CHAPTER XIX
THE ESCAPE AND WHAT FOLLOWED
"Roy! Roy! Wake up!"
Peggy shook the shoulder of her brother, who had dozed off in a rough chair formed out of an old flour barrel. She glanced at her watch. It was almost midnight, and half an hour since the steady footfall of the sentry, who was keeping desultory watch on the captives, had passed the hut.
Roy was wide awake in an instant. He sat up staring wildly about, and then, casting sleep from him, he listened intently.
Tap! Tap! Tap!
The three raps came against the back wall of the shack, and then:
"Missee all ledee. Man who watchee you him go sleep. Me got ponies, water, eblyting. Make um number one quick."
With quick, beating pulses the brother and sister slipped from the door and out into the valley. It was moonlight-that is to say, the moon had risen, but a peculiar haze overcast the sky and the light of the luminary of the night only served to make the darkness more visible. Back of the shack stood a vague figure holding two ponies by the bridles. It was Ah Sing.
"You give me lilly joss now, missee?" he asked eagerly.
Swiftly Peggy stooped and unfastened the little jade god from far-off China.
"Here, Sing," she said simply, "and thank you."
The Chinaman bowed low three times before he took the precious symbol into his keeping. He slipped it inside his loose blouse.
"All ledee now," he said, holding a stirrup for Peggy to mount.
"But how will you explain it? Won't they kill you when they find the ponies are gone?" asked Roy.
The Oriental laughed the throaty, mirthless chuckle of his race.
"I tellee them you steal them," he said; "they no thinkee Ali Sing hab good sense enough to help you. All litee now. Good bye."
Before they were thoroughly aware of it, so swiftly had the actual escape happened, Peggy and Roy found themselves moving out of the valley on their desperate dash for freedom. The ponies went silently as wraiths. The astute Ah Sing had bundled their feet in sacks so that they made no more noise than cats.
In the faint light they could perceive the gateway of the little valley, and in a short time they had passed it and were beginning to traverse the gloomy stretches beyond. Suddenly there came a sound that sent every drop of blood in their bodies flying to their hearts, and then set it to coursing wildly through their veins again.
Bang!
The report, coming from behind them, cut the stillness of the night like a scimitar of sound.
"A pistol!" exclaimed Roy. "They've discovered our escape."
Peggy shuddered. Bending forward at the risk of the noise of their flight being heard, they began to urge their ponies faster. Behind them was pandemonium. Shouts, cries and shots mingled in a babel of sound.
"The kids hev got away!" That cry sounded above all the others, and then, with sinister meaning, came another shout:
"Saddle up and git arter 'em. Get 'em, dead or alive!"
Sounds of galloping followed this order, and then came the shrill voice of Ah Sing:
"Me see um. Me see um. They go that way! Over there! Over the hills!"
"Good for Ah Sing," breathed Roy; "he has thrown them off the track. He's told them we went the other way. Come on, sis; now's our time to make speed before they discover their mistake."
The two fugitives urged their ponies unmercifully over the shale. Fortunately, in the rarefied air of the desert, the nights are comparatively cool, and the tough little broncos sped along at a good gait without showing signs of distress. But it was a cruel race across the floor of the desolate valley, and when they e merged on to the comparatively easy going of the foothills of the barren range, the ponies were fain to slack up and draw long heaving breaths.
"Poor little creatures," cried Peggy; "you've got a long way to go yet."
By the moon, which showed through the haze in a sort of luminous patch, Roy gauged the way. Peggy's observations, too, made on the journey into the valley, helped. They kept the pinnacled steeps of the barren hills to their right and pressed forward among the undulating foothills. They had been traveling thus for perhaps an hour-pausing now and then to listen for sounds of pursuit when Roy suddenly became sensible of a change in the atmosphere. It grew warm and close and almost sticky. A puff of hot wind breathed up in their faces and went screaming off among the mysterious clefts and canyons above.
"Are we going to have a storm?" wondered Peggy.
"Don't know, sis, but the weather looks ominous. I don't like that wind. We must make more speed."
"I hate to drive these poor ponies any faster," protested Peggy
"But we must, sis. They'll have a good long rest when this is over.
Come on."
So saying Roy brought down his quirt—the long raw-hide whip used in the West—over the heaving flanks of his pony. The little animal gamely responded and plunged forward at a quick lope. Peggy, perforce, followed suit, although it made her heart ache to press the animals at such a gait.
On and on they rode, while the weather every moment grew more peculiar. From the floor of the desert great dust-devils of white alkali arose and swirled solemnly across the wastes. In the semi-darkness they looked like gaunt ghosts. Peggy shuddered. It was like a nightmare. Once or twice she even pinched herself to see if she were awake.
The night, from being cool, had now become blisteringly hot. The wind was like the fiery exhalations of a blast furnace. Grains of sand caught up by it drove stingingly against their faces. Each grain cut into the flesh, smarting sharply.
"We must keep on."
It was Roy's voice, coming after a long silence.
Peggy answered with a monosyllable. A short distance further on they dismounted and allayed their thirst from the kegs Ah Sing had fastened to each saddle, and. then, although their supply was precious, they had to yield to the whinnied entreaties of the ponies. Into a small tin bucket each young rider emptied a modicum of the water and let the little animals drink. It seemed to refresh them—mere mouthful that it was—for they pressed on with more spirit after that.
But there was no denying the fact that something serious was at hand. From desultory puff s the wind had now increased to a steady blow, which drove a stinging hail of sand all about them blindingly. Eddies of hot wind caught up larger grains and dried cactus stems and drove them in terrestrial water spouts across the face of the desert. The moon was quite obscured now, and it was as black as a country church at midnight.
All at once Peggy's pony sank down, and with a long sigh stretched itself out upon the alkali. Roy's almost immediately did the same. As they did so the wind came more furiously. Half blinded and with nostrils, eyes and mouths full of sand particles, the two young travelers reeled about in the darkness. Suddenly what it all meant burst upon Roy with the suddenness of a thunder clap.
"It's a sand storm, Peggy," he cried.
A puff of wind caught up his words and scattered them over the desert.
The words sent a chill to Peggy's heart. She had heard Mr. Bell tell of the sand storms of the Big Alkali—how sometimes they last for days, blotting out trails and burying those unfortunate enough to be caught in them.
"Get your saddle off and keep your head under it," shouted Roy, recalling what he had heard Mr. Bell say of the only way to weather such disturbances.
Peggy, half dead with horror, did as she was told. By the time the work of unsaddling had been accomplished the wind was driving furiously. It was impossible to hear unless the words were shouted. The ponies, who had obeyed their first instinct at the initial warning of what was to come, turned their backs to the storm and laid out straight, with their noses to the ground. Roy and Peggy drew the big flapped Mexican saddles over their heads. Under this protection they were sheltered from the cruel fury of the wind-driven sand and brush.
It was suffocating under the saddle, but when Peggy protruded her face for even a breath of the superheated air, she quickly withdrew it. The wind was now a tornado in violence, and the sand stung like countless needles. Conversation was, of course, impossible, and they lay in silence while the suffocating gale screamed about them.
Once or twice Peggy had to scrape away the sand from the front of the saddle. She could feel it rising all about her. With the sensation came a terrifying thought. She had heard Mr. Bell tell of men whose bones had been buried in the sand only to be exposed long afterward, white and bleached, when the wind-formed sand dunes had shifted and exposed them.
All at once, above the wind and the steady roar of the furiously driven sand and alkali, Peggy thought she heard a wild screech or cry. It sounded like nothing human in its uncanny shrillness. Brave girl as she was, Peggy shuddered hysterically. Could she be losing her mind in the whirling confusion and elemental fury that waged all about her?