The Border Boys Across the Frontier | Page 6

that their lives, or deaths probably, hung on the verdict of the next few seconds, but Pete's slow drawl was more pronounced and unperturbed than ever. He put the glasses to his eyes as unconcernedly as if he were searching for a bunch of estrays. Presently he lowered them.
"Is--is it----?" began Jack, while the others all bent forward in their saddles, hanging on the rejoinder.
"It is," declared Pete, and he might have said more, but the rest of his words were drowned in a ringing cheer.
CHAPTER III.
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.