FACING THEIR FOES.
"Nat, wake up!"
"_Nat!_"
"NAT!"
Joe's third exclamation awoke the slumbering boy and he raised himself
on the rough couch on one arm.
"What is it, Joe?" he asked, gazing in a startled way at his chum. Joe
was sitting bolt upright on the rough, wooden-framed bed, and gazing
through a dilapidated window outside upon the moon-flooded canyon.
"Hark!" whispered Joe, "don't you hear something?"
"Nothing but the water running down that old flume behind the hut."
"That's queer, I don't hear it any more either," said Joe; "guess it
was a false alarm."
"Guess so," assented Nat, settling down once more in the blankets. From
various parts of the rough hut came the steady, regular breathing of
Ding-dong Bell, Cal and Herr Muller. The latter must have been having a
nightmare for he kept muttering:----
"Lookd oudt py der sapphires. Lookd oudt!"
"No need for him to worry, they are safe enough in the hiding place
where Cal used to keep his dust when he had any," grunted Joe, still
sitting erect and on the alert, however. Somehow he could not get it
out of his head that outside the hut he had heard stealthy footsteps a
few moments before.
The Motor Rangers and their friends had arrived at Cal's hut in the
canyon that afternoon. Their first care had been to dispose safely of
the box of precious stones in the hiding place mentioned by Joe. The
evening before their last act at the camp by the ruined hut had been to
consign the remains of the dead miner to a grave under the great pines.
Nat with his pocketknife had carved a memorial upon a slab of timber.
"Sacred to the memory of Elias Goodale. Died----."
* * * * *
And so, with a last look backward at the scene of the lonely tragedy of
the hills, they had proceeded. Nat had not mentioned to his companions
that he was sure that he had seen some one at the window, as they bent
over the sapphires. After all it might have been an hallucination. The
boy's first and natural assumption had been that whoever had peeped
through the window was a member of Col. Morello's band, sent forward
to track them. But then he recollected the burned forest that lay
behind. It seemed hardly credible that any member of the band could
have passed that barrier and arrived at the hut at almost the same time
as the Motor Rangers. Had Nat known what accurate and minute knowledge
the colonel possessed of the secret trails and short cuts of that part
of the Sierras he might not, however, have been so incredulous of his
first theory.
The same afternoon they had reached a summit from which Cal, pointing
downward, had shown them a scanty collection of huts amid a dark sea
of pines.
"That's the place," he said.
Half an hour's ride had brought them to the canyon which they found had
been deserted even by the patient Chinamen, since Cal's last visit.
His hut, however, was undisturbed and had not been raided by timber
rats, thanks to an arrangement of tin pans set upside down which
Cal had contrived on the corner posts. The afternoon had been spent
in concealing the sapphire chest in a recess behind some rocks some
distance from the hut. A short tour of exploration followed. As Cal
had said on a previous occasion, the camp had once been the scene of
great mining activity. Traces of it were everywhere. The hillside was
honeycombed with deserted workings and mildewed embankments of slag.
Scrub and brush had sprung up everywhere, and weeds flourished among
rotting, rusty mining machinery. It was a melancholy spot, and the boys
had been anxious to leave it and push on to Big Oak Flat, ten miles
beyond. But by the time they reached this decision it was almost dark
and the road before them was too rough to traverse by night. It had
been decided therefore to camp in Cal's hut that night.
"Pity we can't float like a lot of logs," said Joe, as he stood looking
at the water roaring through the flume which was a short distance
behind the hut.
"Yep," rejoined Cal, "if we could, we'd reach Big Oak Flat in jig time.
This here flume comes out thereabouts."
"Who built it?" inquired Nat, gazing at the moss-grown contrivance
through which the water was rushing at a rapid rate. There had been a
cloudburst on a distant mountain and the stream was yellow and turbid.
At other times, so Cal informed them, the flume was almost dry.
"Why," said Cal, in reply to Nat's question, "it was put up by some
fellows who thought they saw money in lumbering here. That was after
the mines petered out. But it was too far to a market and after working
it a while they left. We've always let the flume stand, as it is
useful to carry off the overflow from the river above."
Somehow sleep wouldn't come to Joe. Try as he would he could not doze
off. He counted sheep jumping over a fence, kept tab of bees issuing
from a hive and tried a dozen other infallible recipes for inducing
slumber. But they wouldn't work. Nat, after his awakening, had,
however, dozed off as peacefully as before.
Suddenly, Joe sat up once more. He had been electrified by the sound of
a low voice outside the hut. This time there was no mistake. Some human
being was prowling about that lonely place. Who could it be? He was not
kept long in doubt. It was the voice of Dayton. Low as it was there was
no mistaking it. Joe's heart almost stopped beating as he listened:--
"They're off as sound as so many tops, colonel. All we've got to do is
to go in and land the sapphires, and the kid, too."
"You are sure they have them?"
"Of course. Didn't I see them in old Goodale's hut? You always said
the old fellow was crazy. I guess you know better now. These cubs
blundered into the biggest sapphire find I ever heard of."
Joe was up now, and cautiously creeping about the room. One after
another he awoke his sleeping companions. Before arousing Herr Muller,
however, he clapped a hand over the German's mouth to check any outcry
that the emotional Teuton might feel called upon to utter.
Presently the voices died out and cautiously approaching the window Nat
could see in the moonlight half a dozen dark forms further down the
canyon. Suddenly a moonbeam glinted brightly on a rifle barrel.
"They mean business this time and no mistake," thought Nat.
Tiptoeing back he told the others what he had seen.
"Maybe we can ketch them napping," said Cal, "oh, if only we had a
telephone, the sheriff could nab the whole pack."
"Yes, but we haven't," said the practical Nat.
Cal tiptoed to the door and opened it a crack. If there had been any
doubt that they were closely watched it was dispelled then.
Zip!
_Phut!_
Two bullets sang by Cal's ears as he jumped hastily back, and buried
themselves in the door jamb.
"Purty close shooting for moonlight," he remarked coolly.
"What are we going to do?" demanded Joe.
"Well, thanks to our foresight in bringing in all the rifles and
ammunition, we can make things interesting for them coyotes fer a long
time," rejoined Cal.
"But in this lonely place they could besiege us for a month if need
be," said Nat.
Cal looked grave.
"That's so, lad," he agreed, "we'd be starved and thirsted out before
long. If only we could communicate with Big Oak Flat."
Nat dropped off into one of his deep studies. The boy's active mind
was revolving the situation. It resolved itself into a very simple
proposition. The colonel's band was well armed. They had ample
opportunities for getting food and water. Situated as the Motor Rangers
were, the others could keep them bottled up as long as they could
stand it. Then nothing would be left but surrender. Nat knew now from
what Joe had told him, that it was no fancy he had had at the hut.
Dayton had been on their track and had unluckily arrived in time for
his cupidity to be tempted by the sight of the sapphires. His injury
when the man-trap fell must have been only a slight one. Nat knew the
character of the outlaws too well to imagine that they would leave the
canyon till they had the sapphire box and could wreak their revenge on
the Motor Rangers.
True, as long as their ammunition held out the occupants of the hut
could have stood off an army. But as has been said, without food or
water they were hopeless captives. Unless--unless----
Nat leaped up from the bedstead with a low, suppressed:--
"_Whoop!_"
"You've found a way out of it?" exclaimed Joe, throwing an arm around
his chum's shoulder.
"I think so, old fellow--listen."
They gathered around while in low tones Nat rehearsed his plan.
"I ain't er goin' ter let you do it," protested Cal.
"But you must, Cal, it's our only chance. You are needed here to help
stand off those rascals. It is evident that they are in no hurry to
attack us. They know that they can starve us out if they just squat
down and wait."
"Thet's so," assented Cal, scratching his head, "I guess there ain't no
other way out of it but--Nat, I think a whole lot of you, and don't you
take no chances you don't have to."
"Not likely to," was the rejoinder, "and now the sooner I start the
better, so good-bye, boys."
Nat choked as he uttered the words, and the others crowded about him.
"Donner blitzen," blurted out Herr Muller, "I dink you are der pravest
poy I effer heardt of, und----"
Nat cut him short. There was a brief hand pressure between himself and
Joe, the same with Ding-dong and the others, and then the lad, with
a quick, athletic movement, caught hold of a roof beam and hoisted
himself upward toward a hole in the roof through which a stone chimney
had once projected. Almost noiselessly he drew himself through it and
the next moment vanished from their view.
"Now then to cover his retreat," said Joe, seizing his rifle.
The others, arming themselves in the same way rushed toward the window.
Through its broken panes a volley was discharged down the canyon. A
chorus of derisive yells greeted it from Morello's band.
"Yell away," snarled Cal, "maybe you'll sing a different tune before
daybreak."
In the meantime Nat had emerged on the roof of the cabin. It was a
difficult task he had set himself and this was but the first step. But
as the volley rang out he knew that the attention of the outlaws had
been distracted momentarily and he wriggled his way down toward the
eaves at the rear of the hut. Luckily, the roof sloped backward in that
direction, so that he was screened from the view of any one in front.
Reaching the eaves he hung on for a second, and then dropped the ten
feet or so to the ground. Then crouching like an Indian he darted
through the brush till he reached the side of the old flume.
He noted with satisfaction that the water was still running in a good
stream down the mouldering trench. With a quick, backward look, Nat
cast off his coat and boots, and flinging them aside picked up a board
about six feet long that lay near by.
The water at the head of the flume traversed a little level of ground,
and here it ran more slowly than it did when it reached the grade
below. Extending himself full length on the board, just as a boy does
on a sleigh on a snowy hill, Nat held on for a moment.
He gave one look about him at the moonlit hills, the dark pines and
the rocky cliffs. Then, with a murmured prayer, he let go.
The next instant he was shooting down through the flume at a rate that
took his breath away. All about him roared the voices of the water
while the crosspieces over his head whizzed by in one long blur.