“Are you sure we’ll be able to find our way back to the water-hole we have left if we fail to discover the other one?” asked Rattleton.
“I am taking note of everything, and I do not think there will be any difficulty,” answered Frank.
They had proceeded in this manner for about two miles when they saw before them a place where the barren cliffs opened into a pass that seemed to lead into the mountains.
“There is our road!” cried Merriwell, cheerfully. “It should lead us straight to the second water-hole.”
“Yah! yah!” laughed Toots. “Cayarn’t fool dat boy, chilluns! He knows his business, yo’ bet! Won’t s’prise me a bit if he teks us stret to a resyvoyer—no, sar!”
They made for the pass, and, in a burst of energy, the colored boy spurted to the front, taking the lead.
Of a sudden, as they approached a point where the bluffs narrowed till they were close together, the negro gave a sudden wild howl of terror, tried to turn his wheel about and went plunging headlong to the ground.
“Wow!” gasped Rattleton. “What’s struck him?”
“Something is the matter with him, sure as fate,” said Frank.
Toots was seen to sit up and stare toward the wall of stone, while it was plain that he was shaking as if struck by an attack of ague. Then he tried to scramble up, but fell on his knees, with his hands clasped and uplifted in a supplicating attitude, while he wildly cried: