THE LONE RANCHO.
Well, that was an odd meal, that refection of water-soaked biscuit and
canned corned beef, with flood water as a beverage. Perhaps in all the
adventures of the Border Boys, when in after years they came to recall
them, no scene stood out quite so strikingly.
For one thing, Coyote Pete alone, of the party, possessed any sort of
wardrobe. The professor was clad in his “barber pole” pajamas. Ralph
boasted a shirt and Walt Phelps possessed the same with the addition of
a pair of socks, which latter hardly fulfilled requirements so far as a
covering for his nether limbs was concerned.
From time to time the Border Boys had to look at each other and burst
out laughing. Only the professor viewed the matter in a serious light.
“Suppose we should meet some ladies,” he asked indignantly.
“Reckon thar ain’t many of ’em hereabouts,” ventured Coyote, spreading
a big slice of beef on a bit of soggy bread. “The burros is ther only
representatives of the gentle sex fer a good many miles, I opinion.”
The burros, relieved of their packs, which had been swept away, wagged
their ears appreciatively at this, and continued browsing on the short,
coarse grass which grew in patches here and there, and which the boys
were delighted to see seemed also to be palatable to the horses.
Ralph and the others had already related how the terrified animals
had been recaptured without difficulty early that day. In fact, a
circumstance which has often been noted was their good fortune, namely,
that panic-stricken horses in lonely, wild countries, will actually
seek human companionship,—provided, of course, that they have already
been domesticated. As for the burros, their loud “hee-haws” had
resounded all night.
Ralph also explained how the idea of the mirror heliograph came to him.
The lad who, as has been explained, was a bit of a dandy, was horrified
to discover the abbreviated state of his wardrobe. But a search of
his shirt pocket revealed his pocket-mirror with its folding brush
and comb fittings. The railroad king’s son had at once set to work to
make himself presentable about the head at least, and was combing his
hair neatly and wondering how Jack and Pete had fared, when the sun
caught the mirror and it flashed blindingly into his eyes. This gave
him the idea of flashing it in all directions in the hope that the
others, if within sight, would catch its glint. Then came the happy
thought of telegraphing with the bit of glass by alternately covering
and uncovering it. The idea had met with the warm approval of the
professor and Walt Phelps, although, perhaps, even they had not been
over sanguine of results.
“Well,” said Jack at length, after the events of the night and the
following incidents had been discussed and re-discussed, “what are we
going to do now?”
“Get clothes,” cried Ralph, without an instant’s hesitation, regarding
his bare legs disparagingly.
“By all means, yes,” agreed the professor.
Coyote Pete grinned.
“Jack,” said he, “will you be so kind as ter step ter the telephone
and tell the Blue Front Store to send up a few samples of men’s
furnishings?”
All but the professor burst into a roar of laughter at this sally.
“At any rate,” suggested Walt Phelps, “we’re not likely to get held up.”
“Not so sure about that,” said the professor, “I have the money belt
containing most of our finances around my waist. I always sleep with it
there.”
“Hooray!” shouted the boys, who, up to that moment had not once thought
of the important question of finances. It struck them now with
sobering force.
“By George!” cried Jack, “if it hadn’t been for your foresight,
professor, we might have been penniless as well as wardrobeless.”
“That’s right,” agreed Coyote Pete, “and ther chance that you’d stand
of being helped out by the greasers would be about ther same as a
snowflake ’ud have on a red-hot cook stove.”
“My idea is to lose no time in striking out for a town or village where
we can get some clothes, even if they are only Mexican garments,”
announced Jack.
“And food, too,” put in Walt Phelps, who liked to get his three meals a
day, “we’ll be on starvation diet if we don’t stock up on that.”
After more discussion it was agreed to follow up the dry bed of the
river, as the professor’s map showed a small village some distance up
a stream which, though unnamed on the map, seemed to be the one on
whose banks they now were. This decision reached, no time was lost in
mounting. There was no saddling to be done, for the saddles had been
swept off with most of the rest of their outfit.
“If you ever catch me camping in the dry bed of a river again you are
welcome to hang me to a sour apple tree,” grumbled Walt Phelps, as he
mounted.
“I reckon I’m ter blame fer it all,” volunteered Coyote Pete, “but I
never thought as how that far-off storm would affect us in the plains.
That must have bin a jim-dandy of a cloudburst.”
“I’d hate to have been any closer to it than we were,” laughed Jack.
“If we had been, we’d have been going yet, I imagine.”
“I heard of a cloudburst once that did some good, though,” struck in
Pete; “ther thing happened to a friend of mine in Californy. He wuz a
miner, Jefferson Blunt by name.
“Wall, sir, Jeff had struck such all-fired bad luck up on the
Stanislaus River that he’d about concluded to pull out for other
regions when, all of a sudden, one night up came a storm, and in the
middle of it there come the all-firedest cloudburst that Jeff had ever
heard of. It picked up his cabin and floated Jeff off down the river,
a-going like a blue streak. He thought every minute that he’d hear
Gabriel’s trumpet and see ther golden stairs, but that little old cabin
was well built and watertight, and it floated like a boat.
“It must hev been hours, Jeff says, afore he felt ther thing give a
bump and stop. As soon as he dared he opened ther door and peeked out.
He wuz in a part uv ther country he’d never seen. It was all cliffs and
big trees and very imposing, and ther like of that,—that ‘imposing’ is
Jeff’s word.
“Wall, Jeff he steps out of his sea-going shack and looks about him,
and ther first thing he sees is a big streak of ore just a-glitter with
gold and stuck, like a band of yaller ribbon along ther cliff face
above his head.
“Jeff had bin so unlucky that first he thinks it’s jes’ fool’s gold and
not the real article. But he soon convinces himself thet he’s struck
it rich at last. Wall, ter make a long story short, Jeff files a claim
and in a few y’ars is a rich man, and what d’ye s’pose he called ther
mine?”
“‘The Cloud Burst,’ of course!” cried Jack.
“How’d yer guess it?” asked Pete. “But yer right, and thet’s ther only
cloudburst I ever hearn’ of, thet brought anybody any luck.”
“Personally, if I could find a pair of trousers,” wailed the professor,
“I should esteem their possession almost above even such a lucky
discovery as you have related.”
“I think I’d trade it right now for a porter-house steak and trimmings,
brown gravy and green corn, and——”
“See here,” put in Ralph, with assumed indignation, “if you don’t shut
up I’ll, I’ll——”
“Go right home,” chuckled Walt teasingly; “you’d be a fine sight in
that rig. I’ll bet the folks back east would have you put in the
calaboose.”
But by noon the gay spirits of the boys were considerably toned down.
No sign of a town had yet come in sight and they were all hot, hungry
and tired. The odd procession, with the burros tagging along behind,
looked disconsolate enough as it followed the windings of the river.
The shallow aftermath of the flood steamed and simmered under the hot
sun, sending up unpleasant odors,—yet they had to drink it or go
without.
By way of cheering the party up, Coyote Pete began to sing—or rather
wail—in the high-pitched voice affected by cow-punchers singing to
their cattle:
“O-ho-wa-hay da-own upon the Su-wahanee River,
Fa-har, fa-har a-way——”
But before he could begin the next line Ralph struck in with:
“There’s where our pants are floating ever;
There’s where they’re gone to stay!”
In the general roar of laughter which followed, the “grouch” which had
settled down on the tired wayfarers vanished like the spring snow under
a burst of sunlight.
With a shout the boys, their troubles forgotten in an outburst of that
good nature that makes the whole world kin, plunged forward, their
shirt tails flying.
“Yip-yip-ye-ee!”
The joyous yell filled the air. And then it broke off into a real
cheer, for, on surmounting the summit of a small eminence, they saw
below them, not more than a mile off, a small adobe house of unusual
type, for it had two stories. It was surrounded by a grove of green
willows which delighted the eye tired by the endless gray-green
stretches of grease-wood savannahs.
Even the dignified professor joined in the enthusiasm, and in a minute
a cavalcade was bearing down on the place at breakneck speed. As they
neared it in a thunder of hoofs and a cloud of yellow dust, a door
opened and the figure of a gaunt Mexican, with long, shaggy, black
hair hanging straight and lank to his shoulders, stepped out. His next
move halted the leaders of the party abruptly.
He jerked a long-barreled rifle to his shoulder and pointed it
threateningly.
“Mira rurales!” he yelled to some one within the house.
“No rurales! Americanos!” cried Coyote Pete.
The effect was magical. The man’s startled air changed, and with a
sheepish smile he stepped forward as Jack and Ralph, who were in
advance, drew rein.
“What did he mean by rurales, I wonder?” asked Ralph of Jack in a low
tone as the others loped up.
“Why, rurales are a species of police. Rangers, they are called
sometimes. They are wild chaps, mostly recruited from the ranks of
brigands and highwaymen. The government pays them a high figure to be
good and keep law and order.”
“But this man seemed to fear them.”
“Maybe he has reason to. But we can’t be particular. At any rate, we
are a strong enough party to look after our own hands. But see, here
comes his wife. I guess, after all, he is nothing more unlawful than a
cattle rancher in a small way, who perhaps, once-in-a-while takes an
unbranded calf or two from his neighbor’s estates.”
The woman who joined the man, who by this time had set down the rifle,
was a stout, slatternly-looking creature in a greasy cotton wrapper.
She shot out a few rapid words in a low voice to the other, who replied
in equally low tones. So far as Jack, who was closest, could judge, the
woman seemed to be protesting against something, and the man stilling
her objections.
Coyote Pete as spokesman now advanced, and in Spanish asked if they
could obtain lodging and refreshment for themselves and their stock.