Читать книгу The Border Boys with the Mexican Rangers - Goldfrap John Henry - Страница 7

Our adventurers, after a council of war, decided to press right on. As Coyote Pete put it:

“We’ve got a plumb duty ter perform and we’ll see the game through, if it’s agreeable to all present.”

It was, and after Jack had fully recovered, which, aided by his natural buoyancy, did not take as long as might have been expected, the start was made.

“It’s a race for the Trembling Mountain, now,” cried Jack, as he once more bestrode brave little Firewater.

“So it is,” cried Walt Phelps.

“And may the best man win,” struck in Ralph rather pointlessly, as Pete reminded him.

“There’s only one bunch of best men on this trip,” he said, “and they’re all with this party.”

It did not take long to leave the dreary volcanic valley behind them, and they soon emerged on a rolling plain covered with plumed grasses of a rich bluish-green hue, on the further margin of which there hung like dim blue clouds, a range of mountains.

“There is our goal,” cried the professor, with what was for him a dramatic gesture. He waved his arm in the direction of the distant hills.

“Yip-yip-y-e-e-e!” exploded the boys, in a regular cowboy yell.

“A race to that hummock yonder!” shouted Jack.

The others needed no urging. After their rough journey among the mountains the ponies, too, seemed to enter into the pleasure of traversing this broad open savannah.

Off they dashed, hoofs a-rattling and dust a-flying. But it was Firewater’s race from the start. The lithe little pony easily distanced the others, and Jack, laughing and panting, drew rein at the goal a good ten seconds before the others tore up with quirts and spurs going furiously. Jack decided it was a dead heat between Walt and Ralph, and both declared themselves satisfied.

As the sun dropped lower, and hung like a red ball above the distant mountains, the question of finding a suitable camping place became an urgent one. Finally, however, on reaching the dried-up bed of a river, Coyote Pete decided that they had reached the proper spot.

“What about water?” inquired Walt rather anxiously.

“Plenty of that,” said Pete, sententiously.

They looked about at the dry sand and rocks in the river bed and at the waving grass on either hand.

“You must have splendid eyesight,” laughed Ralph, “I don’t see a drop, unless it’s in those clouds ’way off there above the mountains.”

“I, too, must confess that I’m puzzled,” put in the professor. “A more arid spot I have rarely seen.”

“Wall, I’ll guarantee that if you dig down a few feet right hyar you’ll get all the water you want,” said Coyote Pete calmly.

“Soon proved,” cried Ralph, and aided by Walt he unpacked one of the burros and the two lads selected long-handled shovels.

How the dirt did fly then! Maybe it was an accident, and then again maybe it wasn’t, when the professor, deeply immersed in a book he carried in his pocket, found himself the center of a regular gravel storm. He hastily moved out of the radius of the energetic diggers. But presently a loud cry from them announced a discovery.

“Struck oil?” asked Jack.

“Better still, – water!”

Sure enough, from the steep sides of the big holes they had dug, water was beginning to ooze. It was brownish in hue, alkaline in taste and distinctly warm, but still it was water, and men, boys and beasts drank eagerly of it.

But it ran in very slowly, and, as Jack observed, it was a long time between drinks.

“Wish some of that rain off in the mountains would strike hereabouts,” observed Walt, as they sat down to supper.

“How do you know it’s raining off there?” asked Ralph belligerently.

“I can see the dark clouds, Mister Smarty, and also, I have observed the fact that lightning is flashing among them.”

“Hear the thunder, too, I suppose?” asked Ralph sardonically.

“Might if my ears were as big as yours,” parried Walt.

Immediate hostilities were averted by the professor, who said:

“Boys! boys! Let us change the subject.”

“The ears, you mean,” muttered Walt, but he didn’t say it out loud, and the meal passed off merrily after the little passage-at-arms. As it grew dark, they could see the lightning flashes in the far distance quite distinctly. It had a weird effect, this sudden coming and departure of blue flares on the horizon. Against the radiance the serrated outlines of the mountains stood out as if they had been cut from cardboard.