A NIGHT ALARM.
"How far distant do you imagine it is?" inquired the professor, as they
rode forward with their drooping spirits considerably revived.
"Not more than fifteen miles--if it is that, 'cording ter my
calcerlations," decided Pete.
"Then we should arrive there by ten o'clock to-night."
"About that time--yep. That is, if none of ther stock give out
beforehand."
"Why do they call it the Haunted Mesa?" inquired Jack.
"Some fool old Injun notion 'bout ghosts er spirits hauntin' it,"
rejoined Pete.
"Just as well for us they have that idea," said Walt. "They'll give it
a wide berth."
It flashed across Jack's mind at that moment to tell about the vague,
gigantic shapes he had seen flit by in the gloom of the sand-storm.
But, viewed in the present light, it seemed so absurd that the boy
hesitated to do so.
"Maybe I was mistaken after all," he thought to himself. "There was so
much sand blowing at the time that I might very well have had a blurred
vision."
The next minute he was doubly glad that he had refrained from telling
of his weird experience, for the professor, in a scornful voice, spoke
up.
"Such foolish superstitions did exist in the ancient days, when every
bush held a spirit and every rock was supposed to be endowed with
sentient life. Happily, nowadays, none but the very ignorant credit
such things. By educated people they are laughed at."
Pete, who was jogging steadily on ahead of the rest of them, made no
rejoinder. Ralph, however, spoke up.
"What would you do, if you were to see a spirit, professor?" he
inquired, with an expression of great innocence in his round, plump
face.
"I'd take after it with a good thick stick," was the ready reply.
"That is, always supposing that one _could_ see such a thing."
Darkness fell rapidly. Night, in fact, rushed down on them as soon
almost as the sun sank behind the western rim of the desert. To the
south some jagged sierras grew purple and then black in the fading
light. Fortunately there was a moon, though the luminary of night was
in her last quarter. However, the silvery light added to the
brilliance of the desert stars, gave them all the radiance they needed
to pursue their way.
The travelers could now perceive the outlines of the Haunted Mesa more
clearly. It reared itself strangely out of the surrounding solitudes,
almost as if it were the work of human hands, instead of the result of
long-spent geological forces.
"Wish we were there now," breathed Ralph, patting his pony's sweating
forequarters, "poor old Petticoats is about 'all in.'"
"It's purty hard to kill a cayuse," rejoined Pete. "I've seen 'em
flourish on cottonwood leaves and alkali water--yep, and git fat on it,
too. Be like a cayuse, my son, and adapt yourself to carcumstances."
"Very good advice," said the professor approvingly, as the desert
philosopher concluded.
As Pete had conjectured, the ponies were far from being as tuckered out
as they appeared, despite their sunken flanks and distended nostrils.
As the cool night drew on, and they approached more nearly to the
upraised form of the mesa, the little animals even began to prick their
ears and whinny softly. The pack animals, too, seemed to pluck up
spirits amazingly.
"They smell grass and water," commented Pete, as he observed these
signs.
Shortly after ten, as had been surmised, they were among the
bunch-grass surrounding the mesa. Striking such a spot after their
long wanderings on the hot desert, was delightful, indeed. Presently,
too, came to their ears the tinkling sound of flowing water.
"It's the overflow from them old-timers' well at the base of the mesa,"
pronounced Pete, listening.
"Yes, and here it is," cried Jack, who had been riding a short distance
in advance, and had suddenly come across a small stream.
The water was but a tiny thread, but it looked as welcome just then as
a whole lake. Cautioning the boys to keep their ponies back, Pete took
a long-handled shovel from one of the packs, and soon excavated quite a
little basin. While he had been doing this, the boys had had to
restrain their thirst, for the ponies were almost crazy with impatience
to get at the water. It required all the boys' management, in fact, to
keep them from breaking away and getting at the water. In the heated
condition of the little animals, this might have meant a case of
foundering. At last Pete let the thirsty creatures take a little
water, and afterward they were tethered to a clump of brush, while the
boys themselves assuaged their pangs. After their first ravenous
thirst was quenched--which was not soon--they took turns in dashing
water over each other's heads, removing the last traces of the
sand-storm. This done, they all declared that they felt like new
men,--or boys,--and a unanimous cry for supper arose.
"Let me see, now," mused Pete, gazing up at the purplish, black heights
of the mesa above them, "as I recollect it, there's only one path up
thar. The good book says, foller the strait and narrer path, but it
don't say nothing about doing it in the dark, so I reckon that the best
thing we can do will be to camp right under that bluff thar, whar the
water comes out, till it gets to be daylight."
This was agreed to be an excellent plan, and, accordingly, the stock
having been tethered out amidst the bunch-grass, the packs were
unloaded, and the work of getting a camp in shape proceeded apace. In
that part of New Mexico, although it is warm enough by day, nightfall
brings with it a sharp chill. It was decided, therefore, to rig up the
tents and sleep under their protection. The three canvas shelters of
the bell type were soon erected, and then, with mesquite roots, Coyote
Pete kindled a fire and put the kettle on. Supper consisted of corned
beef, canned corn and canned tomatoes, with coffee, hard biscuit and
cheese.
"I'll bet we're the first folks that have eaten a meal here for many a
long day," said Jack, looking about him, after his hunger had been
satisfied.
"It is, in all probability, fifteen hundred years or more since the
first inhabitants of this mesa dwelt here," announced the professor.
"My! My! You could boil an egg in that time," commented Pete, drawing
out his old black briar and lighting it. He lay on one elbow and began
to smoke contemplatively.
The others did not speak for a few moments, so engrossed were they with
the ideas that the professor had summoned up. Once, perhaps, this
dead, black, empty mesa above them had held busy, bustling life. Now
it stood silently brooding amid the desolation stretched about it, as
solitary as the Sphinx itself.
The spot at which they were camped was the sheer, or cliff side of the
mesa. At the other side they knew, from Coyote Pete's description,
were numerous openings and a zig-zag pathway leading up to the very
summit. It was on this summit, which according to the most accurate
information obtainable had once been used for the sacrificial rites of
sun worship, that the professor expected to find the relics for which
he was searching.
For an hour or two the lads discussed the dead-and-gone mesa dwellers,
with an occasional word from the professor, who was deeply read on the
subject. This was all so much Greek to Pete, who solemnly smoked away,
every now and then putting in a word or two, but for the most part
lying in silence, looking out beyond the black shadow of the mesa
across the moonlit desert toward the rocky hills to the south.
Suddenly, the lanky cowboy leaped to his feet with a yell that
punctured the silence like a pistol-shot. In two flying leaps, he had
bounded clear over the professor's head, and was in among the tents,
searching for his pistol. Before one of the amazed group about the
fire could collect his senses at the sudden galvanizing of Coyote Pete,
he was back among them again.
"Wow!" he yelled into the night, "come on, there, you, whoever you are!
Come on, I say! I'll give you a fight! Yep, big as you are, I ain't
skeered of you."
"Pete! Pete! Whatever is the matter?" gasped Jack, who, with the
others, was by this time on his feet.
"Matter?" howled Pete. "Matter enough. I do begin to think this place
shore is haunted, or suthin'. As I lay there, I felt suthin' tiptoeing
about behind me, and when I whipped suddenly round ter see if one of
the critters hadn't broken loose, what did I see but a great, big,
enormous thing, as big as a house, looking down at me. Afore I could
say a word, it was gone."
"Gone!" echoed the others. "What was it?"
"Wish you'd tell me," sputtered the cow-puncher, looking about him, and
still gripping his gun, "I never saw the like in all my born days."
"Well, what did it look like?"
"Hard to tell you," rejoined Pete. "It was as big as that." He pointed
right up at the moon.
"As tall as the moon? Oh, come, Pete, you had dropped off and were
dreaming," laughed Ralph.
"Who said it was as tall as the moon?" demanded the excited cow-puncher
angrily. "I only meant to convey to your benighted senses some idee uv
what it luked like."
"Well, how high was it?" asked Jack, in whose tones was a curious note
of interest, for a reason we can guess.
"About twenty feet, as near's I could judge. It had red eyes, that
glared like the tail-lamps of a train, and it spat fire, and it----"
"Whoa! Whoa!" laughed Walt Phelps. "Now we know it was a nightmare,
Pete. The dream of a rarebit fiend. You ate too much crackers and
cheese at supper."
"How was it we didn't see it?" asked Ralph, who had not spoken up till
now.
"Why, you were lying with your back toward the direction it came from,"
explained Pete.
"An interesting optical delusion," declared the professor. "I must
make a note of it, and----"
"Wow! There it goes ag'in."
"Where? Where?" chorused the boys.
"Right off there! Look! Look!"
The lanky cow-puncher, fairly dancing about with excitement, pointed
out beyond the shadow of the solitary mesa. Sure enough, there were
three or four enormous, black, shadowy shapes, traveling across the
sands at a seemingly great speed.
"Get your rifles, boys!" yelled Jack.
The weapons lay handy, and in a jiffy four beads had been drawn on the
immense, vague shapes.
But even as their fingers pressed the triggers, and the four reports
rang out as one, the indefinite forms vanished as mysteriously as they
had appeared.