"The only Indians left in the West now are all busy working for Wild West shows," he said, with a laugh; "and as for any other fancied cause of alarm, I dare say you will find the Western men quite as chivalrous and courteous as their Eastern brethren."
And so it happened that the dust-covered train was rolling across the arid solitudes at the edge of the great alkali desert with our party of friends on board. All were looking forward to adventures, but how strange and unexpected some of the happenings that befell them were to be not one of the party even dreamed.
The only member of the adventurous little band not now accounted for is Peter Bell, the former recluse. Peter was forward in the smoking car enjoying his old black pipe, which was his delight and solace and Miss Prescott's particular abomination. Among Peter's other peculiarities, acquired in a long and solitary life, was a habit he had of sometimes making, his remarks in verse. He entered the car just as the conversation we have recorded was in progress.
"Soon, my good friends, o'er the desert, so bold, we all shall be flying with excellent gold."
A general laugh from the young folks greeted him, and Roy struck in with:
"That's if we don't fall to the earth from the sky, and land up in a smash on the white alkali."
The merriment that greeted this was cut short by the raucous voices of the trainmen.
"Blue Creek! Blue Creek!"
Instantly the liveliest bustle prevailed. Belongings of all sorts were hastily bundled together. So intent, in fact, was our party on its preparations for its plunge into the unknown that not one of them noticed two men who stood watching them intently from the opposite end of the car.
"So we've run the old fox into the ground," remarked one of them, a tall, heavily built fellow with a crop of short, reddish hair that bristled like the remnants of an old tooth brush. He was clean-shaven and had a weak, cruel mouth and a pair of narrow little eyes, through which he could, however, shoot a penetrating glance when anything interested him. Both he and his companion, a sallow, black-haired personage with a drooping pair of moustaches, were just then, seemingly, much engrossed.