THE LEGEND OF A FORGOTTEN RACE.
Leaping and scrambling over the top of the hollow altar to the best of
their abilities, the four explorers found their cow-puncher friend
dancing wildly about on the edge of the mesa, in imminent peril of
tumbling over altogether. He was wildly excited, and, as they emerged,
he pointed down over the cliff edge.
"Whatever is the matter?" exclaimed Jack, regarding the antics of the
usually staid cow-puncher with amazement.
"The stock! Look at the stock!" yelled Pete.
Peering over the edge at the bunch-grass belt in which their ponies
were tethered, the adventurers saw a spectacle which might well have
been calculated to excite the cow-puncher. One Spot, Two Spot and
Three Spot were tearing round and round at the end of their tethers, in
the wildest alarm, evidently, while the cayuses were stamping and
snorting, with distended nostrils and wild, frightened eyes.
"What's the matter with them?" gasped Walt, astonished at the sight, as
well he might be. The desert was as empty as ever, and there was no
sign of anything in the rocky hills to the south that might have
excited their alarms.
"Thet's jes' it," said Pete. "What is the matter with 'em? They ain't
actin' up thet er way fer nuthin', you kin bet."
"Something must have scared them," said Jack. "Maybe it was those
rocks you were throwing down."
"No, it warn't that, son. Ole One Spot he looked up here a minute ago,
and giv' his eye a knowin' wink, as much as ter say: 'Go ahead; I know
you won't hurt us.' No, siree; it's suthin' they've smelled out, er
seen, that's given 'em the scare of their young lives."
"Maybe it was something on the other side of the mesa. Let's go and
look," cried Jack.
Followed by the others, he ran across the flat summit, but an earnest
inspection of the surroundings on that side failed to reveal any
explanation for the animals' sudden terror. For all the strange
objects that lay about them, they might have been in the middle of a
desolate ocean.
"No wonder they call this the Haunted Mesa," snorted Pete. "I tell
you, perfusser, ther sooner you git them thar measurements a-measured,
and we're hiking out of this neck of the woods, the better I'll be
pleased. 'Tain't natural, all these queer goings on."
"Maybe a coyote or something scared them," suggested Ralph.
"And them used ter seeing 'em every day," scoffed Pete. "Guess again,
son. It takes something with hoofs, horns and red fire about it to
scare a burro, and you kin bet your Sunday sombrero on that."
"Well, I propose that we adjourn the meeting till after dinner,"
laughed Jack; "all in favor, will signify by saying 'aye.'"
The chorus that answered him left no doubt of "the sense of the
meeting," and a rapid descent of the mysterious mesa was begun. A good
meal was not long in being prepared, thanks to Coyote Pete's skill as a
camp cook. Seated over their dinner, the main topic of conversation
was naturally the unaccountable occurrence of the morning. But
although a score of explanations were advanced, nobody could hit on one
that seemed to fit the case.
"This water is singularly pure and sparkling,"' said the professor
finally, by way of changing the subject, and holding up his full tin
cup.
"Yep; I remember hearing old cowmen say that there's no water in New
Mexico any better than this from the Haunted Mesa," said Pete,
stretching himself out, and lighting his inevitable after-meal-time
pipe. "Though that ain't sayin' a heap," he admitted.
"Wonder how those old what-you-may-call-ums ever managed to dig such a
well?" questioned Ralph.
"Comes to my mind now," said Pete, "that it ain't exactly a well. An
old Injun that used ter hang around with the Flying Z outfit tole us
oncet that thar was a subterranean river flowed under here, and that
once upon a time afore all the country dried up, considerable more
water came to the surface here than there does now."
"A subterranean river?" asked the professor, at once interested.
"Yes, sir," rejoined Pete, "and not the only one in the West, either.
There's one in Californy that flows underground fer purty near fifty
miles, as I've heard tell."
"This is most remarkable," said the professor. "I, too, have heard of
subterranean rivers in this part of the world, but I have never had the
opportunity to explore one. Did this Indian you speak of ever tell you
where this river emerges?"
"He said it come out some place across the frontier in Chihuahua; I
don't jest rightly recollect where," said Pete carelessly, as if the
subject did not interest him much, as indeed it did not.
"I don't see what use a subterranean river is to anybody, anyhow," he
went on. "If it was on top, now, it might be some use."
"But this is most interesting," protested the professor, while the boys
lay about with their chins propped in their hands in intent attitudes.
"Then, too, if this river exists, perhaps it is even navigable."
"Why, professor!" exclaimed Jack. "Is it not possible that it was to
this river that those drawings of boats that interested and puzzled you
so much had reference?"
"Quite possible, my boy," agreed the man of science.
"I wish we could find some way of getting down into it," said Ralph
wistfully, poking at the ground, as if he thought he might force an
entrance that way.
"Thar you go," laughed Pete. "Giv' you boys a cayuse, an' you'll ride
him to death. I jes' mentioned that a lying, whisky-drinking old Injun
had sprung a pipe-dream about a lost river, and thar you go navagatin'
it in a Coney Island steamboat."
The boys could not help bursting into a laugh at the cow-puncher's
whimsical way of talking. The professor joined in, too, for none
realized better than he did that for a moment he, too, had been quite
carried away by the idea.
"I expect that it is as you say, Pete," he agreed. "These Indians are
most unreliable people. If anybody was to believe all the weird
legends an Indian tells him, he would spend the best part of his life
on wild-goose chases. Why, the Indians of the Mojave desert in
California can even tell a circumstantial story about a buried city of
Mojave. According to their contention, a great flood, occurring long
ago, wiped it out and buried it in the sands of the desert."
"Has any one ever tried to find it?" asked Jack.
"Many expeditions have been fitted out for the purpose, my boy," was
the rejoinder, "but so far no trace has ever been found of it, and it
is, no doubt, like the lost river of which Pete was telling us, a mere
myth."
"I didn't say it was a miff," protested Pete. "I jes' said I didn't
believe it."
The remainder of that afternoon was spent in making more measurements
and sketches of the interesting mesa, and the boys, on their own
account, conducted a search for a possible entrance to the lost river.
But, as may be supposed, they found none.
"I guess as romance-seekers we are not a success," said Jack, as at
sun-down they prepared to quit. "Just think, what a proud bunch we'd
have been if we could say we--The Border Boys--discovered the lost
river of the mesa dwellers."
"We might be a sorry bunch, too," amended the practical Walt. "I tell
you, Jack, I don't want anything to do with lost rivers, especially
when they are underground."
"Walt, the spirit of adventure is lacking in you," laughed Jack.
"You'd never make a Don Quixote----"
"A donkey who?" asked Walt innocently.
"Oh, you're the limit," chuckled Ralph, going off into a roar of
laughter at the ranch boy's expense.
That evening the animals' pasture was changed to the opposite side of
the mesa, where they could find fresh grass. The camp, however, was
left as it was. After supper watches were assigned, as usual, the
latter part of the night guardianship falling to Coyote Pete and Jack
once more. When, soon after midnight, Walt and Ralph Stetson aroused
them, there was nothing much to report except that One Spot had engaged
in a spirited kicking match with his brethren. Outside of that, all
had been, to quote Walt:
"Quiet along the Mesomac."
"We'll patrol round the whole mesa," said Coyote Pete, as he and Jack
shouldered their rifles, "meeting by the stock on the other side."
After a few words more, the two sentries strode off into the darkness
in different directions, meeting, as arranged, by the stock. Neither
had anything to report, and in this way they kept up the night watch
for an hour or more. They had met for the sixth time by the tents
containing their sleeping comrades, when from the opposite side of the
mesa came a shrill neigh of terror, followed by sounds of wild
galloping and snorting.
"Something's up!" shouted Pete, as, with his rifle in readiness and
followed closely by Jack, he tore around the mesa to ascertain the
cause of the trouble.
As the two sentries emerged into view of the spot in which the stock
had been tethered, they came upon a spectacle which, for a moment,
caused them to recoil as abruptly as if a deep canyon had suddenly
opened up before them.