"You've got me!" admitted Nort. "It sure is queer. But I wonder if they're going to starve us; and what's become of our ponies?"
The last question was answered first, for Dick pointed to where, off to one side, Blaze and Blackie were contentedly grazing, being pegged out, as were a number of other horses.
And, an hour or so later, came the answer to the other question, for a man, who evidently acted as camp cook, came to the tent with a pot of coffee, some tin cups, and the head of a barrel used as a tray, on which was piled some food.
Had the viands been most uninviting, Dick and Nort would have eagerly welcomed them, for the boys were hungry. But, as a matter of fact, the food was clean, and well cooked. The two professors, whatever might be their game, evidently insisted on adequate culinary operations.
"Sail in!" exclaimed Nort, as he smelled the appetizing odor of the hot coffee, and what appeared to be some Mexican dish, cooked with plenty of beans, and more red peppers than the boys cared for.
But, as I have said, they were hungry, and this is the best sauce in the world. None of the condiments so freely used by the Mexicans was needed, and soon there was silence in the prisoners' tent, broken only by the clatter of knives and forks on the tin camp dishes.
Once or twice the Greaser guard looked at the boys in what Dick and Nort both agreed, later, was a hungry style. The pot of coffee was much more than the boys needed, though they ate up all the food. And it was while feeling in his pockets for a toothpick that Nort's fingers touched something which played a very prominent part in subsequent events.
Slowly Nort drew forth a small bottle, and held it up so Dick could see it, but so that it was concealed from the Greaser at the tent entrance. And then Dick noted that Nort held up a four ounce flask of paregoric. Nort had been suffering from toothache the past few days, though for some reason it had not bothered him since he and Dick had become "lost." Perhaps the excitement following that incident quieted the nerves. At any rate Nort carried the bottle of paregoric with him, for one of the cowboys had recommended that this household mixture of opium, rubbed on the gums, would give relief.
Nort found that it did, and since then he had carried the bottle with him, pending the time he expected to visit a dentist. He now held this phial of paregoric up so Dick could see, at the same time pointing first to the Greaser and then to the coffee pot.
"Now?" asked Dick, in reply to Nort's obvious statement that he intended to administer some of the soporific to their guard.