NEWS OF THE MOQUIS.
"Wow!" yelled the onlookers, as Clark's body struck the floor with a
resounding thwack.
Jess was in an agony of excitement over the sudden downfall of his
friend. He was just about to hurl himself upon Rob when a sudden
detaining arm fell on his with a heavy pressure.
"Hold on there. We want fair play."
It was Merritt Crawford who spoke, and Jess sullenly dropped his
belligerent look. Somehow, the happenings of the last few seconds had
altered the aspect of the tenderfeet materially in the eyes of the two
young cow-punchers.
"I'll fix you," growled Clark furiously, scrambling to his feet.
"Why did you let him get up?" asked Tubby, his round cheeks glowing with
excitement.
"Because I want to give him plenty of rope," said Rob, a grim look
creeping over his usually pleasant face.
A sudden furious onrush on the part of Clark prohibited further
conversation.
"Go in and eat him up, Clark!" shouted a lanky, long-legged cow-puncher,
one of several who had been attracted by the rumpus.
"Looks as if your friend had developed a sudden attack of indigestion,"
grinned Tubby delightedly, as Rob's fist collided with the advancing
Clark's jaw, much to the latter's astonishment.
"Never seed nothing like it," commented the landlord, somewhat less
melancholy now. "Clark's the champeen round here."
"He may be when he's got a gun to back him up, but not when he has to
fall back on his fists," retorted Merritt.
"Look out!" he yelled suddenly, as the young cow-puncher, finding that
fair methods seemed to have failed, attempted a foul blow below Rob's
belt.
But there was no need of the warning. Rob had seen the blow coming
halfway, swiftly delivered as it was. The cowardly attempt at foul
tactics thoroughly enraged him.
"I thought Westerners fought fair," he gritted out, gripping the
astonished cow-puncher by the wrist of the offending hand. Before Clark
could gasp his astonishment, his other wrist was captive.
Then a strange thing happened. Before any one had time to realize just
how it occurred, Clark's body was describing a sweeping arc in the air.
His heels rushed through the atmosphere fully five feet from the floor.
Like the lash of a whip, his powerless body was straightened out as he
reached the limit of the aerial curve he had described. At the same
instant a dismayed yell broke from his pallid lips as Rob let go.
Over the veranda rail, and out into the dusty road the young cow-puncher
followed his revolver. He landed in a heap in the white dust, while Rob
yelled triumphantly:
"Now pick up your gun and profit by the lesson in manners I've given
you."
So saying, the boy calmly seated himself once more in the disputed
chair, only a slight, quick movement of his chest betraying the great
physical effort he had been through. After all, surprising as it had
seemed, there was nothing very amazing about Rob's achievement. At the
Hampton Academy athletics had always been a boast. The trick Rob had
just put into execution he had learned from his physical instructor,
who in his turn had picked it up from a Samurai wrestler of Japan. But
to the cowboys, and other loungers about the Mesaville Hotel, the feat
had been little short of marvelous.
They eagerly thronged about the boy as he took his seat once more, and
this time he remained in undisputed possession of it.
"Whip-sawed, that's what Clark was," exclaimed one of the group.
Another, the same tall, lanky fellow who had just been urging the young
cow-puncher on to what he thought would be an easy victory, approached
Rob.
"Say, stranger," he asked eagerly, "will you teach me that thar
contraption?"
"Couldn't do it," rejoined Rob soberly, although a smile played about
the corners of his lips.
"Why not?"
"Because, then, you'd know as much as I do," responded Rob. The
assemblage burst into a loud roar of laughter, in which you may be sure,
however, there were two voices which did not join. Those two were Clark
Jennings' and Jess Randell's. The former had just picked himself up and
stuffed his gun in his pistol pocket. A malevolent scowl marked his face
as he did so. Nor did Jess smooth over matters by remarking audibly:
"Say, Clark, what was the matter with you?"
"Chilled feet, I guess," chortled Tubby, who had overheard the remark.
"Get away from me, can't you?" snarled Clark irritably, facing round on
his well-meaning crony, "why didn't you help me out?"
"Help you out--how?"
"Why, trip that tenderfoot up when I rushed him."
"Oh, shucks, I thought you fought fair," said Jess, a little disgusted
in spite of himself.
"So I do," snorted Clark, "when I'm winning."
"Well, come on round and see to the ponies. We'll think up some way to
get even with these grain-fed mavericks before very long," comforted
Jess.
"You bet, and in a way they won't forget, either," Clark Jennings
promised himself, as he followed his companion to the corral.
Not long after this, the boys perceived, far out on the sultry plain, a
sudden swirl of dust.
"Something coming," shouted Tubby, who, strange to say, had been the
first to notice the approaching column of dust.
"Team," briefly grunted the landlord, "did I hear you fellers say you
was waiting for some one from the Harkness range?"
"Yes, you did," said Rob.
"Waal, I guess that's them now. Must have a bear-cat of a team in to
kick up all that smother."
Closer and closer grew the dust cloud, and presently, from its yellow
swirls, emerged the heads of the leaders of an eight-mule team. Behind
them lumbered a big, broad-tired wagon, from the bed of which a high
seat was reared like a watch tower. By the driver's side was a long iron
foot brake. As the team approached the bank of the sandy little dried-up
river, where the road took a dip, the driver placed his foot on the
brake and a loud screeching and groaning resulted, as the big wagon,
with the hind wheels locked, slid down the far bank. As the front wheels
thundered across the rough bridge above the thin thread of luke-warm
water, the heads of the first mules emerged over the top of the bank
nearest the hotel.
"Mountain style," commented the long, lanky cow-puncher admiringly, as
the driver, a tall, sun-burned lad of about Rob's age, whirled a long
whip three or four times round his head and concluded the flourish with
a loud "crack" as sharp and penetrating as a pistol shot.
An instant later the heavy wagon and its eight, dust-choked, sweating
mules swept up in front of the hotel porch. The driver, flinging the
single line with which he drove to his companion, clambered from his
lofty perch and was immediately surrounded by the three tenderfeet.
"Well, you certainly come into town with a flourish of trumpets,"
laughed Rob, after the first salutations between the Eastern boys and
Harry Harkness, the rancher's son, had been exchanged.
"Sorry to have kept you waiting so long," responded the other, who in
order to speak had pulled down a big red handkerchief which had bundled
up the lower part of his face and kept it dust-proof while he drove;
"but the fact is, we had some trouble on the way. A bunch of Moquis are
out, and----"
"Indians!" gasped Tubby, with round eyes.
"Yes, regular Indians," laughed Harry; "the Moquis' reservation is off
a hundred miles or more to the northwest, near Fort Miles, but----"
"They're off the reservation," cut in Tubby, proud of his knowledge.
"Out fer a snake dance, I reckon," put in the long, lanky cow-puncher,
who had been an interested listener.
"Why, hello, Lone Star," exclaimed Harry. "I didn't know you were in
town. Yes," he went on, "there's a secret valley in the Santa Catapinas
which has been used by them for centuries for their festivals, and
although they are supposed to be kept within the limits of the
reservation, every once in a while a bunch of them get over here and
hold a snake dance."
"I've read about them," said Rob; "they do all kinds of weird things
with rattlesnakes, don't they?"
"Well, no white man has ever seen them--or, if he has, never lived to
tell about it," said Harry, "so of course nobody knows exactly what they
do. But anyhow, when we camped last night we had eight mules, and when
we woke this morning there were only six. Jose, there--hey, Jose, wake
up!" He prodded the Mexican who still sat on the wagon seat, with the
end of his long whip. "Well, as I was saying, Jose trailed them and
found them tethered in a arroyo about a mile from camp."
"The Indians took them?" asked Merritt.
"Yes, Jose, who's as good a trailer as he is a sleeper, found
unmistakable tracks of Moquis. I suppose they took the mules in the
night and then got scared at something and hitched them in the arroyo,
meaning to come back for them."
"Whereabouts did the Injuns cut into you, Harry?"
A new voice had broken into the conversation. That of Clark Jennings. He
nursed above his right eye a rapidly swelling "goose egg," marking the
spot at which he had collided with the roadway. At his elbow was the
faithful Jess Randell.
"Why, hello, Clark, you in town, too? Every one from the Santa Catapinas
seems to be in to-day--you, too, Jess. Well, the Indians paid us their
little call just this side of the Salt Licks,--why?"
"Oh, jes' wanted to know. Me and Jess has got to ride home that way
to-night, for it's better riding when it's cool; and I thought I'd like
to know whar to expect the varmints."
"Well, that's the best information I can give you," said Harry, "but
what have you been doing to your eye?"
"Oh, nothing," muttered Clark, turning away, while a loud guffaw went
up.
"What's all the joke,--what is it?" asked Harry. It was soon explained,
and the young rancher burst into a laugh.
"Say, Rob, you must mean to clean the country of bad men. Trimmed Clark
Jennings! Ho, ho, ho!"
"Has he much of a reputation?" inquired Rob innocently, but with a
twinkle in his eye.
"I should say so. He won't forgive you in a hurry. He's going to be your
neighbor, too, for a while."
"How's that?"
"His father owns the next ranch to us. Jess Randell is Clark's cousin,
an orphan, you know. He lives there, too. The two are great cronies, and
think a lot of their reputation as tough citizens. The whole bunch have
a bad name."
As the team from the Harkness ranch was tired out by the long, hard
journey across the hot desert, it was decided that the boys should spend
the night at the Mesaville House, and start for the ranch the next
morning while it was cool. This would bring them into the mountains by
dusk. Over supper they laughed and talked merrily, recalling the last
time they had met, which was in a wet, dripping fog off the Long Island
coast. How differently were they now situated!
After the meal Merritt and Harry sat down to a game of checkers, while
Tubby, seated in a big chair, indulged in his favorite occupation--namely,
taking a quiet doze. As for Rob, he wandered about the little town a
while, but found nothing to interest him. Small as Mesaville was in
common with most towns of the same character, it boasted several low
dens in which the cow-punchers, miners and sheepmen gambled and drank
their hard-earned money away. From these dens, as usual, there came the
same blasts of foolish talk and loud laughter, as their swing doors
opened and closed. A glare of light poured from their blazing interiors
to the quiet, moonlit desert outside.
As Rob, rather sickened, turned away from this section of the town, the
doors of one of the places swung open, and the forms of Clark Jennings
and his crony, Jess, emerged; with them was a third figure, that of a
tall, stoop-shouldered young man. The eyes of all three fell
simultaneously on the figure of Rob as he walked away.
"Talk of the train and you hear her whistle," grinned Jess. "There he is
now."
The companion of the two young cow-punchers nodded.
"That's him, all right. I recognize him. It'll be candy to me to get
even with him."
"We can trust you, Jack?"
"I'll fix him, never fear."
"All right, then, we're going to start. We'll ride into town ag'in in a
few days and fix you up."
"All right. I need the money. How's Bill and Hank making out?"
"Oh, doing odd jobs around the ranch. You know, Cousin Bill has turned
out to be quite a cow-puncher; guess he rode horses back East?"
"Yes, his father owned some in Hampton," rejoined the stoop-shouldered
young man. (It will be recalled that when Bill Bender left Hampton he
spoke of stopping a while with relatives in the West.)
After a little more talk, the three bade each other good night. Soon the
clatter of two ponies' hoofs, growing fainter and fainter in the
distance, marked the departure from town of Clark Jennings and his
crony. In the meantime, Rob had looked into the hotel, and finding Harry
and Merritt still engrossed in a hotly contested fifth game, and Tubby
snoring contentedly, had set out on another stroll. This time his
aimless footsteps took him in the direction of the desert. By the
railroad bridge he paused, gazing down at the moonlit water. Where the
bridge abutments projected, the thready current of the San Pedro
collected and formed quite a deep pool.
"If this was the East, there'd be fish in there," mused Rob, when
suddenly behind him he thought he heard a furtive footfall. He turned
quickly. But, even as he did so, an irresistible shove was given him.
Blindly extending his arms, Rob plunged forward down the steep
embankment.