CHAPTER XI
THE HORSE HUNTERS
Bright and early the next day the aeroplane whizzed back to the arroyo, carrying a fresh supply of food and water, for Mr. Bell had decided to investigate his "prospect" thoroughly while he had an opportunity. To his mind, he had declared, the lead, or pay streak, ran back far into the base of the barren hills, and might yield almost untold of riches if worked properly. Among the supplies carried by the aeroplane, therefore, was a stock of dynamite from the red painted box.
In the meantime Alverado had to be accepted perforce as a member of the party. In the first place, he showed no disposition to leave, and in the second, even had he done so, there was no horse or burro that could be spared for him to ride. When Mr. Bell heard of the new addition to the camp he was at first not best pleased. Every additional mouth meant an extra strain on their supplies, but he surrendered to the inevitable, and finally remarked:
"Oh, well, I guess he'll be useful enough about the place. Anyhow, if we need him we can put him to work in the mine."
Peggy and Jess had accompanied Roy over in the aeroplane to the mine, but Mr. Bell insisted on their returning. "This is not work for women or girls," he said, much to Peggy's inward disgust.
Jess, with her daintier ideas, however, was nothing averse to the thought of getting back to the creature comforts of the permanent camp in the willows.
"But who's going to get you back, I'd like to know," exclaimed Mr. Bell, shoving back his sombrero and scratching his head perplexedly; "it's important, for reasons you know of, that I should prospect this claim so that I can record it to the limit, and to do that I'll need Roy. Maybe after all, you'd better stay."
Peggy's eyes danced delightedly, but Jess spoiled it all by saying:
Why, Peggy can run the aeroplane better than either Roy or Jimsy,
Mr. Bell."
"O-h-h! Jess!" shouted Roy derisively.
"Well, she can, and you know it, too," declared Jess loyally.
"Why that's so, isn't it?" cried Mr. Bell, glad of this way out of his difficulty. After that there was nothing for Peggy to do but to give in gracefully.
The two girls were ready to start back when Mr. Bell reached into his pocket and drew forth a bit of carefully folded paper.
"I'll entrust this to you," he said to Peggy; "it's for my brother. It's a correct description of the mine's location so far as we have explored it. The plan is a duplicate one, and I'll feel safer if I know that, beside the original, my brother has a copy. In the event of one being lost a lot of work would be saved."
Soon after this, adieus were said, and the aeroplane soared high into the clear, burning air above the desolate ridges. Under Peggy's skillful hands the plane fairly flew. At the pace they proceeded it was not long before the willows, a dark clump amid the surrounding ocean of glittering waste, came into view. A veteran of the air could not have made a more accurate or an easier landing that did Peggy. The big machine glided to the ground as softly as a feather, just at the edge of the patch of shade and verdure which made up Steer Wells.
That afternoon, after the midday meal, a cloud of dust to the southward excited everybody's attention. After scanning the oncoming pillar closely Alverado announced that it was caused by a party of horsemen, and it soon became evident that the willow clump was their destination.
"Oh, mercy, I do hope they aren't Indians and we shall all be murdered in our beds!" cried Miss Prescott in considerable alarm. The good lady clasped her hands together distractedly.
"We might be murdered in our hammocks, aunt," observed Peggy, indicating two gaudy specimens of the hanging lounges which had been suspended under the shade; "but only very lazy people could be murdered in bed at two o'clock in the afternoon."
"You know perfectly well what I mean," Miss Prescott began with dignity, when Alverado, who, like the rest, had been watching the advancing cavalcade eagerly, suddenly announced:
"They vaqueros—cowboys!"
"Cowboys!" shrilled Miss Prescott. "That's worse. Oh, dear, I wish
I'd never come to the land of the cowboys!"
"You speak as if they were some sort of animal, aunt," laughed Peggy. "I daresay there is no reason to be alarmed at them. I've always heard that they were very courteous and deferential to ladies."
"What would cowboys be doing away out here where there isn't a cow or a calf or even an old mule in sight?" inquired Jess.
"Maybe on wild horse hunt," rejoined Alverado with a shrug.
"Are there wild horses hereabouts then?" asked old Mr. Bell, and then quite absent-mindedly he began murmuring:
"Masseppa, Masseppa tied to a wild horse;
In the way of revenge, as a matter of course."
"Plentee wild horse," was the Mexican's rejoinder. "They cross the desert sometimes to get fresh range. Cowboy trail them and cut them off and lasso them. Then they break them to ride."
"Oh, what a shame!" cried Peggy, impulsively.
"No shame go-od," declared the Mexican stolidly; "bye an' bye wild horse all gone. Good."
"I think it's hateful," declared Jess; "just the same I should like to see a wild horse hunt," she added with girlish inconsistence.
"So should I if they'd let them all go again," agreed Peggy.
Old Mr. Bell laughed, for which he was gently reproved by Miss
Prescott.
"I shall bring this matter to the attention of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals back home," she said somewhat snappishly.
But there was no opportunity to exchange more remarks on the subject.
Uttering a shrill series of "ye-o-o-ows" the riders bore down on the little desert camp. From the heaving sides of the ponies, plastered with the gray alkali of the desert, clouds of steam were rising. Their riders, with mouths screened from the biting dust with red handkerchiefs, were seemingly engaged in a race for the willow clump where water and shade awaited them.
"Yip-yip-y-e-e-e-e-e-e!"
The sound came raucously from behind a dozen bandaged mouths as the band swept down oil tile camp. And then suddenly:
Bang! Bang! Bang!
A volley of revolver shots resounded as the jubilant horse hunters— as Alverado had shrewdly suspected they were—dashed forward.
"Oh, Land of Goshen!" screamed Miss Prescott, as, with her fingers in her ears, she fled into her tent and pulled the flap to. Peggy and Jess stood their ground boldly enough, although Jess's face turned rather pale and her breath heaved in perturbation.
"Keep still, honey, they won't hurt you," comforted Peggy amid the uproar.
Suddenly the leader of the horsemen drew his pony up abruptly, throwing the cat-like little beast almost back upon his haunches.
"Boys! Ladies!" he shouted.
Instantly every sombrero came off and was swept round each rider's head in a broad circle. It was a pretty bit of homage and the girls bowed in acknowledgment of it.
"Hooray!" yelled the horsemen as they flung themselves from their steaming but still active little mounts.
"They're not so bad after all," breathed Jess, still, however,
clinging to Peggy's shirt-waisted arm.
But the leader, hat in hand, was now advancing toward the two girls. The others hung back looking rather sheepish. They were not in the habit of meeting ladies, and to encounter two young and pretty girls in the midst of the alkali was evidently a shock to them. The leader was a stalwart figure of a man, who might have stepped from the advertising matter of a Wild West show. Leather chaparejos encased his long legs. Round his throat was loosely knotted the red handkerchief which they all wore when riding to protect their mouths and nostrils from the dust. His shirt was once blue, but it was so covered with the gray of the alkali that it was difficult to tell what color it might have been originally. For the rest he wore a big sombrero, the leather band of which was spangled with stars worked in silver wire, and a pair of workmanlike-looking gauntlets covered his hands.
"Beg pardon, ladies, for makin' sich a rough house," he said hesitating, "but, yer see, ther boys wall we didn't hardly expec' ter fin' ladies present."
"I'm sure we enjoyed it very much," rejoined Peggy quite at ease and her own cool self now "It was like—er—like Buffalo Bill—"
"Only more so," put in Jess, with her most bewitching smile.
"Um—er—quite so," rejoined the plainsman, rather more at ease now; "ye see, we're a party that's out on a horse hunt. We got on ther tracks of the band ther other side of ther San Quentin range, and figgering thet they'd cut across here ter git to ther feeding grounds on ther Pablo range on t'other side of ther desert we stopped in here fer water an' shade."
"My name's Bud Reynolds," he volunteered tentatively.
Peggy took the hint conveyed.
"And we are part of a scientific exploring party," she said.
"College gals, by gee!" breathed Bud in what he thought was an inaudible aside.
"The party is in charge of Mr. James Bell. This is his brother, Mr.
Peter Bell—"
"Glad ter meet yer, I'm sure," said Bud with a low bow as the poet hermit stepped forward.
"I am Miss Margaret Prescott; this is my chum, Miss Bancroft, and there is my aunt, Miss Sally Prescott—"
Peggy, with a perfectly grave face, indicated Miss Prescott's tent, from between the flaps of which that New England lady's spectacled countenance was peering.
"Come out, auntie," she added.
"Oh, Peggy, is it perfectly safe?" queried Miss Prescott anxiously.
"Safe, mum!" exclaimed Bud expansively. "If it was any safer you'd hav ter send fer ther perlice. Jes becos we're rough and ain't got on full evenin' dress you musn't think we're dangerous, mum," he went on more gravely. "I'll warrant you'll fin' better fellers right here on ther alkali than on Fit' Avenoo back in New York."
"Oh, do you come from New York," cried the romantic Jess, scenting what she would have called "a dear of a story."
"A long time ago I did," rejoined Bud slowly. "But come on, boys," he resumed with a return to his old careless manner, "come up an' be interduced."
The others, hats in hand, shuffled forward. It was plainly a novel experience for them.
"And now," said Peggy cheerfully, when the ceremony had been concluded, "you all look dreadfully tired and hot. The water hole's right over there. When you've got off some of that dust we shall have something for you to eat and some coffee."
This announcement took the horse hunters by storm. With yips and whoops they dashed off to the water hole, while Miss Sally and old Peter Bell began to prepare a hasty meal for the unexpected visitors.