CHAPTER XVII
ANOTHER MYSTERY TO SOLVE
"Fiddlesticks! Nothing but paper," wailed Emma Dean, peering into the mystery box.
"No. There is something more." Hippy lifted out the paper, a folded paper, and placed it on the ground. "Here is a gold watch and a handful of gold. Let's see how much there is." He counted out a hundred dollars, which, with some silver and a plain gold ring, and the paper first removed, made up the contents of the box.
"Not much of a find, is it?" smiled Anne.
"No. It's a shame, too, after our expectations had been worked up to concert pitch," declared Nora. "Hippy Wingate, this is your doings."
"Blame the fellow who put the things in the box. I only took them out," grumbled Hippy. "Guess that's about all, Hi," he added, looking up sheepishly at the guide.
"You haven't looked at the paper," reminded Elfreda.
"It's only a piece of wrapping paper," returned Hippy. "What do I want to look at that for?"
Grace Harlowe stooped over, picked up the paper and felt it gingerly.
"There IS something here!" she exclaimed. "The wrapping paper evidently has been folded over as a protection to what is inside." Grace thereupon opened the wrapper, revealing a tightly folded package of heavier paper. The rubber band that held the inner package together fell apart as she placed a finger on it to remove it.
The eyes of the party were instantly centered on Grace Harlowe, who carefully unfolded the paper and held it down so that the light from the campfire might shine on it.
"It is a map," she said. "It is a map, drawn with pen and ink. This looks promising," she added, spreading the map out on the ground. "What a queer thing to bury, and who did it? Surely not the man who lies there under the cross."
"I should not take that for granted," observed Hi Lang quietly.
"Please let me see it," requested Miss Briggs.
Grace handed the map to her, and Elfreda studied it frowningly.
"It means nothing in particular, I should say. It might be a map of a scene in Switzerland for all we know," declared Nora. "Hippy, you are a champion finder. I wonder if they give medals for persons who find things—who make great finds."
"Nora dear, if I had found one of the Egyptian pyramids out here on the American Desert, you would blame me for not handing out the Sphinx at the same time," protested Hippy.
"It may mean a great deal," said Grace.
"I agree with you," nodded Elfreda, who was still studying the map. "It is a mystery map, and it plainly meant something to its possessor or he would not have brought it out here and buried it. By the same token, I should say that it applied to something in this part of the country. I am inclined to believe that it does. There is a name here. Mr. Lang, do you know of any person of the name of Steve Carver?"
"No, Miss Briggs. May I have a look?"
"Oh, pardon me," begged Elfreda, handing the map to the guide. Hi studied it for several minutes, then returned it.
"It's not a picture of anything that I ever saw, I reckon," he said.
"What shall we do with it?" asked Miss Briggs.
"I would suggest that we make a copy of it, returning the map to the box and burying the box by the cross where we found it," replied Grace.
"Yes, but what about this gold, Brown Eyes?" demanded Hippy.
"Put that back, too. It doesn't belong to us, Am I not right, Mr.
Lang?" she asked.
"I reckon you are," agreed the guide, nodding his approval of the suggestion.
"What's the use in finding things?" grumbled Hippy, permitting the gold to slip through his fingers into the metal box.
Elfreda, on a piece of wrapping paper, made a careful copy of the map, then returned it to Lieutenant Wingate, who placed it in the box and slammed down the cover.
"I'll bury the old thing, of course, but some one else will dig it up. That's why I should advise keeping the whole business," said Hippy, rising and walking over to the cross with the box under his arm. They heard him working out there and, in a few moments, he returned. "Deed's done," he informed them. "What are you going to do with the copy of the map, J. Elfreda?"
"Entertain myself in studying it. Nothing may come of that, of course, but, like Emma, a mystery does appeal to me."
"So it does to me," agreed Grace. "Were it not for the fact that my intuition tells me that the map is going to play an important part in our journey, I should not have been in favor of making a copy of it, so take good care of the copy, Elfreda dear."
The rest of the evening was spent in discussing their mysterious find and all sorts of theories were advanced for the box being buried by the leaning cross. Hi Lang listened to all of this, but made no comment. He had his own ideas on the subject.
Next morning Hi was out long before the others were awake, making an investigation on his own account. He had barely begun this when, upon glancing up, he saw the solitary horseman far out on the desert, sitting motionless, apparently observing the camp of the Overland Riders.
The guide took his time at what he was doing, at the same time keeping a watchful eye on the distant horseman.
"I thought so!" exclaimed Hi Lang. "I think I'll give that fellow a run," he decided after a moment's reflection, during which he observed the watcher narrowly.
Catching up his pony, the guide quickly saddled, and, mounting, started across the desert at a brisk gallop. Five minutes later the solitary horseman turned his pony about and dashed away. Hi threw up his rifle and sent a bullet after the man, continuing to fire until the magazine of his rifle was emptied.
After reloading Hi thrust the rifle into its saddle boot and rode on until he reached the point from which the horseman had been observing. Hi Lang got down and again examined the hoof-prints of the watcher's pony.
"Huh!" he grunted. "That cayuse will keep on until something hits him—hits him hard. I reckon I begin to smell a mouse, and I think Mrs. Gray does, too. Hope she didn't hear me shooting back there. But none of that outfit is so sleepy or thick-headed that they don't see or hear pretty much everything that's going on about them."
Having freed his mind, Hi remounted and rode slowly back towards the camp. The Chinaman was getting breakfast when Mr. Lang rode in and tethered his pony.
"Pack up right after breakfast. We've got a long journey to-day," he directed.
Ping nodded his understanding and went on with his work, humming to himself. Half an hour later the Riders began to appear, each with a cheery good morning for their guide and adviser.
Grace and Elfreda came out together. Miss Briggs paused to chat with the guide, Grace walking on and strolling about to get an appetite, as she nearly always did in the early morning.
Hi Lang observed her narrowly when Grace halted by the cross and stood gazing down at it thoughtfully.
"I wonder who you are, unhappy traveler?" she was murmuring. "I wonder, too, if there are any who are wondering where you are?" Grace observed that the ground had been disturbed since last she saw it, but she made no comment when, a few moments later, she joined Mr. Lang and Elfreda.
"Grace, I was just asking Mr. Lang who it was that was shooting this morning," greeted Elfreda.
"I presume he told you it was a mirage of your dreams, did he not?" smiled Grace teasingly.
"It was Mr. Lang who did the shooting," replied Elfreda. "Grace, our mysterious horseman was on the job again this morning."
"Did you hit him?" questioned Grace.
Hi Lang shook his head.
"Too far away. Knew I couldn't get him. All I expected to do was to give him a polite hint that his attentions were displeasing to us. It was the same man that has been following us all along, Mrs. Gray. It was the same hoofprints, too, that I found up in the range where we first made camp. If that critter and I ever get close enough to see each other's eyes there's going to be a shooting match. When we get to the hills he will have the advantage of us, because he can get closer without being seen."
"Please don't worry, Mr. Lang. We will meet that emergency when we come face to face with it. Perhaps by then I may have skill enough with the lasso to practice on a real live man," laughed Grace.
"I reckon you could get most anything you cast for already."
"Thank you! When do we start?"
"Right away. Just as soon as we finish breakfast. Ping is packing up and we will be off in no time."
Breakfast had been eaten, and in something less than twenty minutes from that time, the party was well on its way, and the sun, red and angry, was showing its upper rim above the sands of the desert.
"A hot time on the old desert to-day," observed Hippy. "Emma, how would you like a dish of strawberry ice cream for luncheon?" he teased.
"I think you are real mean," pouted Emma.
Grace, at this juncture, galloped up beside the guide to ask him about the water hole that they were hoping to reach, that day, but from his shake of the head she knew that he was not particularly hopeful about finding water there.
"It should be easy for you to nose out a water tank, Mr. Lang," she said, smiling over at him.
"How so?"
"You are so successful in unraveling the mysteries of nature that you surely should be able to discover water even where there isn't any."
"What are you driving at, Mrs. Gray?"
"I have an idea that you solved at least one mystery this morning."
Hi Lang flushed a little under his tan and shook his head.
"There's no use trying to keep anything from you, and there's no reason that I know of, why I should. No one is buried in that place where we found the box. The cross was set up to keep people away so they wouldn't find the box with the gold and the map. It was my idea that we should find it to be so. How did you know?"
"I saw what you had been doing," answered Grace. "What do you think is the most important contents of the box, the gold?"
"No. I reckon the map might be a sight more valuable than the handful of gold if one knew where to find the place that the map pictures. There's a heap of bad actors down this way, Mrs. Gray. They are regular land pirates. We call them desert pirates. They'd murder a man for two bits, and I reckon that maybe they had something to do with that place back there, and that the fellow who owned the map, when he saw the pirates coming, buried it so they shouldn't find it."
"Then this is another mystery for us to solve, Mr. Lang—the mystery of the buried map. I suppose you have discovered that the girls of the Overland Riders are possessed of the usual curiosity of their sex, have you not?"
Hi laughed silently.
"You've got a poser this time. 'Fraid your curiosity won't be gratified, so far as that map is concerned, but I reckon you'll find so much doing before long that you will forget all about this particular mystery. We are not being watched out of mere curiosity, Mrs. Gray," declared the guide.
"I am well aware of that, Mr. Lang," replied Grace Harlowe gravely.