THE HELPING HAND.
When Ned made this announcement the others exchanged looks in which
wonder struggled with curiosity.
"Tell me about that, now," muttered Jimmy; "was there ever anything
like the luck that chases after us all the while? Here we start out to
visit Harry's uncle, so he might carry out a mission that his folks
sent him on, and of course the Government must a guessed all about it,
since they went and laid a game to be hatched out right in the same
part of the Wild and Wooly West. Can you beat it?"
"Let Ned tell us what the game is, can't you, Jimmy?" demanded Harry.
"Yes, and please don't break in again with your remarks until he's all
through," added Jack. "It bothers a fellow to make connections when you
get started. If you must talk, why, we'll throw in and hire a hall for
the occasion. Now, Ned, tell us what the Secret Service folks want you
to do."
"I've had a message in cipher from my people in Washington, telling me
that while I'm out in this section they'd like me to look up one Clem
Parsons, who's been wanted for a long time on the charge of
counterfeiting Government notes. When last heard from he was running a
stage line somewhere in the country of the Colorado and doing a little
in the way of fleecing unsuspecting travelers who come out here to see
the wonders of the Canyon. So from now on we'll begin to ask questions
and see whether we can get on the trail of this gentleman who's given
some of the smartest agents in the Secret Service the call-down."
"And then they have to depend on Ned Nestor and his able assistant,
Jimmy McGraw," remarked the last mentioned scout; "excuse me, fellers,
but if you don't blow your own horn, who d'ye reckon'll be fool enough
to do it for you? But Ned, if our luck holds as good as it generally
does, chances are ten to one this same Clem Parsons will come tumbling
right up against us. It seems like you might be a magnet and they all
have to come our way sooner or later."
"Any description of what he looks like?" asked Jack, who had known Ned
to get similar orders on previous occasions and could guess that it was
not all left to his imagination.
"Yes, they tell me he is tall and thin and has a scar on his left
cheek. He used to be a cow puncher at one time and might be working at
his old trade now. That's a point to remember when we get to the Double
Cross Ranch. Every puncher will have to run the gantlet of our eyes and
if one of them happens to be marked with a scar on his left cheek,
it'll be a bad day for him."
"Now, wouldn't it be queer if we _did_ run across the mutt there at
your uncle's place, Harry?" remarked Jimmy. "But here we are again,
Ned, uniting business with pleasure like we've done heaps of times
before now. Mr. Clem Parsons, I'm sure sorry for you when this
combination gets started to work, because you've _got_ to come in out
of the wet and that's all there is to it!"
It might appear that Jimmy was much given to boasting; but as a rule he
made good, so that this failing might be forgiven by those who knew him
and his propensity for joking.
They moved out of town after getting a pretty poor apology for a lunch
at the tavern. Jimmy declared that he would starve on such fare and
announced his intention of immediately opening a box of crackers he had
purchased at a local store so as to keep himself from suffering.
Ned, as was his habit, had interviewed about everybody that crossed his
path, so as to improve upon the rude map he carried and which he had
found to be faulty on several occasions, which fact caused him to
distrust it as a guide.
"We ought to make the ranch by tomorrow evening, if all goes well," he
told his three chums, as they walked onward over the plain, still
heading almost due southwest.
"Not much danger of anything upsetting our calculations from now on,"
observed Jack, "unless we meet up with drunken punchers, run across
some bad men who have been chased by the sheriff's posse out of the
railroad towns and who try to make a living by holding up travelers
once in six months; or else get caught in a fine old prairie fire."
"Say, that last could happen, that's right," Jack went on to exclaim,
looking a little uneasily at the dead grass that in places completely
concealed the greener growth underneath. "If a big gale was blowing and
a spark should get into this stuff she would go awhooping along as fast
as a train could run. That's something I've often read about and
thought I'd like to see, but come to think of it, now that I'm on the
ground, I don't believe I care much about it after all."
"They say it's a grand sight," Harry volunteered; "but according to my
mind a whole lot depends on which side of the fire you happen to be.
What's interesting to some might even mean death to others."
"Yes, I've read lots about the same," admitted Jack, "and of the
trouble people have had in saving themselves when chased by one of
these fires on the plains. If we do see one of the same here's hoping
we are to windward of the big blaze."
When the sun sank that evening they were hurrying to reach what seemed
to be a stream of some sort, judging from the line of trees that cut
across the plain and which only grow where there is more or less water
to be had.
The three burros must have scented the presence of water, for there was
no keeping the animals within bounds. They increased their pace until
they were almost on the run; and Jimmy threw away the fag end of a whip
with which he had been amusing himself by tickling the haunches of the
burro in his charge and urging him to move along faster.
One of the animals started to bray in a fashion that could have been
easily heard half a mile or more away.
Hardly had the discordant sounds died away than the boys were
considerably surprised to hear a shrill voice coming from directly
ahead, as though the exultant bray of the pack animal had given warning
of their presence to some one who needed assistance the worst kind.
"Help! Come quick and get me! Help--help!" came the words as clear as a
bell and causing Harry and Jimmy to stare at each other as though their
first thought might have been along the line of some deception that was
being practiced upon them.
But there was Ned already on the jump and shouting over his shoulder as
he ran:
"Jimmy, give your burro over to Harry to look after; you too, Jack and
follow me on the run!"
"That suits me all right!" cried Jack; "here Harry, please look after
my pack!" and with these words he was off at full speed.
Jimmy was close at his heels. He had only waited long enough to snatch
his rifle from the top of the pack on the burro that had been given
into his charge after his own had been lost in the mountain disaster.
Jimmy was always thinking they might be attacked by Indians off their
reservation or else run across some bad men who liked to play their
guns on strangers just to see them dance. For that reason he seldom if
ever allowed himself to be caught far away from his repeating Marlin
these days.
When they had pushed into the patch of cottonwoods they found that Ned
was already at work trying to lend the assistance that had been so
lustily called for in that childish treble.
A figure was in the stream, although just his head and a small portion
of his body could be seen. He was stretching out his hands towards Ned
in a beseeching manner that at first puzzled Jimmy.
"Why, I declare if it ain't a little boy!" he exclaimed; "but what's he
doin' out there, I want to know? Why don't he come ashore if the
water's too deep. What ails the cub, d'ye think, Jack?"
"Don't know--might be quicksand!" snapped the other, as he once more
started to hurry forward.
Ned was talking with the stranger now, evidently assuring him that
there was no further need of anxiety since they had reached the spot.
"Can't you budge at all?" they heard him ask.
"Not a foot," came the reply; "seems like I mout be jest glued down
here for keeps and that's a fact, stranger."
"How long have you been caught there?" asked the scout master.
"Reckon as it mout be half hour er thereabouts," the boy who was held
fast in the iron grip of the treacherous quicksand told him; and so far
as Jack could see he did not exhibit any startling signs of fright, for
he was a boy of the plains and evidently used to running into trouble
as well as perilous traps.
"But," Jack broke in with, "you never shouted all that time, or we'd
have heard you long before we did?"
"Never let out a yip till I ketched that burro speakin'," the boy
replied; "what was the use when I didn't think there was a single
person inside o' five mile? I jest tried and tried to git out but she
hung on all the tighter; and the water kept acreepin' up till it'd been
over my mouth in ten minutes more I reckon."
"Well, we are going to get you out of that in a hurry, now," Ned told
him in a reassuring tone; "Jack, climb up after me, to help pull.
Jimmy, you stand by to do anything else that's wanted."
Ned, being a born woodsman, had immediately noted the fact that the
limb of a tree exactly overhung the spot where the boy had been trapped
in the shifting sand. This made his task the easier; but had it been
otherwise he would have found some means for accomplishing his ends,
even though he had to make a mattress of bushes and branches on which
to safely approach the one in deadly peril.
Creeping out on that stout limb Ned dropped the noose of his rope down
to the boy, who was only some six feet below him.
"Put it around under your arms," Ned told him; but as though he
understood the method of procedure already, the boy in the sand was
even in the act of doing this when Ned spoke.
"Tie the end around the limb and let me pull myself up, Mister, won't
you?" the boy pleaded, as though ashamed of having been caught in a
trap, and wishing to do something looking to his own release.
This suited Ned just as well, though he meant to have a hand in the
pulling process himself and also give Jack a chance. So when he
fastened the rope to the limb of the tree he did so at a point midway
between himself and Jack.
"Get hold and pull!" he said in a low tone to his chum; for already was
the boy below straining himself with might and main to effect his own
release.
It would have proved a much harder task than he contemplated; but the
scouts did not mean that he should exhaust himself any further in
trying. They managed to get some sort of grip on the rope and then Ned
called out cheerily:
"Yo heave-o! here he comes! Yo-heave-o! up with him, Jack! Now, once
more, all together for a grand pull--yo-heave-o! Hurrah, he's nearly
out of the sand!"
Five seconds later and the energetic boy was scrambling across the limb
of the tree; and in as many minutes all of them had descended to the
ground, the end accomplished and nobody much the worse for the
experience.
"It was a close call for me, that's sure," the boy was saying, as he
gravely went around and shook hands with each one of the scouts, not
excepting Harry, who had meanwhile come up, leading the three burros;
"an' I want you all to know I'm glad that donkey let out his whoop when
he did. Why, I might a been all under when you got here; but say, I
lost my gun and that makes me mad."
Looking at the boy more closely they were struck with the fact that
while he did not seem to be more than nine years old, he was dressed
like a cow-puncher and had a resolute air. How much of this was assumed
in order to impress them with the idea that he had not been alarmed in
the least by his recent peril, of course no one could say. Ned was
wondering how the boy, brought up undoubtedly amidst such perils and on
the lookout for danger all the while, could have fallen into such a
silly little trap as this.
"What were you doing in the stream that you stood there and let the
sand suck you in?" he asked as he proceeded to help the boy scrape
himself off so as to appear more presentable.
"I was a little fool, all right," the kid immediately answered, with an
expression of absolute disgust on his sharp face; "you see, I glimpsed
a bunch of deer feeding just over yonder to windward and as they were
headin' in this way I thought I'd lie low under the river bank and wait
till they got inside easy gunshot. I tied my pony over in the thickest
place of the timber and then walked out to where the water jest come to
my knees, where I got low down to wait. Say, I was that taken up with
watchin' them deer afeedin' up that I forgets all about everything else
and was some s'prised to feel the water tricklin' around my waist like.
After that I knowed the huntin' game was all up, and that less I wanted
to be smothered I'd have to get out in a hurry. But it didn't matter
much how I pulled, an' heaved and tried to swim I jest stuck like I was
bolted down to a snubbin' post and somebody had cinched the girth on
me. Then, after a while, when I was expectin' to swaller water, I heard
that burro singin' and afore I could help it I jest hollored out. Guess
you must a thought it was a maverick. I could a kicked myself right
away afterwards 'cause I give tongue so wild like!"
Ned smiled. He realized that the cub had imbibed the spirit of the
Indian warrior who disdains to display any weakness of the flesh. No
matter how much he may have been frightened by his recent terrible
predicament, he did not choose any one to know about it. Indians may
_feel_ fear but they have learned never to show it by look or action
and to go to their deaths, if need be, taunting the foe.
"Well," he told the small boy, "we intended to camp for the night here
close to the river and we'd be glad to have you stay over with us.
Plenty of grub for everybody and it might be much more pleasant than
being by yourself. We are not Western boys but then we've been around
more or less and know something about how things are done out here.
Will you join us--er--"
"My name is Amos, Amos Adams, and I'll be right well pleased to stay
over with you to-night, sure I will," the boy went on to say.
So it was settled, and out of just such small things as their meeting
Amos in such a strange way great events sometimes spring. But none of
the scouts so much as suspected this when they busied themselves
preparing the camp, building the cooking fire, and seeing that all the
animals were staked out to feed, after watering them.