LOST IN THE BAD LANDS
"Gum!" cried Jack. "Gum! That's the stuff, Budge!"
"The very thing!" added Tanker Ike. "I wonder I didn't think to ask for
some. That will be better than the pebbles. Pass it around, young man."
Budge handed out packages of gum, which he was seldom without, and soon
all the travelers were busily engaged in chewing it. In a measure it
relieved their thirst at once, and their tongues felt less swollen, and
not so much like pieces of leather.
"'Stoobad," remarked Budge as he put in a fresh wad.
"What is?" asked Jack.
"That the horses can't chew," replied Budge.
"Hu! I guess it would take a bigger cud than you could muster to satisfy
a horse--or a mule," remarked Tanker Ike. "But it's lucky you had it for
us. I was feeling pretty bad."
The little diversion caused by the production of the gum and the relief
it brought, helped them to pass over several miles in a comfortable
fashion. But the terrible thirst did not leave them, and as for the
horses and mules, they were half crazed, or "locoed," as Tanker Ike
expressed it.
How they traveled the remainder of that day none of them could tell
exactly afterward. But they managed to keep on, and just as it was
beginning to get dusk there was a sudden movement among the animals.
"They smell water," cried Ike as the mules, drawing the heavy wagon,
broke into a run. "They smell water! They do, for sure!"
And he was right. Half an hour later they came to a small water hole,
and here they slaked their thirst, drinking slowly at first, and keeping
the animals back from it by main force, until they had each been given a
pailful, which they drank greedily. Then, after the life-giving fluid
had had a chance to take off the first pangs of thirst, boys, men and
horses drank more freely.
"Petrified persimmons!" exclaimed Nat. "I used to think ice-cream sodas
were the best ever, but now I think a cupful of water from a mud hole is
the finest thing that ever came over the pike. Let's have another,
boys!"
Their sufferings were at an end, and, their thirsts having been slaked,
they ate a good meal and rested that night beside the water hole.
The next day they reached the Shoshone River and the end of the desert.
"Well, boys, now I'm going to leave you," said Tanker Ike. "Long Gun
will be here pretty soon, and he'll show you where to get some big game.
Then you'll have to sort of shift for yourselves. Mexican Pete will take
your camp stuff wherever you tell him to, and the rest depends on you."
"Oh, I guess we'll make out all right," replied Jack.
"But what about that Indian, Long Gun?" asked Sam. "I thought he was to
meet us here."
"He will," replied Tanker Ike confidently, and, sure enough, about an
hour later there sauntered into the camp a tall, silent Indian guide,
who, as he advanced to the fire, uttered but one word:
"How?"
"How?" responded the plainsman, and then he introduced the boys.
Long Gun merely grunted his salutations, and then seating himself near
the fire, he took out his pipe and began to smoke.
"I wonder why he doesn't pass it around," whispered Nat to Jack.
"Pass what around?"
"His pipe? Isn't that a peace pipe? I thought Indians always smoked the
pipe of peace with their friends."
Long Gun must have had good ears, for he looked up at Nat's words. Then
he smiled grimly.
"No peace pipe. Corn-cob pipe--plenty bad, too," he said. "Yo' got
better one?"
"No, Long Gun, they don't use pipes," said Tanker Ike with a smile.
"Say, he understands English," remarked Sam.
"That's what," put in Bony.
"Pity he wouldn't," remarked Ike. "He's been guiding hunting parties of
white men for the last ten years."
Early the next morning Tanker Ike started back, taking a longer trail,
that would not make it necessary for him to cross the desert. On the
advice of Long Gun the boys and Mexican Pete started off up into the
mountains, where they were to make a camp, and begin to hunt.
"Here good place," remarked Long Gun that afternoon, as they came to a
level clearing on the shoulder of the mountain. "Plenty much mule deer
and sheep here. Like um jack-rabbits, or um bear? Plenty git here. We
camp."
"Hu! Good!" grunted Mexican Pete, and he began to unload the wagon. In a
short time all the things Jack and the other boys had brought were on
the ground, beside the two tents that formed part of their outfit.
"At last it begins to look like camping," remarked Bony.
"It'll look a good deal more like it if you'll give us a correct
imitation of a fellow helping put up a tent," said Jack. "Every one get
busy, now."
Mexican Pete started back with the freight wagon, agreeing to come and
get the camp stuff whenever word was sent to Tanker Ike or him.
They pitched in with a will, Budge helping to good advantage, and soon
the canvas shelters were up, a fire built, and, under Jack's direction,
a meal was in progress, Long Gun volunteering to oversee this.
It was no novelty for the boys to sleep in a tent at camp, but as the
night advanced they found that it was far from being summer, in spite of
the hot days, and they were glad of heavy clothing and the blankets
which they had brought along.
"Now for a hunt!" cried Jack the next morning, after a fine, hot
breakfast. "Long Gun, I want to get a big mule deer."
"I want a bear!" cried Sam.
"A big-horn sheep for mine!" was Nat's stipulation.
"I'd like a mountain lion," remarked Bony.
"How about you, Budge?" asked Jack.
"'FIkillanelkI'llbesatisfied," was the answer.
"An elk!" exclaimed Jack. "I guess so! Why, I'd like that myself."
"Well, I thought I might as well wish for something big while I was at
it," said Budge calmly, as he stowed away some fresh gum.
Under the guidance of Long Gun they mounted their horses and started out
for their first hunt in that region. The Indian gave them some good
advice about how to shoot, for going after big game was something new to
them.
"If git lost, fire gun," was the Indian's final word of caution.
They rode on together for a mile or more, but got no sight of any game.
"I think we'd better separate," suggested Jack. "We'll never get
anything if we stick together. Let's try it alone. We can meet at some
central point. Eh, Long Gun?"
"Hu!" grunted the Indian. "Git lost, maybe."
"That's right," assented Bony. "I don't want to go off alone."
"Well, Nat and I will strike off to the left," went on Jack. "You, Sam
and Budge can keep with Long Gun and go to the right. We'll meet by that
big peak over there," and he pointed to one that could easily be seen.
This was agreed to, the Indian giving his consent with a grunt, and then
Jack and Nat started off alone.
"I hope we get something," remarked Jack when they had traveled for a
mile or more.
"Same here," added Nat. "Let's go closer to that bad lands section Long
Gun told us of."
"I'm afraid we'll get lost," objected Jack.
The bad lands, as they are called, are a peculiar tract covered with ten
thousand little sawtooth peaks and cones of earth and sandstone, rising
abruptly from the plain, and so closely set together, and so lacking in
any distinctive objects to mark them, that one can wander about in them
as in a maze. The two lads had been hunting on the edge of them, but had
not ventured in.
"Oh, I guess we can find our way back, if we don't go in too far," said
Nat.
"Well," began Jack a little doubtfully, "I don't know----" And then he
saw something that made him change his mind.
"Look!" he whispered to Nat, and his chum, looking where Jack pointed,
saw a big deer, just on the edge of the bad lands, and about to enter
them.
"It's a buck!" exclaimed Nat, bringing his rifle around.
"We'll follow him and get a shot," decided Jack, and they left their
horses and began to stalk the big buck. Fortunately the wind was blowing
from him to them, or the animal might have taken fright. As it was, they
were not far behind him when he entered the maze of little peaks.
Several times they thought they were in a position to get a good shot,
but each time the deer moved just as one or the other of the lads was
drawing a bead on him.
Finally Jack got just the chance he wanted. Kneeling down he took quick
aim and pulled the trigger. The report that followed nearly deafened him
and Nat, so many were the echoes, but when the smoke cleared away they
saw the big deer lying on the ground not far away.
[Illustration: "KNEELING DOWN, HE TOOK QUICK AIM AND PULLED THE
TRIGGER."]
"You've got him!" cried Nat.
"Our first big game!" exclaimed Jack as he ran forward.
"My, but he's big!" commented Nat. "How we going back to camp?"
"Put him on the horses, of course," said Jack. "We can do it. We'll lead
them up here."
"Sure," responded Nat. "I forgot we had 'em. We'll go back and lead 'em
in."
They started back, full of confidence in their ability to find where
they had tethered the animals. They walked on for half an hour, and then
Jack said:
"Say, it seems to me we're a long time finding those horses."
"That's right," agreed Nat. "We didn't take so long coming in here. I
guess we came the wrong way."
"I'm sure of it," declared Jack. "We should have gone to the right."
"No, the left."
They discussed it for some time, and finally decided to try the right.
They went on for some distance, but no horses were seen.
"Let's go back to where we left the deer and begin over," proposed Jack.
They started, but the sawtooth peaks seemed to multiply. They turned
this way and that, but could not find the place where they had made
their first kill.
"Jack," said Nat at length, "do you know it's getting late?"
"It sure is," admitted his chum.
The sun was low in the western sky. The two boys stared about them. On
every side were the peculiar peaks of the bad lands. Jack turned around
in a circle. He was trying to see some landmark, by which he could tell
whether they had passed that spot before. He saw none.
"Nat," he said finally, "we're lost."