THE MYSTERIOUS HORSEMAN
"For mercy sake, what is it?" cried Elfreda.
Emma was dancing about in a high state of excitement.
"Hippy's gone down! Hippy's gone down!" she cried.
"Gone down where?" demanded Grace, appearing on the scene at that
juncture.
"He must have gone very suddenly, for I surely heard him yell less
than five minutes ago," averred Elfreda.
"Look, look!" urged Emma, pointing to Hippy's tent, only the top
of which was visible above the ground.
Grace was already running towards the tent, believing she knew
just what the trouble was.
"Hippy, are you there?" she called.
"I am that, what's left of me," answered a voice that sounded some
distance away.
"Are you hurt?"
"No, Brown Eyes, I am not hurt. Please clear away the wreckage, so
we can see what we have here."
Grace and Elfreda hauled the tent out of the hole in the alkali
crust and peered in. Hippy was sitting at the bottom, about five
feet below the surface, and the instant Grace thrust her head into
the opening she uttered a cry.
"Water!" she exclaimed. "I smell it!"
"I tasted it when I landed on my head in the wet sand," answered
Hippy. "It was good, but I'd a heap sight rather drink my water
standing. One doesn't take in so much sand that way."
"Wa--ater!" gasped Emma Dean. "And it isn't another mirage?"
"It is water, my dear, but how much of a supply there is remains
to be seen. What were you doing out so early?"
"I was going out to get some water food from that horrible looking
pumpkin plant, or whatever it is."
"Ping! Oh, Ping! Fetch the water buckets. Hurry! Mr. Lang has
gone, so we must do what is to be done before the water
disappears. What happened, Hippy?" asked Grace.
"This did, Brown Eyes. I turned over on my blanket, then the earth
yawned and swallowed me down. I slid in head first."
"Here are the buckets and the canvas. I think I will get down
there and assist you. Girls, drink your fill, then water the
ponies. No, you carry the water out and let Ping do the watering."
Hippy assisted Grace down. She dropped to her knees and
immediately began digging in the sand, which was wet and sticky.
With Hippy's aid, she patted the canvas blanket down as she had
seen Hi Lang do it, and in a moment the water began seeping
through. Grace observed that it seeped much more rapidly than when
the guide had performed a similar operation.
"Buckets!" demanded Hippy.
They were lowered, and, in a few moments, half a dozen of them
were filled and handed up to the outstretched hands waiting to
receive them.
"This is splendid! I wish Mr. Lang were here. Too bad," said
Grace.
"Might it not be a good idea for us to fire signal shots to recall
him? He may be within hearing. Sound carries a long distance on
the desert," suggested Miss Briggs.
"Fine, J. Elfreda. Will you fire the shots?"
Miss Briggs said she would, and, in a few moments, three interval
shots rang out. Elfreda fired the signal six times, listening
after each signal for a reply. None was heard, however, and Grace
suggested that she wait half an hour or so, then try it again.
The baling went on, but the ponies and burros drank the water
faster than Grace and Hippy could get it out of the tank and pass
it up to those who were carrying water to Ping who was giving it
to the horses, singing as he worked. This was the happy refrain he
sang:
"Look-see you bucket, 'fore you tly,
Got lopee (rope) 'nuf to pump 'um dly.
One piecee mouse can dlink at liver,
But let he mousey tly for ever,
All he can do top-sidee shore
Is squinch (quench) he t'hirst an 'nuffin more."
"Every 'r' is an 'l' with a Chinaman," laughed Anne.
"That is what makes their pidgin English so quaint," answered Miss
Briggs.
"Ping says the horses don't care for any more water," announced
Nora, returning with two empty buckets.
"Pass them down," directed Hippy. "We will fill everything in
camp, including ourselves."
When, they had finished with their work, the familiar, "Him come
along," in Ping Wing's shrill voice, brought Hippy out of the
water hole in a hurry.
"Are you going to leave me down here, Hippy Wingate, or are you
going to assist me out?" reminded Grace.
"A thousand pardons! The thought of food drives every other
thought from my mind." Hippy reached down and gave Grace a hand.
"Please fire another set of signal shots," suggested Grace,
shaking out her skirt to free it from the damp sand. "Mr. Lang
will be surprised when he finds that we have a water tank right
here in camp. I hope he hears our shots."
Elfreda, having shot into the air six times, put down her rifle
and joined her companions.
"Oh, doesn't that coffee smell good?" she cried. "A warm drink is
even more necessary out here than it is in the city. I hope we
never have another such a dry time as we have just experienced."
"Listen!" warned Grace, holding up a hand for silence.
The reports of two rifle shots were faintly borne to their ears.
"That's a signal. I heard the first a second before I spoke.
Answer them, Elfreda."
Miss Briggs sprang up and fired the rifle three times. An answer
came in the form of three reports that plainly were from a long
distance away.
"That must be Mr. Lang. I am glad," said Grace, her face lighting
up in a pleased smile.
"Him come along," announced Ping a few moments later, using the
elastic expression that stood for the dinner call, as well as to
indicate that some one was approaching.
The Overland girls stood up and, shading their eyes, gazed off
over the desert. They saw a horseman approaching, but the pony he
was riding appeared to be almost dragging himself along.
"That isn't Lang," exclaimed Hippy.
"I see it isn't," agreed Grace.
Being a lone rider the Overlanders knew they were safe from
trouble so far as he was concerned, but they observed the rider
narrowly as he neared the camp.
"Ping! Fetch water!" ordered Grace incisively. "That man and horse
are exhausted."
"Water!" cried the man hoarsely as he rode up to them and would
have fallen from his saddle had Hippy not sprung forward and
grabbed him. He placed the exhausted man on the ground, and
raising the rider's head, held a canteen to his lips.
"Take it easy, old top. Don't choke yourself. We have plenty, but
you mustn't try to drink it all at once," admonished Lieutenant
Wingate.
"Get food," directed Grace. "Coffee and whatever else you think he
can eat."
Ping glided away to prepare the food, Nora and Anne, in the
meantime, having brought water for the traveler's pony.
In a few moments the man sat up, holding his head in his hands.
"Here, bathe your face. It will cool you off," urged Elfreda. The
traveler did so, and, by the time the coffee was ready, he was
able to stand.
Ping had fried some bacon, and, with the coffee and biscuit, the
traveler had a meal the like of which he had not eaten for many a
long day. As yet, the man had spoken only one word--"water"--but
he regarded the outfit with wide, inquiring eyes, as he ate
greedily of the food placed before him.
"Where going?" he asked after finishing.
"Specter Range, I believe. Perhaps taking in the Shoshones. I am
not certain. Our guide, Hi Lang, is not here just now."
"Bad gang there. Drove me out. Will drive you out." He would say
no more, shaking his head when Grace pressed him for an
explanation. After an hour's rest, during which the caller drank
water until they feared for its effect on him, he filled his water
bags from the water hole and lashed them to his pony and mounted.
Elfreda handed him a chunk of bacon, which he acknowledged with a
nod, and stuffed it into his kit.
The traveler now threw back his shoulders and peered at each
member of the outfit in turn as if to impress their faces on his
mind, then swept off his sombrero.
"Thankee, folks," he said, and, putting spurs to his pony,
galloped away.
"There is one man to whom it would be perfectly safe to entrust a
secret," declared Miss Briggs with emphasis.
"What a strange character," murmured Anne, as she gazed after the
galloping pony. "I wonder who he can be."
"I am curious to know what he meant by warning us against the
mountains," interjected Elfreda Briggs.
"And I am rather concerned about Mr. Lang," added Grace. "He must
be a long way from here, else he would have heard our signal
shots. I have an idea that our late caller must have heard them
and that it was he who answered. That must be it. If so I am glad,
for the poor fellow was ready to drop and so was his horse. Shall
we fill the buckets?"
They did. The ponies were thirsty again, and it required several
bucketfuls to satiate thirst, after which everything fillable was
filled with water. Grace, to pass away the time, got out her lasso
and tried to throw it, but she made a complete failure. In turn,
each of the others tried their hand at throwing the rope, but with
no better success. Ping offered himself for a mark, chattering
like a magpie as, each time, the loop of the lasso collapsed
before reaching him.
"What for you makee so fashion?" he cried between laughs, chuckles
and grimaces.
"Never mind, Ping. You will not talkee 'so fashion' one day. When
I learn to throw the rope, which I shall, I will rope you when you
are not looking," threatened Grace.
"No can do," grinned the Chinaman. "HAI YAH! Man b'longey top-side
horse," he cried, pointing off over the desert.
Looking in the direction in which he was pointing, the Overland
girls saw in the far distance a horseman, sitting his mount so
motionless that at first they were not positive whether it were a
horseman or a distorted cactus plant.
Grace ran for her binoculars and for some minutes studied the
stranger.
"That's our caller," suggested Hippy.
Maybe he has decided to hang around for another meal. I don't know
that I blame him."
"No, it is not the same man, at least not same pony," answered
Grace, snapping glasses shut. "The man yonder is riding a black
pony. The one who called on us rode a nearly white animal. I can't
imagine why he is so interested, but he is surely watching us.
However, we won't worry so long as we have a water tank at hand."
At four o'clock in the afternoon the mysterious stranger was still
in practically the same place. He appeared to move only when his
pony stepped forward a few paces for more sagebrush.
"Man b'longey top-side horse!" cried Ping, again pointing in
another direction.
The Overlanders saw a cloud of dust rolling toward them over the
desert, ahead of the cloud being a horseman riding at a swift
gallop.
"This would seem to be our day at home, judging from the number of
callers who are dropping in," observed Elfreda.
Grace threw up her glasses and took a quick look.
"I can't make him out," she said. "It can't be Mr. Lang, for this
man is coming from a direction different from the one he took, if
the footprints of his pony leading out of this camp are any
indication."
"Man b'longey horse hab go chop-chop!" volunteered Ping.
Looking quickly toward the west the Overlanders were amazed to
find that the silent horseman who had had them under observation
for hours was no longer in view. Though not more than two or three
minutes had elapsed since Grace Harlowe last saw him, he had
disappeared as suddenly as if the sands of the desert had opened
and taken him in.
"Maybe he has fallen into a tank, just as I did," suggested Hippy.
"Mr. Lang is coming. It is he, after all," cried Grace joyously,
as she gazed at the swiftly moving cloud of dust that Ping had
called her attention to some moments before.