The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico | Page 6

the guide made a break for the spring, howling like
a madman. The Pony Rider Boys looked on in amazement.
Juan fell on his knees before the spring, dipping up the water in his

hands.
"What did you give him, professor?" grinned Tad.
"Hot drops!" answered the man of science tersely.
"Not that stuff you fed me when I ate too much honey in the Rockies?"
questioned Stacy.
"The same."
"Wow! I had ten drops and it felt like a pailful when it got inside of
me."
"How much did you give Juan?" questioned Walter.
"Twenty drops," answered Professor Zepplin without the suspicion of a
smile on his face this time.
The Pony Rider Boys added their yells to those of the guide, only with
a difference. The more Juan drank of the spring water, the more did the
hot drops burn.
All at once he sprang up and started for the plain.
"Catch him!" commanded the Professor.
With a shout the lads started in pursuit. They overhauled the guide
some twenty rods from camp, he having proved himself fleet of foot.
Then again, the fire within him perhaps helped to increase his natural
speed.
"I burn! I burn!" he wailed as the boys grabbed and laughingly hustled
him back to camp.
"You'll burn worse than that if you ever ask for liquor in this outfit,"
retorted Ned. "We don't use the stuff, nor do we allow anyone around
us who does."

"How do you feel now?" grinned the Professor as they came up to him
with their prisoner.
"He's got a whole camp-fire in his little estomago," announced Chunky
solemnly, which sally elicited a loud laugh from the boys.
"Give him some olive oil," directed the Professor. "I think the lesson
has been sufficiently burned into him "
But considerable persuasion was necessary to induce Juan to take a
spoonful of the Professor's medicine. He had already had one sample of
it and he did not want another. Yet after some urging he tasted of the
oil, at first gingerly; then he took it down at a gulp.
"Ah!" he breathed.
"Is it good?" grinned Tad.
"Si. Much burn, much burn," he explained, rubbing his stomach.
"Think you want some liquor still, Juan, or would you prefer another
dose of my magic drops?"
"No, no, no, señor!" cried Juan, hastily moving away from Professor
Zepplin.
"Very well; any time when you feel a longing for strong drink, just help
yourself to the hot drops," said the Professor, striding away to his tent,
medicine case in hand.
The guide, a much chastened man, set about assisting in getting the
evening meal, but the hot drops still remained with him, making their
presence known by occasional hot twinges.
Supper that night was an enjoyable affair, though it was observed that
the guide did not eat heartily.
"Do you think he really had a pain?" asked Walter confidentially,
leaning toward Ned.

"Pain? No. He wanted something else."
"And he got it," added Stacy, nodding solemnly.
A chorus of "he dids" ran around the table, stopping only when they
reached Juan himself.
CHAPTER III
INDIANS!
"Juan, did you see two men get off the train at Bluewater yesterday
when we did? One of them had a big, broad sombrero like mine?"
asked Tad, riding up beside the guide next day while they were
crossing the range.
"Si."
"Know them?"
"Si," he replied, holding up one finger.
"You mean you know one of them?"
The guide nodded.
"Who is he?"
"Señor Lasar."
"Lasar. What's his other name?"
"Juan not know."
"Did they stop in the village?"
"No. Señors get ponies, ride over mountain," and the guide pointed
lazily to the south-west.

"Where did they go? Do you know?"
Juan shrugged his shoulders, indicating that he did not.
"What is Mr. Lasar's business?"
Again the guide answered with a shrug. He seemed disinclined to
discuss the man in whom Tad Butler was so much interested. Up to that
time the lad had been too fully occupied with other matters to think of
the conversation he and Stacy had overheard on the Atlantic and Pacific
train. Now it came back to him with full force.
"Know anybody by the name of Marquand in this country?" he asked,
taking another tack.
Juan said he did not, and then Tad gave up his questioning.
"I was asking Juan about the two men who sat ahead of us in the train
yesterday," he explained to Chunky, as the fat boy joined them.
"Wha'd he say?"
"One is named Lasar, but he did not know the other one. I can't help
believing that those fellows were plotting to do some one a great
injury."
"So do I," agreed Chunky. "I guess we had better not say anything
about it to the others, but we'll