The Border Boys Across the Frontier | Page 9

it up?"
"Yes, and what for, and why?" laughed Jack. "I tell you, fellows," he
went on, "it's no use of our racking our brains to-night over this. The
best thing we can do is to set a watch. Then, if they come again, we can
try a shot at them. If not, why then in the morning we'll make an
investigation; eh?"
"Durn good advice," grunted Coyote Pete. "Now, I'd suggest that ther
perfusser takes ther fust watch, and----"
"No, no, my dear sir; really, I--I have a cold already. A-hem--ach-oo!"
The man of science, it seemed, had really developed serious bronchial
trouble in record time.
"Why, professor," said Jack mischievously, "haven't I heard you say
that you'd like a chance to investigate such a phenomenon as this?"

"Hum, yes--yes, my young friend. I may have said so, yes. And any
other time I should be only too pleased to--Good Land! what's that?"
With the agility of a grasshopper, the professor had jumped fully three
feet, as one of the pack-burros, nosing about behind him, accidentally
butted him in the small of his back. The others burst into a roar of
laughter, which they could not check. The professor, however, adjusted
his spectacles solemnly and looked about him with much dignity.
"I thought I saw a book I had dropped, almost in the fire," he explained
glibly, "so I jumped to get it before a hot ember fell on it."
"I had no idea you could jump like that, professor," laughed Jack. "You
should have gone in for athletics at Stonefell."
It was finally decided that Walt and Ralph should stand the first watch,
and Coyote Pete and Jack the last part of the night. The professor, after
carefully drawing tight the curtain of his tent, "to keep the cold out," as
he explained, retired. Soon after, Jack and the cow-puncher also went
to bed till the watch should summon them to go on duty in their turn.
But the night passed without any reappearance of the strange shapes
which had so upset the tranquility of the little camp, and, viewed in the
fresh light of a new and glorious day, somehow the affair did not seem
nearly so ominous and awe-inspiring as it had the night before.
Breakfast, as you may imagine, was speedily disposed of, and, having
seen to the stock, the party started out to explore the mesa itself.
As has been said, the side upon which they had camped the night
before was nothing but a sheer cliff. Under the guidance of Coyote Pete,
they now set out to encircle the strange precipitous formation. Their
hearts beat high, and their eyes shone with an aroused sense of
adventure as they strode along.
The professor carried with him a small volume containing a partial
translation of the symbols and sign language of the ancient tribe whose
domains they were about to invade. Jack had a coil of stout, half-inch
manila rope, about two hundred feet in length. Walt Phelps' burden was

a shovel, while Ralph Stetson carried an axe. All bore with them their
revolvers, and Coyote Pete carried, in addition, a rifle.
"Are you afraid of anything?" the professor had asked him, as he
noticed the sun-bronzed plainsman pick up this latter weapon.
"Waal," Pete had rejoined, with a portentous wink at the boys, "you
never kin tell in this wale of tears what you're a-goin' up aginst--queer
shapes, fer instance."
As they strode along, naturally the subject of the shadowy forms which
had alarmed them the night before arose. Jack would have liked to
investigate them right then and there, but, after all, he decided with the
rest of the party, that an exploration of the mesa was the first thing of
importance to be accomplished. And an interesting sight the great
abandoned aboriginal beehive, was, as they rounded the inaccessible
side and emerged upon the portion which faced toward the northwest.
Pete's recollection had not played him false. There was a rough
pathway constructed up its face upon this side, and at the top were three
tiers of holes bored in the rock face. These were evidently intended for
windows, as a larger aperture was just as evidently meant for a door.
The path, which zig-zagged up the face of the mesa was about eight
inches in width, not more, at its base, and varied--so far as they could
see from below--from that breadth to a foot, as it grew higher.
From the base to the summit the mesa was probably about one hundred
and fifty feet in height, the windows not commencing till within twenty
feet of the top. Its length at the base was, roughly, three hundred feet,
and its thickness varied from three hundred feet or more at the center,
to a