DANGER THREATENS
Somewhat more than two hours later Peggy brought her aeroplane to
the ground in the arroyo which had been the scene of the battle with
the coyotes. The girl could not help giving an involuntary shudder
as she thought of the narrow escape they had had on that occasion.
But in the light of the other and more serious menace which now hung
over them like a storm cloud, the adventure with the wild beasts
faded into insignificance. Human enemies, more deadly perhaps than
any of the animal kingdom, threatened, and if signs counted for
anything it would be no long time before they would strike.
Peggy had not been able to leave the camp without some resort to
strategy. Naturally Jess had been anxious to come. But a quick
flight had been imperative, and the presence of even one other
person in the monoplane detracted somewhat from its speed. Then,
too, Peggy had ached with her whole being to be alone--to think.
She wanted to reconstruct everything in her mind so that when she
told all to Mr. Bell there would be no confusion, no hesitancy in
her story.
Three sharp toots on the electric signaling horn the aeroplane
carried--connected to a set of dry cells--resulted in an outpouring
from the mine-hole of the three prospectors. Very business-like
they looked, too, in khaki trousers, dust covered shirts and rolled
up sleeves.
"Well, well! Early visitors," exclaimed Mr. Bell jocularly, and
then struck by Peggy's sober expression as she stepped from the car
of the aeroplane he stopped short.
"My dear child, what is it?" he demanded. "Where are the twin
fairies of light that used to dance in your eyes?"
"My goodness, Mr. Bell, you ought to have been a poet like your
brother," laughed Roy coming forward with Jimsy to meet his sister.
And then, like his senior, he, too, was struck by Peggy's anxious
look.
"What's the trouble, sis; bad news?" he asked.
"Anything happened?" demanded Jimsy.
"Oh, no, no; set your minds at rest on that," responded Peggy.
"Everything is all right, at least--at least--"
Her voice wavered a bit and Mr. Bell gently led her to a stool in
front of the rough camp they had set up in the arroyo.
"Now then, my dear," he said, "what is it?"
Peggy faced her eager listeners, and, recovering from her momentary
tremor, told her story from beginning to end in a clear, convincing
way.
"Do you think I did right in coming?" she concluded. Her gaze fell
appealingly upon Mr. Bell. She did not wish this sinewy, wiry,
self-reliant man to think that she was a victim of a school girl's
hysterical fears. But the mining man's words speedily set her at
ease on this point.
"Think you did right!" he echoed, while a rather serious expression
came over his face; "my dear girl, if you had not come to me I
should have thought you did very wrong. You have made only one
mistake and that was in not telling me before this time about what
you overheard at the National House. This Red Bill, as they call
him, is one of the most unscrupulous ruffians that cumber the face
of the Nevada desert. In any other community he would have been
brought up with a round turn long ago. But here," he shrugged his
shoulders. "I suppose after all," he went on, "it's the old story
of who'll bell the cat."
"Do you think that we are in serious danger?" inquired Jimsy. His
eyes were round as saucers and his usually good natured face look
troubled.
"Well, not in serious danger, my boy," rejoined Mr. Bell; "but, just
between us four, mind, it behooves us to use all speed in getting
the title of this mine recorded. This Red Bill is as resourceful as
a fox, and what Miss Peggy has told us shows that he is closer on
our trail than I should have imagined possible. The draining of the
water hole is unfortunate in two ways. If, as I now suspect, he is
camped in the hills to the east of the camp, it is plain that he has
secured a supply of water sufficient to last him for some time. And
this cuts both ways, for his gain in that respect means our loss.
The more water he has the less we have. That much is clear."
"Clear as mud," said Jimsy ruefully; but his tone robbed the words
of any humorous significance.
"You have reached a decision, Mr. Bell?" asked Roy. The boy had not
spoken yet.
Mr. Bell's mouth closed in a firm line and his chin came out in what
Peggy described to herself as "a fighting bulge."
"Yes," he said with characteristic vim, "I have. Steer Wells will
not be safe after daylight to-day for the women of the party. Red
Bill is dastard enough, through an attack on them, to try to
intimidate me. We must shift to try to camp at once."
"But where?"
The question came blankly from Jimsy.
"Here. We have a moderate supply of water and there is feed of a
kind. Enough at least to keep the stock alive till our work is
completed. You see," he continued, turning to Peggy, "the boys and
I have struck a very interesting lead. How far it goes I have no
idea, but my mining experience teaches me that it is an offshoot of
the mother lode. Until we have tapped that I don't want to file a
claim."
Peggy nodded her head sagely.
"I see," she said, "you don't want to file your claim and then have
somebody else squat down beside you and win the biggest prize of
all."
"That's it exactly," said Mr. Bell, "but the question in my mind is
whether I am right in exposing you, Miss Bancroft and Miss Prescott
to what may be peril. And yet--"
He broke off and a troubled expression crept over his weather-beaten
face.
"And yet," Peggy finished for him, "there's no way for us to go back
now without abandoning the mine."
"That's it. But if you--"
"I vote to stick by the mine."
There was no hesitation in Peggy's voice now.
Mr. Bell's keen gray eyes kindled.
"You're a girl of real grit," he said, "but the others?"
"I'll answer for them. Miss Prescott need not know anything of the
danger. After all, it may amount to nothing. As for Jess, she has
as much, and more, nerve than I have."
"When it comes to eating ice cream," put in Jimsy irrelevantly.
Peggy, glancing about her, could not but reflect at the moment what
a strange contrast the scene about them offered to the peaceful
landscape and commonplace adventures of hum-drum Long Island. Not
but what the Girl Aviators had had their meed of excitement there,
too, as readers of the "Girl Aviators and the Phantom Airship" well
know. But in the scoriated hills with their scanty outcropping of
pallid wild oats, the fire-seered acclivities and the burning blue
of the desert heavens above all, she beheld a setting entirely
foreign to anything in her experience.
"It's like Remington's pictures," she thought to herself as she
gazed at the roughly clad group about her, the shabby tent, the
mining implements cast about carelessly here and there and the
smoldering fire with the blackened cooking pots beside it.
Only one sharply modern note intruded-the two big, yellow-winged
monoplanes. Even they appeared, in this wild, outre setting, to have
taken on the likenesses of giant scarabs, monsters indigenous to the
baked earth and starving vegetation. She was roused from her
reverie by Mr. Bell's voice cutting incisively the half unconscious
silence into which they had lapsed.
"Roy, you and your sister will take the monoplane in which Miss
Peggy rode over and bring Miss Prescott, Miss Bancroft and my
brother over at once."
"But the stock and Alverado?"
The question came from Peggy.
"Alverado, as you call him, can drive the stock across the desert.
It should not take him more than twenty-four hours if he presses
right ahead. We can send out an aeroplane scouting party for him if
he appears to be unduly delayed."
After some more discussion along the same lines Roy, nothing loth
for an aerial dash after his hard work in the mine hole, made ready
for the trip. From a locker he drew out his solar helmet and
goggles and advised Peggy to don her sun spectacles also. But
Peggy, as on several previous occasions, declined positively to put
on the smoked glasses designed to protect the eyes from the
merciless glare of the desert at noon day.
"They'd make me look like a feminine Sherlock Holmes," she declared
stoutly.
"I hope that you won't take it amiss if I say that you have already
proved yourself one, and a good one, too," laughed Mr. Bell as the
brother and sister clambered into the chassis.
But as Roy adjusted his levers for the rise from the depths of the
sun-baked arroyo Mr. Bell held up his hand.
"One moment," he said, "bring back some of the dynamite with you.
We're almost out of it and it's needed badly. We've got to blast
through that streak of hard pan."
"We'll bring it," nodded Roy, "although I'm not going to tell Aunt
Sally about it. I guess she wouldn't be best pleased at the idea of
traveling in company with such a dangerous cargo."
As he spoke the propeller began to whir, and after a brief run, the
monoplane took the air, rising in a graceful angle toward the
burning blue. As they rose above the hills a reddish haze that
overspread the horizon became distinctly visible. Peggy viewed it
with a little apprehension.
"I hope that doesn't portend another electrical storm," she said
rather anxiously, leaning forward and addressing her brother.
Roy shook his head.
"Guess it's just heat haze," he decided. "Mr. Bell says that those
dry storms don't often come twice in one season."
"Well, let's be thankful for small mercies anyhow," said Peggy with
a return to her former cheerfulness.
The news that camp was to be broken at once and the base of
operations removed to the hills, came as a shock to those left
behind in the camp. Somehow the pleasant shelter of the ragged
willows had become a sort of makeshift home to them, and the idea of
winging to the barren hills was not pleasing. Miss Prescott,
however, was the only one who made an open wail about it. Old Mr.
Bell took it as stoically as he did most things. Only, as he
hastened about the camp making preparations for the departure, he
could have been heard humming:
"We've got to go far, far away,
To the mountains, so they say;
I hate to leave the willows' shade,
But Brother James must be obeyed."
Alverado received his instructions with a silent shrug. He informed
Roy and Peggy that there was just enough water left to fill the bags
for the dash across the desert. He said no more, but there was a
curious kind of reticence in his manner, as if he was holding back
something he did not wish to express outwardly. It was not till
everything was packed ready for the start, and old Mr. Bell and Miss
Sally had been hoisted and dragged into the chassis, that he drew
Roy apart and spoke. Peggy was included in the confidence.
"While you gone I follow up tracks from the water hole," he said;
"bime-by I come to place where sacks slip off one pony's feet. Then
I see a track that I make stick in my memory long, long ago. That
day they leave me for dead on the desert."
He stooped and drew the outline of a peculiarly shaped hoof on the
Alkali-impregnated dust. The boy and girl watched him curiously.
"Well?" asked Peggy, and she and her brother hung on the answer.
Alverado's face became overcast by a black look. His eyes glowed
like two live coals.
"I think then I never forget that track. I think the same to-day.
The pony that made that track was ridden by Red Bill."