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THE BORDER BOYS ACROSS THE FRONTIER
by
FREMONT B. DEERING
Author of
"The Border Boys on the Trail,"
"The Border Boys with the Mexican Rangers,"
"The Border Boys with the Texan Rangers,"
"The Border Boys in the Canadian Rockies,"
"The Border Boys Along the St. Lawrence."
[Frontispiece: "Right off there! Look! Look!" The lanky cow puncher
pointed out beyond the shadow of the solitary mesa.]
A. L. Burt Company
Publishers ---------- New York
Copyright, 1911, by
Hurst & Company
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. THE TRAIL OF THE HAUNTED MESA
II. THE SAND STORM
III. A NIGHT ALARM
IV. SOME QUEER TRACKS
V. THE HOLLOW ALTAR
VI. THE LEGEND OF A FORGOTTEN RACE
VII. WHAT CAME ACROSS THE DESERT
VIII. THE DARK FACE OF DANGER
IX. IN THE MESA DWELLERS' BURIAL GROUND
X. A NEW MEXICAN STYX
XI. THE CAMP OF THE GUN-RUNNERS
XII. MADERO'S FLYING COLUMN
XIII. IN THE CAMP OF THE INSURRECTOS
XIV. "DEATH TO THE GRINGOES!"
XV. A RACE FOR LIFE
XVI. WHAT HAPPENED TO COYOTE PETE
XVII. BOB HARDING DOES "THE DECENT THING"
XVIII. THE TABLES TURNED
XIX. BUCK BRADLEY'S AUTOMOBILE
XX. AT THE ESMERALDA MINE
XXI. AN ACT OF TREACHERY
XXII. AT ROSARIO STATION
XXIII. JACK MERRILL'S "SPECIAL"
XXIV. THE ATTACK ON THE MINE
XXV. THE LAST STAND.--CONCLUSION
ILLUSTRATIONS
"Right off there! Look! Look!" The lanky cow puncher pointed out
beyond the shadow of the solitary mesa . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
As it flared up, all three recoiled with expressions of dismay. At
their very feet was a deep chasm.
A tempest of lead rattled about the engine. Almost before they
realized it, they had swung around the curve.
The Border Boys Across the Frontier.
CHAPTER I.
THE TRAIL OF THE HAUNTED MESA.
"Can you make out any sign of the mesa yet, Pete?"
The speaker, a sun-bronzed lad of about seventeen, mounted on a bright
bay pony with a white-starred forehead, drew rein as he spoke. Shoving
back his sombrero, he shielded his eyes from the shimmering desert
glare with one hand and gazed intently off into the southwest.
"Nope; nary a speck, so fur. Queer, too; we ought to be seein' it by
now."
Coyote Pete, as angular, rangy and sinewy as ever, gazed as intently in
the same direction as the lad, Jack Merrill, himself. The pause
allowed the remainder of the party to ride up. There was Ralph
Stetson, a good deal browner and sturdier-looking than when we
encountered him last in "The Border Boys on the Trail"; Walt Phelps,
the ranch boy, whose blazing hair outrivaled the glowing sun; and the
bony, grotesque form of Professor Wintergreen, preceptor of Latin and
the kindred tongues at Stonefell College, and amateur archaeologist.
Lest they might feel slighted, let us introduce also, One Spot, Two
Spot and Three Spot, the pack burros.
"I always had an idea that the Haunted Mesa formed quite a prominent
object in the landscape," put in Professor Wintergreen, referring to a
small leather-bound book, which he had just taken from one of his
saddle-bags.
"And I always had an idea," laughed Ralph Stetson, "that a landscape
meant something with brooks and green trees and cows and--and things,
in it."
The young son of "King Pin" Stetson, the Eastern Railroad King, looked
about him at the gray desert, above which the sun blazed mercilessly
down with all the intensity of a burning glass. Here and there were
isolated clumps of rank-odored mesquite, the dreariest looking
gray-green bush imaginable. The scanty specimens of this variety of
the vegetable life of the desert were interspersed here and there by
groups of scraggly, prickly cacti. Across such country as this, the
party had been making its way for the past day and a half,--ever since,
in fact, they had left behind them the foothills of the Hachetas,
where, as we know, was located the ranch of Jack Merrill's father, and
had entered the dry, almost untravelled solitudes of the Playas.
Jack Merrill consulted a compass that was strapped to his wrist.
"Well, we're keeping steadily in the right direction," he said.
"Nothing for it but to keep on going; eh, Pete?"
"When yer cain't turn back, 'keep on goin's' a good word," assented the
philosophical cow-puncher of the Agua Caliente, stroking his
sun-bleached yellow moustache and untangling a knot in his pony's mane.
"It's up to us to get somewhere where there is water pretty quick," put
in Walt Phelps; "the last time I hit the little drinking canteen I
noticed that there wasn't an awful lot left in the others."
"No, and the stock's feelin' it, too," grunted Pete, digging his big,
blunt-roweled spurs into his buckskin cayuse.
Followed by Jack on his Firewater, the professor on his queer, bony
steed as angular as himself, Ralph on Petticoats--of exciting
memory,--and Walt Phelps on his big gray, they pushed on.
The heat was blistering. In fact, to any one less accustomed to the
arduous intensity of the sun's rays in this part of the country, it
would have proved almost insupportable. But our party was pretty well
seasoned by this time.
All of them wore the broad, leather-banded sombreros of the plainsmen
except Professor Wintergreen, who had invested himself in a gigantic
pith sun-helmet, from beneath which his spectacled countenance peered
out, as Ralph said, "Like a toad peeking out from a mushroom." For the
rest, the boys wore leather "chaps," blue shirts open at the neck, with
loosely knotted red handkerchiefs about their throats. The latter were
both to keep the sun off the back of their necks and to serve as
protection for their mouths and nostrils against the dust in case of
necessity,--as for example, when they struck a patch of burning, biting
alkali. Of this pungent stuff, they had already encountered one or two
stretches, and had been glad to muffle up the lower part of their faces
as they rode through it.
As for Coyote Pete, those who have followed his earlier experiences are
pretty familiar with that redoubtable cow-puncher's appearance; suffice
it to say, therefore, that, as usual, he wore his battered leather
"chaps," faded blue shirt, and his big sombrero with the silver stars
affixed to the stamped leather band. In a holster he carried a rifle,
as did the rest of the party, as well as his well-worn revolver. The
others had provided themselves with similar weapons, although theirs
glittered in blatant newness beside Pete's battered, but well-cleaned
and oiled, "shootin' iron."
While they are pressing onward, with the Hachetas lying like a dim,
blue cloud far behind them, let us tell the reader something about the
quest that brings our party into the midst of this inhospitable place.
As readers of "The Border Boys on the Trail" know, Professor
Wintergreen had accompanied Jack Merrill and Ralph Stetson from
Stonefell College, some weeks before, to spend a vacation on the Agua
Caliente Ranch, belonging to Jack's father. The professor, as well as
being on a vacation, was in a sense on a mission, for he bore with him
the commission of a well-known institute of science in the East to
investigate some of the mesas of this part of the world, and also to
procure relics and trophies of the vanished race that once inhabited
them, and accurate measurements of the strange formations.
Since their arrival at the ranch, some weeks before, events had so
shaped themselves as to render the immediate undertaking of his mission
impossible. The descent of Black Ramon de Barros on the ranch, as we
have related, and the subsequent abduction of the boys to the old
Mission across the border, had so fully occupied their attention, that
all thought of the professor's errand had been lost sight of.
With Black Ramon, thanks to the boys, forever banished from his
cattle-rustling raids, and the subsequent tranquility of routine life,
had come a recollection of the professor's quest. Coyote Pete, a few
days before this story opens, had volunteered to act as guide to the
professor and his party to a mesa seldom visited except by wandering
Indians and occasional cow-punchers. This was the Haunted Mesa, the
location of which was so difficult to reach that previous relic-hunting
expeditions had not included it in their travels.
Mr. Merrill was the more willing to allow the boys to go along, as he
had been suddenly summoned into Chihuahua province, in Mexico, by
reports of trouble at a mine--The Esmeralda--he owned there. Rumors of
an insurrection had reached him--an insurrection which meant great
peril to American interests. He had, therefore, lost no time in
setting out to ascertain the true state of affairs at his mine, which,
while a small one, was still likely to develop in time into an
extremely valuable property.
Leaving the ranch in charge of Bud Wilson, he had started for the
Mexican country without waiting for the departure of the professor's
expedition. A short time later, "Professor Wintergreen's Haunted
Mesans," as the boys insisted on calling themselves, had likewise
started on their quest. With them, at Jack Merrill's invitation, went
Walter Phelps, the son of a ranching neighbor of Mr. Merrill. Walt, it
will be recalled, had shared the perils and adventures of the boys
across the border, as related in the previous volume, and had been the
instrument of piloting them out of the mysterious valley in which Black
Ramon kept his plundered herds.
Mr. Merrill's last words had been ones of caution.
"Remember, boys, that if this trouble in Mexico attains real
proportions, life and property along the border may be in great danger.
In such a case, it will be your immediate duty to turn back."
"But, Dad," Jack had said, "you don't expect that plundering
insurrectos would have the audacity to come northward into the Playas?"
Mr. Merrill laughed.
"I didn't say there was any danger even here, my boy. Least of all,
out in that barren country. If there is an insurrection, it will
doubtless be put down without any trouble, but it is always well to be
prepared."
Like his brother ranchers along the border, Mr. Merrill at that time
had no idea of the seriousness or extent of the insurrection. Had he
had, he would, of course, have prohibited the party leaving the ranch.
As it was, he, in common with his neighbors, deemed the insurrection
simply one of those little outbreaks that occur every now and again in
Mexico, and which hitherto had been promptly squashed by Diaz's army.
And so, with no real misgivings, the party had bidden the bluff,
good-natured rancher good-by, little dreaming under what circumstances
they were to meet again.
But all this time we have been allowing our party to travel on without
bestowing any attention upon them. As the afternoon wore on, Coyote
Pete began to feel real apprehension about reaching their destination
that evening. Walt Phelps' fear about the water had been verified.
The supply was getting low. Provided they could "pick up" the mesa
they were in search of before sundown, however, this was not so serious
a matter as might have been supposed. Coyote Peter knew that there was
a well at the mesa, the handiwork of the ancient desert-dwellers.
The really serious thing was, that although they had apparently been
traveling in the right direction, they had not yet sighted it. The
cow-puncher knew, though he did not tell his young companions so, that
they should long since have spied its outlines. Of the real
seriousness which their position might shortly assume, the boys had as
yet, little idea. Coyote Pete was not the one to alarm them unless he
was convinced it was really necessary.
Suddenly, Jack, who had been riding a little in advance of the rest,
gave an exclamation and pointed upward at the sun.
"Say, what's the matter with the sun?" he exclaimed.
"Sun spots, I suppose," put in Ralph Stetson jokingly.
"I see what you mean," spoke up the professor; "it has turned quite
red, and there seems to be a haze overcasting the sky."
"It's getting oppressive, too," put in Walt Phelps. "What's up, Pete?"
The cow-puncher had, indeed, for some time been noticing the same
phenomenon which had just attracted their notice, but he had hesitated
to draw their attention to it. Now, however, he spoke, and his voice
sounded grave for one of Pete's usually lively temperament.
"It means that ole Mar'm Desert is gettin' inter a tantrum," he
grunted, "and that we're in an almighty fix," he added to himself.
"Is it going to rain?" inquired Ralph Stetson, as it grew rapidly
darker.
"Rain?" grunted Pete. "Son, it don't rain here enough to cover the
back uv a dime, even if you collect all the water that fell in a year.
No, siree, what's comin' is a heap worse than rain."
"An electric storm?" queried the professor.
"No, sir--a sand storm," rejoined the cow-puncher bluntly.