THE PROFESSOR AGAIN
The evening before the sand storm, a red wagon had been crawling
over the alkali toward the barren hills. It was the eccentric
vehicle affected by Professor Wandering William, and was headed for
the barren range of hills in which lay the valley of the outlaws.
Professor Wandering William, silently smoking, kept his keen eyes
steadily fixed upon the distant hills as he drove, although from
time to time he scanned the sky anxiously.
"Going to be a sandstorm sure," he grunted. "Well, if I can make
the lee of those hills by sundown I reckon I'll be all right. Too
bad though. It'll give that precious outfit a chance to put a still
further gap between themselves and me--phew! but it's hot!"
The professor took off his big sombrero and placed it behind him in
the wagon. He seemed to think a minute and then muttered:
"Oh, well, I guess it's no harm. Nobody to see but a few old
buzzards anyhow, and they won't tell."
The professor, having concluded these self-addressed remarks, did a
strange thing. He raised his hands to his head and the next instant
his luxuriant long hair had vanished, revealing a close-cropped head
of dark hair. This done, he removed his goatee with the same ease,
and was revealed as a good-looking, forceful-faced young man of
perhaps thirty-two or so.
"Ah-h-h-h!" he breathed with intense satisfaction, "that's a whole
heap better. However, I guess the time's coming pretty quick when I
can do without this make-up altogether. I shan't be sorry either.
Git up!"
This last remark was addressed to the motive power of his jaunty red
wagon. In obedience the wheels began to revolve faster. But press
onward as he would, supper-time found the professor--so strangely
shorn--still some distance from the hills.
"That storm's coming right up, too," he said to himself over his
after-supper pipe; "well, no help for it. I guess we'll have to
push on."
Watering his animals from a bucket previously filled at the spigot
of a big water keg built into his wagon the professor hitched up and
pressed on to his destination. Darkness came on, but still he drove
steadily forward, seeking the shelter he knew he could find in the
lee of the barren hills.
"Going to be a hummer and no mistake," he commented half aloud;
"good thing-it-didn't catch me out in the middle of the alkali or
Red Bill and his cronies might have had a new lease of life."
It was close upon midnight when the professor found a spot to his
liking, and by that time the first desultory puffs of the coming
storm were sighing in the nooks and crannies of the barren hills.
He tethered his team, gave them their hay in the shelter of the
wagon, watered them and then, after a good-night pipe, prepared to
turn in. He woke from a troubled doze to find the wind rocking the
wagon within which he slept.
"Wonder what kind of weather the ponies are making of it?" he
muttered, and rising he opened the canvas flaps at the front of the
wagon and peered out.
At that instant he saw, or thought he saw, two dark objects move by
in the flying smother of sand. But the next moment he told himself
it must have been imagination.
"Guess being alone so much is getting on my nerve," he commented.
Having seen that his stock were lying down and turning their backs
on the flying drift, Wandering William, as he called himself,
retired once more. But he couldn't sleep for thinking of the
strange illusion he had had.
"No, it wasn't an illusion either," he said stoutly to himself the
next instant. "I'm prepared to swear that I really did see two
figures on horseback, though what, in great ginger cookies, they
were doing out in this I don't know. Appears to me though that they
must have had to call a halt right around here some place. In that
case I'm going to give 'em a hail, an' if they answer it invite 'em
into the wagon. This is no weather to be out without an umbrella."
Chuckling a little at his joke, Wandering William arose and went
once more to the front of his wagon.
Placing his hands to his mouth, funnel-wise, he sent a long, shrill
cry vibrating out through the storm. Another and another he gave
till he was hoarse, but there was no reply.
"Guess I was dreaming after all," remarked Wandering William
retiring once more to his blanket.
A sickly yellow light struggling through the sand-laden air heralded
the day. But the wind had died down and the particles still held in
suspension were rapidly thinning out of the air.
Roy thrust his head from under his saddle like a turtle from its
shell.
His lips were dry and cracked, his eyes smarted, his skin was
irritated with the sand. The whole world seemed to have turned to
sand. It was everywhere.
"Peggy!"
A similar turtle-like head projected from the other saddle. Poor
Peggy, she would positively have screamed if she had known the
appearance she presented. Her hair was tousled, her eyes red with
irritation of the sand, and her lips dry and cracked like Roy's.
"Is--is it all over, Roy?" she asked a bit quaveringly.
"I think so. The wind has died down, and look, the ponies have
gotten to their feet. I guess they know."
"Wasn't it awful. I never thought we should live through it."
"Nor did I. But there's one good thing, it has obscured our tracks.
If any of Red Bill's gang tried to follow us now they'd have a lot
of trouble."
"That's so," agreed Peggy, and then went on to tell Roy of the
terrifying screeches and yells she had heard in the night.
"Nothing but the wind," opined Roy, with boy-like superiority. But
the next instant it was his turn to start amazedly. Through the
fog-like gloom that still overhung the desert a figure was making its
way toward them. Roy's hand flew to the revolver with which the
thoughtful Ah Sing had provided his saddle holster.
At the same instant the figure, seemingly that of a young man,
turned, and wheeling quickly, ran backward and was swallowed up in
the obscurity.
"Was that one of Red Bill's men?" gasped Peggy.
"Impossible. They could not have traveled through that storm. But
who can it be?"
"What did he run like that for?"
"I'm going after him to find out," declared Roy pluckily; "maybe
it's somebody who has become crazed from the sandstorm."
"Oh, Roy, a lunatic!"
Peggy clasped her hands. But the next instant a fresh surprise
greeted them. A tall figure with flowing gray locks and gray
goatee, topped off with a big sombrero, was seen approaching from
the same direction as that in which the youthful figure had
vanished.
"Wandering William!" exclaimed the two young adventurers in one
breath.
"Yes, Wandering William. The precise individual," was the
rejoinder; "and just in time to invite you to breakfast. There,
there, no explanations now. You both resemble the output of a
threshing machine. But I have mirrors, soap, towels and water in my
wagon. Come along, and if you feel ailing, for the insignificant
sum of one dollar I will sell you a bottle of Wandering William's
Wonderful Wonder Worker."
Exhausted as both boy and girl felt, they could hardly maintain
their gravity in the face of this eccentric individual. The very
suddenness and utter unexpectedness of his appearance seemed of a
piece with his other odd actions. But suddenly Roy recollected the
figure that had appeared and then vanished.
"I'd like to accept," said Roy, with vast cunning as he thought,
"but what would your partner say?"
"My partner?" Wandering William looked frankly puzzled.
"Yes. That young chap who came toward us and then disappeared again
when I came at him with a gun. Not that I blame him," Roy broke off
with a laugh, "but I thought for a moment it was one of Red Bill's
gang."
Wandering William's keen gray eyes narrowed into two little slits.
"What's that you're saying, boy," he exclaimed; "what do you know
about Red Bill Summers?"
"A good deal too much for our comfort," exclaimed Roy, and then he
rapidly sketched events of the last twenty-four hours as the trio
walked toward Wandering William's wagon.
The strange vendor of medicine seemed to be deeply interested,
although he confined his comments to "ums" and "ahs."
"But about that other man," said Roy, returning to the charge when
he had finished his narrative, "didn't you see him?"
"My dear boy," said Wandering William seriously, "I think you had
better invest in a bottle of Wandering William's Wonder Working
Witch Oil for tired and shattered nerves. There is no one in the
vicinity but our three selves."
Boy and girl stared at him blankly.
"But I saw him, too," said Peggy.
"I dare say, I dare say," and Wandering William patted his luxuriant
curls; "you had a night of strain. What you need is breakfast--hot
coffee and all that. Now go in and get fixed up while I attend to
your ponies, or rather, Red Bill's."
The wind had by this time died down, and the sun struggled out
through the clearing air. Nobody was in sight but themselves, and
fain to believe that their sand-sore eyes must have played them a
trick, the boy and girl proceeded to "fix up" in Wandering William's
really comfortably appointed wagon.
In the meantime one weight had been lifted from Peggy's mind.
Wandering William had explained that it was he who had uttered the
shouts and yells which had so alarmed her in the night.
"If only it wasn't for that man whom I'm certain I saw," thought
Peggy as she combed the sand out of her hair, "I should feel quite
relieved, but as it is--Roy, are you still certain you saw that man--the
one you pointed the revolver at I mean?"
Roy looked dubious.
"I--don't know," he confessed.
"Oh, Roy Prescott," snapped Peggy, "I--I'd like to shake you."