CHAPTER XXX.
FRANK IN SUNK HOLE.
The Great Dipper indicated by its position that the hour was not farfrom midnight. Crowfoot halted and pointed downward, where, in the gloomof a round valley, a few lights twinkled.
"Sunk Hole!" he said.
"At last!" breathed Frank.
The others stood in silence, looking down at those lights. Suddenly theystarted, for to their ears came the sound of music, dimly heard becauseof the distance.
"Perchance my ears deceive me," said Ready; "but I fancy I hear thesoothing strains of a fiddle."
"Sure as fate!" exclaimed Bart Hodge.
"Listen!" cautioned Merry.
There were other sounds, a sing-song cry at intervals, and then hoarselaughter and several wild whoops.
"By gum!" exclaimed Gallup. "Saounds jest like one of them air countrydances they uster hev over to Billing's Corners, Varmount. The boyscalled them 'hog wrastles.'"
"See," said Merry, "there is one place that seems more brightly lightedthan the others. It's right in the center of the other lights. Fellows,I believe there is a dance going on down there!"
"Just what I'm beginning to think," said Bart.
"My! my! How nice!" exclaimed Jack. "Let's go right down and get intoit! Balance your partners all! All hands around! Let her sizzle!"
"That would be a splendid place for you to get into a dance!" said Franksarcastically.
"But a dance there!" exclaimed Hodge.
"It does seem mighty strange," agreed Frank. "Still something of thekind is going on. Hear 'em yell!"
And now they could faintly hear the sound of feet keeping time to themusic.
"We've struck this place in a most excellent time to get into it," saidMerry. "I suppose one of us ought to go back and watch the horses."
The horses had been left in a little pocket some distance behind andthey had climbed on foot to the point where they could look down intothe round valley.
"No need watch um now," said Joe. "Um hosses all picket fast. We go downthere, better go quick."
"Correct," agreed Frank. "Just show us how to get down."
"Follow," said the redskin. "Take heap care."
The path over which he led them, if path it may be called, wasprecarious enough. At times they felt that they were on the edge of someprecipice, with a great fall lying beneath. But the aged redskin wentforward with surprising swiftness, causing them all to strain everynerve to keep up with him, and in time he brought them down into thevalley.
"Take lot care," cautioned Crowfoot. "Have guns reddy. No can tell. Mayhave to use um 'fore git out."
"It's quite likely," said Merry grimly.
So they all made sure that their pistols could be drawn quickly andreadily, and then they crept toward the dark huts, from the windows ofwhich lights gleamed.
The sounds of fiddling and dancing grew plainer and plainer. Now andthen a shout would awake the echoes.
"Where do they find their 'ladies' for a dance?" asked Hodgewonderingly.
"Oh, there are a few women in this hole," answered Merry. "Perhapsothers have come in."
They reached the first hut and paused where they could peer along thestreet, if such it could be called, for the huts had been built here andthere, so that the road between them zig-zagged like a drunken man.
In the very center of the place was the building, somewhat larger thanits neighbors, from which came the sounds of revelry. Doors and windowswere wide open. The music having stopped, there might be heard a hum ofvoices, and then the wild, reckless laugh of a woman floated out uponthe night air.
Frank shuddered a little as he heard the sound, which, to his ears, wasmore pitiful and appalling than any cry of distress that could fall fromfemale lips.
"Poor creature!" he thought. "To what depths has she fallen!"
They went forward again, slipping around a corner, and Merry stumbledand fell over the body of a man that was lying prone on the ground.
"Hold on!" he whispered. "Let's see what we have here. It's a man, but Iwonder if he is living or dead."
He knelt and felt for the man's heart.
"Living all right," he declared; "but dead in one sense--dead drunk!Whew! what a vile smell of liquor!"
"Let him lie," said Hodge.
"I have a fancy to take a peep at him," said Frank. "Hold still. I wanta match. I have one."
Bringing out a match, he struck it and shaded it with his hands,throwing the light on the prostrate man.
The light of the match showed them that the fellow was an unusuallylarge Mexican, dressed after the custom of his people in somewhat soiledfinery.
"Dead to the world!" sighed Jack Ready softly.
The match died out in Frank's fingers, but Merry did not rise.
"What are you doing?" asked Jack. "Are you accumulating his valuables?"
"Hardly," said Merry. "I'm thinking."
"Can such a thing make you think! What is passing in your massivebrain?"
"I have an idea."
"That's more than Ready ever hed," muttered Gallup.
"Fellows," said Frank, "this man's clothes ought to be a fairly good fitfor me."
"Well, what of it?"
"I'm going to wear them. Get hold here, and we'll carry him aside wherethere'll be little chance that any one will stumble upon us. Let's movelively."
They did as directed, although wondering why Frank should wish toexchange clothes with the drunken Mexican.