CHAPTER V
THE DIVINING RODS
"What wonderful clouds. They remind one of the fantastic palaces of the Arabian Nights!" exclaimed Miss Prescott.
It was at the close of the noonday halt that she spoke, reclining with the rest of the party under a canvas shelter, beneath which lunch had been eaten.
Off to the southwest the clouds she referred to had been, in fact, gathering for some time. Domed, terraced and pinnacled, they rose in gloomy grandeur on the far horizon. But Miss Prescott had not been the first to notice them. For some reason Mr. Bell, after gazing at the vaporous masses for a few minutes, looked rather troubled. He summoned Juan, who was feeding his beloved burro, and waved his hand toward the clouds, the same time speaking rapidly in Spanish.
"What is it? Is there a storm coming?" asked Jess, noting Mr.
Bell's somewhat troubled look.
"I do not know, and Juan says he is not certain yet either," was the response. "Let us hope not, however."
"I don't see why it should trouble us," said Peggy. "We have good tents and shelter, and as far as a good wetting is concerned I should think it would do this dried up place a lot of good."
"That is not what was worrying me," confessed Mr. Bell with a smile; "if it was to be an ordinary Eastern storm I should not mind any more than you. But the desert has many moods—as many as—you will pardon me—a young lady. Even the storms of the Big Alkali are not like others. They are dry storms."
"This would be no place for an umbrella dealer then," remarked Jimsy airily.
"No, I am speaking seriously," went on Mr. Bell; "frequently such storms do great damage through lightning, although, during their progress, not a drop of rain falls. The electrical display, however, is sometimes terrific. That is what I mean when I say 'a dry storm."'
"I can't bear lightning," cried Jess; "I always go in the cellar at home when it comes."
"Never mind, Jess, Roy and I will dig you one if the storm hits us," put in her brother gallantly.
"And one for me, too, please!" cried Miss Prescott; "I'm dreadfully afraid of lightning."
"Well, let us hope that we shall none of us have any cause for alarm," put in Peter Bell, the former hermit. "When I lived my solitary life I often used to wander out in the height of a storm. It was beautiful to watch the lightning ripping and tearing across the sky. The lightning and the thunder did not scare me a bit. But—."
"You'd soon have changed your mind if by lightning you'd been hit," struck in Jimsy before the old man could complete his verse. A good natured laugh, in which Peter Bell joined as heartily as the others, followed this bit of improvisation.
"Well, let us be pressing on," said Mr. Bell presently; "we are not carrying any too heavy a water supply, and I am anxious to replenish it by nightfall. By the way, that means a new experience for you youngsters. You will get your first taste of alkali water."
"But how are you going to get water in this desert?" exclaimed Roy wonderingly.
"You will see before many hours," was the reply with which they had to be content.
All that afternoon they pressed on without anything of interest occurring. The distant clouds grew more imposing and blacker in hue, but they seemed to draw no closer. The heat, however, was oppressive, and the glare of the desert hurt Peggy's eyes.
"If they didn't look so hideous, I wish I'd brought along those old smoked glasses I wore on the beach at Atlantic City," she thought more than once.
Sundown found the party skirting along the foot of rough, broken hills clothed with a scanty vegetation. Juan nodded approvingly and at once suggested making the camp there.
"We'll see if there is any water first," said Mr. Bell.
"It looks as if you need not take the trouble," declared Roy, "it's as dry as a week-old crust."
"Not quite so fast, young man," laughed Mr. Bell, "appearances are often deceitful, especially on the desert."
He dismounted, and reaching into one of the packs drew forth a slender forked stick. Then, while they all gazed in a puzzled silence at his actions, he passed it hither and thither over the dry floor of the desert.
"Oh, I know what it is now!" cried Peggy suddenly. "It's a divining rod!"
"A divining rod?" echoed Roy. "What's that?"
"Oh, look!" cried Jess, before Peggy could answer; "it's moving!"
The slender switch held by Mr. Bell was certainly behaving in a very odd manner. It could be seen to bend and sway and hop and skip about as if it had been suddenly endued with life. Mr. Bell, who was by now at some distance from the party, looked up with a satisfied expression.
"Get a shovel and dig here!" he ordered Juan. But the Mexican had fallen into a deep slumber from which it took not a little effort to awaken him. When he was finally roused and made to understand what was required of him, he set to work with a will, however, and made the dirt fly.
The boys pitched in, too, and before long quite a deep hole had been excavated. The girls, peeping cautiously over its edge, gave a delighted cry. Actual water was beginning to drain into it from the side. True, it was not of the color or temperature they had been used to associating with the fluid, but still the sight of it was welcome enough to the travel-stained wayfarers.
"You can come out now, boys, and leave the hole to fill up, which it will soon do," declared Mr. Bell.
The interval of waiting for the water to flow in a goodly quantity was spent in adjusting the girls' tent, and in setting the camp to rights generally. A sort of blue-colored bunch grass grew in considerable quantities about the water hole, and this the burros seemed to find quite palatable. The ponies and horses, however, would not touch it, and had to be regaled on the pressed hay and grain which were carried for the purpose.
In the midst of all this there came a sudden sharp cry from the water hole, followed by a loud splash.
"It's old Mr. Bell! He's fallen into the water hole!" shrilled
Peggy.
"Head over heels, too. Hurry and we'll get him out," cried the boys.
Roy seized up a lariat, and followed by the others started for the hole. It was as they had guessed. Venturing too close to the brink of the excavation, old Mr. Bell had slipped, and the former hermit was floundering about like a grampus in the water when his rescuers appeared. Luckily, it was not deep, and they soon had him out of it and on his feet. The old man, with great good nature, declared that he had rather enjoyed his involuntary bath than otherwise. He was so mud-stained and drenched, however, that it was necessary for him to make an immediate change of clothes. When he emerged from his tent with dry apparel, the aged recluse felt moved to compose a verse, which he did as follows:
"Within the mud hole's watery depths,
A grave I almost met,
But luckily I was pulled out Alive, but very wet."
"Well, Peter," laughed his brother, "you certainly are a poetic philosopher. But now, if you are quite finished with the water hole, we will draw some for our own use, and then Juan can let the stock have a drink."
As the first bucket for camp use was drawn, Peggy hastened up with a cup and extended it.
"Oh, do let me have a drink," she exclaimed; "I'm dying with thirst and can't wait for tea."
"Same here," cried Jess, eagerly.
Mr. Bell smiled and eyed them quizzically.
"I wouldn't advise you young ladies to try it till it has been boiled," he said, "but of course if you insist—"
"We do," cried both girls.
"Fill the cups, Juan," ordered Mr. Bell.
The guide did so, and Peggy and Jess eagerly raised the receptacles. But hardly had they taken a swallow before they hurriedly ceased drinking.
"Oh, what awful stuff!" sputtered Peggy, while Jess simply gasped.
"Bah! It tastes like aged eggs added Roy, who had also taken a swallow. "Is it poisonous?"
"Not a bit of it," laughed Mr. Bell; "it is simply alkali water, and when you have drunk as much of it as I have you'll be used to it and not mind it. But I must admit that on first introduction it is rather trying. It is better when it is boiled, though. It seems to lose that acrid flavor."
And so it proved; and Miss Prescott declared that she had never enjoyed a cup of tea so much as the one she drank that evening at supper on the desert. As dusk fell, Juan produced a battered guitar from a case which was strapped to the back of his saddle, and seating himself cross-legged in the midst of a semi-circle of enthusiastic listeners he banged out a lot of Spanish airs.
Then Jimsy danced a jig with incomparable agility and Roy did some tricks with cards and handkerchiefs that were declared superior to anything heretofore seen. But the little entertainment was to come to an abrupt conclusion. So engrossed had they been in its progress that they had not noticed that the sky had clouded over, and that it had suddenly grown insufferably oppressive.
All at once a red glare enveloped the camp. It lasted only for the fraction of a second, but in its brief existence it displayed some very white and alarmed faces.
The electric storm that Mr. Bell had dreaded was upon them.