THE MOTOR RANGER'S PERIL.
"Reckon Nat must have forgotten to fire the signal," thought Joe,
sinking down on a rock, some little time before the former had halted
to listen intently to the approaching noise.
Suddenly, however, the distant report came, borne clearly to his ears.
"There it goes," thought Joe. "One shot. I guess that means good-bye to
the Dutchman's horse."
Knowing that it would be no use looking about for Nat, for evidently
from the faint noise of the shot it had been fired at some distance,
Joe faced about and started back for the camp. When he reached it, he
found to his surprise, that Herr Muller had returned some time before.
As a matter of fact, Joe formed a shrewd suspicion from the rapid time
he must have made on his return, that Herr Muller had sought a snug
spot and dozed away the interval before Nat's shot was heard.
As it so happened he was not very far from the truth. The German,
having tramped quite a distance into the woods, had argued to himself
that he stood about as good a chance of recovering his horse by
remaining still as by proceeding. So he had seated himself with a big
china-bowled pipe, to await the recall signal. He had started on the
hunt with much enthusiasm, but tramping over rough, stony ground, under
a hot sun, is one of the greatest solvents of enthusiasm known. And so
it had proved in the German's case.
He had, however, a fine tale to tell of his tramp, and to listen to
him one would have thought that he was the most industrious of the
searchers.
"Guess we'd better start dinner without Nat," said Cal, after they had
hung around, doing nothing but watching the pots simmer over the camp
fire, for an hour or two.
"That's a gug-g-g-good idea," agreed Ding-dong.
Joe demurred a bit at the idea of not waiting for their young leader,
but finally he, too, agreed to proceed with the meal. As will be seen
by this, not much anxiety was yet felt in the camp over Nat's absence.
He was stronger and much more wiry than the other two searchers, and
it was altogether probable that he had proceeded much farther than had
they.
But, as the afternoon wore on and no Nat put in an appearance,
conversation seemed to languish. Anxious eyes now sought the rim of
the woods on the opposite side of the clearing. Nobody dared to voice
the fears that lay at their hearts, however. Cal, perhaps, alone among
them, realized the extent of the peril in which Nat stood, if he were
lost in the mountains. It was for this reason that he did not speak
until it became impossible to hold out hope any longer.
This was when the shadows began to lengthen and the western sky burned
dull-red, as the sun sank behind the pine-fringed mountain tops. Then,
and not till then, Cal spoke what was on his mind.
His comrades received the news of Cal's conviction that Nat was
lost without the dismay and outward excitement that might have been
expected. As a matter of fact, the dread that something had happened to
the lad had been in the minds of all of them for some hours, although
each tried to appear chipper and cheerful. There was no evading the
facts as they stood, any longer, however.
Very soon night would fall, with its customary suddenness in these
regions. Unless Nat returned before that time--which was so improbable
as to hardly be worth considering--there remained only one conclusion
to be drawn.
"Whatever can we do?" demanded Joe, in a rather shaky voice, as he
thought of his comrade out on the desolate mountain side, hungry and
perhaps thirsty, looking in vain for a trace of a trail back to camp.
"Not much of anything," was Cal's disquieting reply, "except to stay
put."
"You mean stay right where we are?"
"That's right, boy. There's a chance that Nat may be back before long.
Only a chance, mind you, but in that case we want ter be right here."
"Suppose he is h-h-h-h-hurt?" quavered out Ding-dong, voicing a fear
they had all felt, but had not, so far, dared to speak of.
Cal waved his hand in an inclusive way at the range opposite.
"That will mean a search for him," he said, "and he may be any place in
those hills within a ten-mile radius. Talk about lookin' fer a needle
in a haystack. It 'ud be child's play, to finding him in time to do
anything."
They could not but feel the truth of his words.
"Besides," went on Cal, "there's another thing. We know that that
ornery bunch of skunks and coyotes of Morello's is sky-hootin' round
here some place. If we leave the camp they might swoop down on it and
clean it out, and then we'd be in a worse fix than ever."
"That's right," admitted Joe, "but it seems dreadfully tough to have to
sit here with folded hands and doing nothing; while Nat----"
His voice broke, and he looked off toward the mountains, now dim and
dun-colored in the fast gathering night.
"No use giving way," said Cal briskly, "and as fer sitting with folded
hands, it's the worst thing you could do. Here you," to Herr Muller,
"hustle around and git all ther wood you can. A big pile of it. We'll
keep up a monstrous fire all night in case the lad might happen to see
it."
"It will give us something to think about anyhow," said Joe, catching
the infection of Cal's brisk manner; "come on, Herr Muller, I'll help
you."
They started off to collect wood, while Ding-dong Bell and Cal busied
themselves with the supper dishes and then cleaned up a variety of
small jobs around the camp.
"Jes' stick this bit of advice in your craw, son," advised Cal as he
went briskly about his tasks, "work's the thing that trouble's most
scart of, so if ever you want to shake your woes pitch in an' tackle
something."
While Nat's comrades are thus employed, let us see for ourselves
what has become of the lad. We left him listening intently to some
approaching horsemen. He remained in this attentive attitude only long
enough to assure himself that they were indeed coming toward him, and
then, like a flash, his mind was made up.
It was clear to the boy that travellers in such a remote part of the
Sierras were not common. It also came into his mind that Col. Morello's
band was reputed to have their hiding place somewhere in the vicinity.
The brief glance about him that Nat had obtained had shown him that it
was just the sort of place that men anxious to hide themselves from the
law would select. In the first place, it was so rugged and wild as to
be inaccessible to any but men on foot or horseback, and even then it
would have been a rough trip.
The valley, or rather "cut," in the hills, up which the sound of hoofs
was coming, was, as has been said, narrow and deep in the extreme.
From the summits of its cliffs a defence of the trail that lay beneath
would be easy. Stationed on those pinnacled, natural turrets, two
might, if well supplied with ammunition, have withstood an army. All
these thoughts had occurred to Nat before he made his resolution--and
turning, started to run.
But as he sped along a fresh difficulty presented itself. The hillside
at this point seemed to be alive with blue-jays. They flew screaming
up, as he made his way along, and Nat knew that if they had acted as
a warning to him of approaching danger the vociferous birds would be
equally probable to arouse the suspicions of whoever was coming his way.
He paused to listen for a second, and was glad he had done so. The
horsemen, to judge from their voices, had already reached the spot upon
which he had been standing when he first heard them. What wind there
was blew toward him and he could hear their words distinctly.
"Those jays are acting strangely, Manuello. I wonder if there is
anybody here."
"I do not know, colonel," was the reply from the other unseen speaker,
"if there is it will be to our advantage to find him. We don't want
spies near the Wolf's Mouth."
"Wolf's Mouth," thought Nat, "If that's the name of that abyss it's
well called."
"You are right, Manuello," went on the first speaker, "after what
Dayton told us about those boys I don't feel easy in my mind as long
as they are in our neighborhood. If Dayton and the others had not
miscalculated yesterday we shouldn't have been bothered with them any
longer."
"No," was the rejoinder, "it's a pity that boulder didn't hit them and
pound them into oblivion. Just because they happen to be boys doesn't
make them any the less dangerous to us."
At this unlucky moment, while Nat was straining his ears to catch every
word of the conversation a stone against which he had braced one of his
feet gave way. Ordinarily he would have hardly noticed the sound it
made as it went bounding and rolling down the hillside, but situated as
he was, the noise seemed to be as startling and loud as the discharge
of a big gun.
"What was that?" asked the man who had been addressed as "colonel."
"A dislodged stone," was the reply, "someone is in there; the blue-jays
didn't fly up for nothing."
"So it would seem. We had better investigate before going farther."
"Still, it is important that we find where those boys are camped."
"That is true, but it is more important that we find out who is in that
brush."
Without any more delay, the two horses were turned into the hillside
growth. Nat could hear their feet slipping and sliding among the loose
rocks on the mountain as they came toward him. He did not dare to run
for fear of revealing his whereabouts.
Close at hand was a piñon tree, which spread out low-growing branches
all about. Nat, as he spied it, decided that if he could get within
its leafy screen unobserved he would, if luck favored him, escape the
observation of the two men--one of whom he was certain now, must be
the famous, or infamous, Col. Morello himself.
Without any repetition of the unlucky accident of the minute before, he
crept to the trunk of the tree and hoisted himself noiselessly up. As
he had surmised, the upper branches made a comfortable resting place
impervious to the view from below.
Hardly had he made himself secure, before the horses of the two outlaws
approached the tree and, rather to Nat's consternation, halted almost
immediately beneath it.
Could the keen-eyed leader of the outlaw band have discovered his
hiding place? It was the most anxious moment of the boy's life.