CHAPTER XIX
THE WARNING
"Turn out!" It was Hi Lang's voice that summoned the girls from their tents, and a far from welcome summons it was, for they were sleeping soundly.
"Lieutenant, the ponies are saddled and ready," said the guide, halting at Hippy's tent. "Please give the Riders the tent equipment to carry and assist them to lash the stuff on. Everything else has gone forward."
"All right, old ma-an. Can't give me five minutes for a cat-nap, can you?" begged Hippy.
"Turn out!" Hippy yawned and got up. The night was now pitch dark, and Lieutenant Wingate fell over tent stakes and ropes and whatever else was handy for him to catch his toes on, as he staggered about aimlessly.
Bethinking himself of the guide's orders, Hippy suddenly began pulling up the stakes from the girls' tent and let it down on their heads. Emma Dean cried out, which brought a stern command for silence from Mr. Lang. Following that, there was not a sound in the camp during the next fifteen minutes.
"Packs lashed to ponies behind saddles," announced Hippy. "Party ready to move."
"Mount and follow me. No loud talking, please; light no matches. You understand why I am so strict?" said the guide in an apologetic tone.
"We understand fully, Mr. Lang," replied Grace in a low voice.
"Start!" he commanded.
The start was made at a jog-trot, which, after a few minutes, was changed to a gallop. This pace was continued for some time, but finally the guide slowed down and began peering into the darkness, looking for Ping and his burros. Elfreda marveled at the almost uncanny instinct of their guide, and how Ping could lay a course that could be followed in the dark was a mystery to her. She asked Hi Lang how it was done.
"See that red star over on the horizon, Miss Briggs? Ping is instructed to keep that star between the ears of his burro and not to wobble. By keeping the same star between the ears of my bronco I am bound to overhaul Ping, provided he has held to his course. I am, however, allowing for some deviation and keeping a close lookout."
It was not more than ten minutes after that when Mr. Lang discovered the Chinaman and his burden bearers plodding along less than a hundred yards to the right of the course that the Overland Riders were following. Ping, though he had heard the party coming up, held to his course until directed to fall in behind them.
"A mariner following a compass course could do no better than that," declared Grace Harlowe.
"It really is marvelous, though Mr. Lang doesn't think so," replied Elfreda.
From that point on the journey was slow and wearisome. No one complained, however, and the ponies with their riders moved through the night like specters of the desert.
The first leaden streaks in the sky in the east next morning found the Overland Riders still a long distance from their objective, the clouds not having darkened the moon as early in the evening as Hi Lang had hoped they might do, thus delaying the start.
"I see nothing to interest us," announced Grace after a survey of the desert with her glasses.
"Neither do I. Reckon that spy will be surprised when he makes his morning call and finds us gone," chuckled the guide. "Yonder are the mountains where we turn in," he added, pointing.
"I thought that was a cloud on the horizon," said Miss Briggs.
"How far is it from here?"
"About five miles. We'll be there in two hours. Mrs. Gray, will you use your glasses occasionally as we go ahead? Stop now and then and take your time in making observations. You can catch up with us without straining the pony, I reckon," grinned the guide.
"Don't we stop for breakfast soon?" begged Emma.
"Tighten your belt," answered the guide. "It may be some hours before we can settle down for rest and food."
Emma groaned dismally, and Hippy looked serious. Missing a meal meant taking a good part of the joy of living from his day.
Sweltering heat followed the rising of the sun, and, as it lighted up the desert with its glare, Grace stopped and began her survey of the horizon as requested by the guide. She sat her pony until she had carefully examined it all the way around.
"All clear, so far as I can see, Mr. Lang," she said, riding up to him.
Hi nodded, but made no comment, for he could read the desert better than could Grace Harlowe with her powerful binoculars.
It was eight o'clock in the morning when finally they turned into Forty-Mile Canyon and began picking their way over the rough ground. The desert heat followed them until the walls of the canyon rose sheer for several hundred feet, and they came to a cascade that, falling into the canyon, became a mountain brook. Here there was a marked change in the temperature.
"Dismount and water the horses; then we will press on," directed the guide. "Drink cautiously yourselves. This water is too cold to be gulped down and will chill your blood if you take too much of it. Do not let the ponies have all they want, either."
"You mean to say that we will go on after breakfast, do you not?" questioned Lieutenant Wingate.
"No. We move in ten minutes."
"Humph! France in wartime was living. This is—well, I don't believe my vocabulary is quite equal to the occasion," declared Hippy.
"Do we go the entire length of this canyon, Mr. Lang?" asked
Grace.
"No. There are several trails leading out of it, but I shall not take the first one. I prefer to take the second or third trail, perhaps just before night. Whoever is interested in us will surely find our trail leading into Forty-Mile Canyon and will follow it, but by the time they reach, say the second turning-off path, the canyon will be as dark as a dungeon. They will then either make camp for the night or turn back, believing that we are going all the way through the canyon."
Elfreda nodded her appreciation of the guide's reasoning.
"With the easier traveling on the desert, which they probably will follow, they will be able to take their time, knowing that they can head us off at the lower end of the canyon. You see, a straight line isn't always the shortest distance between two points so far as time is concerned," smiled Hi Lang.
"But we won't come out at the lower end, eh?" nodded Hippy.
"You said it, Lieutenant."
"I always say something rather brilliant before mess," observed
Hippy airily.
"Yes, but after mess you are afflicted with what might be called a 'fat mind,'" interjected Emma Dean.
Hippy grinned and took up another hole in his belt.
From that point on, the ponies traveled in the mountain stream.
"There's no need to be quiet here. Make all the noise you wish," suggested the guide.
"May I scream?" called Emma.
Hi Lang nodded, and Emma uttered a wild cowboy yell which so startled her pony that the little fellow jumped, and, losing his footing on a slippery rock, went down on his nose. Emma landed in the stream, and for a few moments there was excitement among the Overland Riders, Hippy and Grace succeeding in rescuing Emma and holding her pony before serious results could follow. Emma, however, was soaked to the skin; her hair was wet and tumbled, and in a short time her face took on a bluish tinge from her ducking in the icy cold stream.
"Serves you right," declared Hippy Wingate. "Anybody who can make a noise like that before breakfast ought to be ducked."
"Were it not that the water is so cold, I should be inclined to agree with you," laughed Grace.
After the girls had walked Emma about to get her blood circulating, a fresh start was made. Thereafter the journey was uninterrupted until darkness began to settle over the canyon. In passing, the guide had pointed out in turn three trails leading up the mountainside, but the Overlanders were unable to see anything that resembled a trail in any one of them. When they reached the fourth trail Hi ordered a halt while he investigated it.
"We shall leave the canyon by this trail. You will have to climb the mountain and lead your ponies," directed the guide on his return. "It will be a hard climb, but it has to be made. I'll lead the way. Dismount and follow me."
Night had fully fallen when, after a desperately hard climb, the top of the mountain was reached. The Overlanders were tired and hungry, but they were not to have their supper yet. Hi pushed deeper into the mountains before he found a place to his liking. Then they had supper and soon after were sound asleep.
Before sunrise the next morning the journey was resumed. Their objective was the Specter Range, still a four-days' journey distant.
When they at last reached the range they pitched their camp on the western edge, overlooking an arid desert to the south, broken mountain ranges in all other directions.
"Did you see any trail marks at the point where we entered the
Specters, Mrs. Gray?" asked the guide of Grace.
"No. Should I have seen something?"
"Several horsemen passed that way only a short time before we arrived, but, from the glance I got of the trail, I don't think the fellow who's been dogging us was among them."
"Who could they have been?"
"Wild horse hunters, maybe. There're plenty of them and they're usually a tough bunch. I'll scout about and see what else I can discover."
Mr. Lang discovered nothing of importance, nor was the camp disturbed that night.
Early next morning Grace went out to familiarize herself with their surroundings and also to try to shoot some game, for the party needed fresh meat. She had gone only a short distance when, her gaze focused on a yucca tree ahead. Fastened to the tree was a sheet of paper, evidently recently put there, and on this was a crudely drawn heart with a bullet hole through it. Beneath the heart were scrawled the words:
TAKE NOTICE HI LANG AND YOUR FRESH KIDS!
Grace stared in amazement for a moment, then removed the paper from the tree and flattened it out on a rock. Taking a pencil, she drew a smaller heart below the one already there and filled it in entirely in black. She put the paper back in place and, drawing her revolver, put a bullet hole through the center of the black heart.
"I hope they'll take the hint," she muttered, and turned back toward the camp, knowing that the sound of her shot would cause anxiety.
"What were you shooting at?" cried Hippy, who had started to run toward the sound.
"At a mark," replied Grace truthfully.
"Oh, all right. Breakfast's ready."
Grace went to the stream that flowed from the foot of the waterfall near by. The stream followed a shallow ravine for a short distance then disappeared in a crevice in the rocks. As she was washing her face, Grace straightened up to throw her hair out of the way. She gasped in amazement:
"Gracious, I'm getting nervous! I thought I saw a face peer out from behind the waterfall!"
Hi came in, stating that he had shot a bear.
"It's a small one, and after breakfast I'll have him over here and we'll have bear steak."
"Did you get anything else, Mr. Lang?" asked Elfreda.
"Well, I learned that we were not trailed here, but were headed off. I think that's Alkali Pete's—otherwise known as Snake McGlory—work. Then, too," and he turned his eyes on Grace, "I saw a black heart."
"A black heart!" was the cry.
After the story was told Anne asked:
"Do you know what it means?"
"No, Mrs. Nesbit. But keep away from the yucca tree. A gun may be trained on the spot. Never be without your weapons in this country," he warned, "and keep eyes and ears open." Then he left them, to go for the bear.
Grace walked to the waterfall with Elfreda.
"Grace Harlowe Gray, I've been studying that map," Elfreda said.
"Look here. I think this is the very place meant."
"Oh, Elfreda, I believe you're right!" cried Grace after studying the map, which Elfreda put before her, for a moment. "There's the pyramid rock and the waterfall. Yonder are the three rocks designated as 'the three bears,' and there's the trunk of what was a yucca tree, and the stream disappears just a few yards beyond us—'stream's end,' as it says on the map! Elfreda—-"
"Grace, look! A rag doll over there on that boulder!" interrupted
Elfreda.
The two girls went over. The doll was soiled, but had evidently not lain out in the weather.
"Shall we take it in?" asked Elfreda.
"No; leave it where the child put it. But we'd better keep watch on the place. It's queer to find a child's toy here, and while it may mean little, it may mean much."
When the two girls returned to camp they found that Hi was just back with the bear.
"Oh, girls! Hippy! Mr. Lang!" and the two in chorus fairly spilled out the story of the face seen by Grace back of the waterfall and the doll and their belief that the map was of the place on which they now camped.
Hi Lang took the map and studied it intently.
"It surely is," he finally announced.
"What does the map mean?" questioned Anne.
"Oh, I guess there'd been rumors of gold or silver, and some one, believing the stories, made a map, maybe by hearsay, maybe at first hand. Maybe he talked too much, and some other fellow knocked him on the head and took it."
"Don't you think there's anything in it?" inquired Emma Dean disappointedly.
"Oh, maybe so, maybe not. Can't say."
After lunch Grace donned hip boots and went down toward the fall.
Seeing Elfreda there intent on the map, she announced:
"I'm going wading, Elfreda. Want to come?"
"Emphatically not. Do your boots leak?"
"I'll tell you in a moment," laughed Grace, stepping into the water. "All right, so far," she called, wading toward the fall.
Grace thrust her bare arms through the sheet of water pouring from above, groping for the rocks behind.
Sharp screams, at first loud and piercing, an instant later muffled and seeming far away, brought Elfreda to her feet. Grace was nowhere to be seen.
"Help! Grace has gone in!" shouted Elfreda, plunging into the cold water.