry he found us at home,
that's what."
"Hark! listen to Wireless right now, would you?" exclaimed Donald, in a
low, tense voice, as he half arose to his feet, quivering with sudden
excitement.
Billie was the only one to snatch up a gun, which he happened to have
alongside at that particular moment.
"Look there, will you?" called out Donald; "see him scuttle off into the
darkness, of the shadows? An Injun as sure as you live. Oh! if only I
had my gun in my hands. Give him a shot, Billie, why don't you?"
But Billie, although he half raised his Marlin rifle, failed to shoot.
Possibly the thought of hurting a human being did not appeal to him in
the same sense as it did these boys of the plains. Then again, perhaps
the haste with which the shadowy figure of the dusky warrior scuttled
out of sight rather disconcerted the fat boy. At any rate, Billie only
stood there with his gun half raised; and the next thing he knew there
was nothing but the moonlight and the shadows before him.