CHAPTER XVI.
SHORT RATIONS.
As soon as it grew daylight next morning the two fugitives, JackMerrill and Coyote Pete, not to forget the one-eared mule, from theeffects of whose stampede Pete was still limping, made a carefulreconnaissance. From their lofty perch on a ledge of rock far up theca?on they could see behind them a thin thread of distant blue smoke,which still marked the scene of the destruction of the treacherous oldhermit's hut.
A few bluejays hopped about here and there, eying the intrudersinquisitively, a badger rushed grunting and grumbling through somenearby scrub. Otherwise the ca?on, under a blinding blue sky, was stillas a desert noon.
"Wa'al, all's quiet along the Potomac from the looks of things,"commented Pete, "and now let's get down to the creek, and I'll washoff some of the dirt that one-eared Maud there plastered me with lastnight, and then we'll hit up that pocket chuck-wagon of yours."
"And after that?" asked Jack.
"Why, then, we'll keep right on going. Let's see, it was to-day thatyou was to have written home for money, wasn't it?"
"Yes," said Jack, with a sigh, thinking of Ralph, who, if he had onlyknown it, was at that moment beyond Black Ramon's reach.
"Wa'al, now, if that Easterner can only stick out, we'll win home yet,"gritted out Pete, "and be back with help by day after to-morrow."
"Now, then, you one-eared, cock-eyed imp of Satan, if you want amorning drink quit pulling back on that halter and come down to thecreek," went on the cow-puncher, addressing the mule, which by commonconsent had been christened Maud.
The mule flopped her one ear wisely at Pete, and docilely allowedherself to be led to water. Both travelers drank and laved themselves,and then seated on a rock at the edge of the watercourse made a mealoff the remnants of Jack's stock.
"Last of the grub, eh?" inquired Pete, as the final morsels vanished.
Jack nodded.
"Well, we'll have to tighten our belts a few notches then, I reckon,"was all Pete said. It took more than the prospect of a little hungerahead to alarm the old plainsman.
All at once his eyes fell on an object lying some distance up thecreek. It reposed on the flat top of a rock and seemed to be a shallowmetal basin of some sort.
"Hello!" exclaimed Pete, as he sighted it, "there's a clew to ourneighbor of last night--the one who dug out so unsociable when Maudbegan cutting up."
"Cutting you up, I guess you mean," laughed Jack, gazing at Pete'sscratched countenance, and a further facial decoration he carried inthe shape of a big goose egg over one eye.
"Hum, I guess my style of beauty has been considerably damaged,"grinned Pete, "and look at that one-eared demon will you, grinning atus as if she enjoyed it."
They both had to burst out laughing, forgetting their other troubles atthe queer sidelong glance Maud bestowed on them. It was as if she said:
"Didn't I have a lark last night?"
"Say, Jack," said Pete suddenly, after an interval of looking about tosee if any chance crumbs had been overlooked, "I'm going to have a lookat that thing on the rock up there. It may give us a clew to our friendwho lit out so unpremeditated."
"That washbowl, you mean?" asked Jack.
"Well, it ain't exactly a wash bowl. It's what prospectors use to washout gold in. They take a handful of mud and some water from any creekthey think looks good, and then they wash it about. Of course, thegold, being heaviest, sinks to the bottom and stays there after all theother stuff has been washed away."
An examination of the basin showed that it was an old one and muchbattered. On one side it bore scratched deep in its surface theinitials J. H.
"Feller had quite a camp here," said Pete, looking about him. "Funny wedidn't sight him when we first came up. Must have had three ponies, twoto pack and one to ride."
"How can you tell that?" asked the boy.
"S'prised at you, a Western kid, asking such a question," grinned Pete,who was in high good spirits since they had apparently thrown off theMexicans; "look at those hoofs."
"That's right," said Jack, after a short scrutiny, "there's one withonly half a shoe on the off forefoot, one unshod on the hind hoofs----"
"That's one of the packers," put in Pete.
"And another the same way. Another packer," concluded Jack.
"You'll make a vaquero yet," approved Pete, "but come on, it's time forus to be up and getting. I only wish we hadn't scared J. H., whoever heis, out of ten years' growth, and we'd have been in the way of gettinga hot breakfast."
"You wouldn't have wanted to have lighted a fire," cried Jack;"wouldn't the Mexicans have seen the smoke?"
"Wa'al, I guess you're right, kiddo," said Pete; "cold victuals aresafe victuals in a fix like ours. Just the same, a slapjack and somefrizzled bacon, with a cup of hot coffee, would appeal to yours trulyright now."
"Don't talk of such things," laughed Jack; "we may be eating pi?onleaves by sundown."
"And that's no childish dream," agreed Pete. "Now, let's saddle up Maudand be on our way."
A few minutes later, with Pete's heels drumming a tattoo on her bonysides, Maud was once more ambling over the trail, her one ear movingbackward and forward as if some sort of clockwork contrivance was in it.
"Lot of waste of power there," observed the practical Pete. "Hitch thatear to a sewing machine or a corn sheller and you'd have any motor everbuilt beat a mile."
By a sort of mutual but unspoken agreement, neither of the twomentioned eating when the sun, by its height in the sky, showed thatit was noon. Without a word, though, Jack, from his position behindthe cantle, tightened up his belt a notch. Short rations were beginningto tell on him. Pete, however, seemed cheerful enough. He even hummedfrom time to time a few lines of that endless cow-puncher's song whichbegins:
"Lie quietly now cattle; And please do not rattle; Or else we will drill you As sure as you're born."
Such good progress did they make, notwithstanding Maud's deliberatemethod of procedure, that by mid-afternoon they found themselves almostat the summit of the range, and in a narrow gorge formed by the closingin of the walls of the ca?on. They had been following a sort of trail,which had once--so Pete guessed--been an Indian way. It was, however,overgrown almost continuously with brush, and they had been compelledto turn out a dozen times in every hundred yards. Now suddenly the pathcame to a stop altogether at a spot where, for a distance of twentyfeet or more, the side of the ca?on had slipped down. Nothing but asmooth shaly wall, impossible even for Maud's goatlike feet to attempt,lay between them and the resumption of the trail on the opposite side.
"Have to go around," decided Jack, who had dismounted and was surveyingthe break in the road.
"That means going back three miles at least," grumbled Pete. "Consarnthe luck."
"Well, we can't go ahead."
"There's no such word as can't when you've gotter, son," rejoined Pete,gazing about him, while Maud philosophically cropped some patch grassthat grew on the steep side of the trail.
"Let's see," mused Pete. "No, there wouldn't be no sense in trying toclimb around it. Even this one-eared jackrabbit couldn't make it. Couldyou, Maud?"
The one ear shook vigorously.
"No, she's made up her mind she couldn't, and that ends it. Marry anold maid, argue with a school teacher, reason with a rattlesnake, butnever try to persuade a mule of the error of her ways," said Petesolemnly.
"There's that old dead tree up there," said Jack suddenly, pointing tothe steep shaly bank, where a big dead pine lay precariously balancedwhere the last washout that had destroyed the trail had left it.
"Well, what of it?"
"Why, it's long enough to bridge the gap and broad enough for Maud toget across on if we lead her."
"And if she'll go," said Pete. "Just the same I think your idea's agood one, Jack."
"Well, we can try it, anyhow. It wouldn't take more than a shove todislodge that trunk, and the way it lies it ought to roll so that itstwo ends will catch on each end of the trail
and connect them."
"By Jee-hos-o-phat, I think it'll work!" exclaimed Pete, warming up tothe idea.
As he spoke he got off the mule, who for the last five minutes had hadher one good ear and the stump of the other cocked forward, listeningintently. Her nostrils and eyes were distended, and as Pete's feettouched the ground she gave a wild scramble in an attempt to climb thebank.
"Whoa, whoa, Maud! what's the matter with you, you one-eared locomotiveon four legs," growled Pete.
"She's scared at something!" said Jack, with a worried look, gazingnervously about him.
"Yep, that's right. Wonder what it is."
"Ph-r-r-r-r!"
Maud snorted and plunged about furiously.
"Well, it ain't Mexicans, that's a cinch, for the wind is blowing upthe trail," mused Pete, "and whatever she smells is coming down. Well,no use worrying about it. The sooner we get busy and get that logacross, the sooner we'll be on our way. I'll just hitch old Maud tothis tree, and then we'll get to work."
Maud, still prancing and snorting alarmedly, was tied to the tree ina few seconds. The two adventurers, bracing themselves at every step,started to climb up the shale toward the dead tree, which they wishedto roll down the incline to connect the two ends of the broken trail.
"Now, I'll take that far end and you take this, and when I say so, weboth shove, see?" said Pete. After some difficulty on the slipperyfoothold the shale afforded, they reached the log, which was nothingmore or less than a huge pine trunk, sixty feet or more in length. Hadit not been for the manner in which it had been caught on the pinnacleof two rocks at either end, they could not have hoped to move it.Balanced as it was, however, a touch set it rocking.
"Ready?" hailed Pete, after he had scrambled to his end of the log. Helaid his hands on the fallen trunk and braced his feet and muscles fora mighty heave.
"All right!" hailed Jack, doing the same, when suddenly his expressionof energy froze on his face, and he grew pale under his tan.
"Oh, Pete! oh!" screamed the boy, "look behind you!"
Pete, who stood with his back toward the upper end of the ca?on, facedaround from his grip on the timber. As he did so he echoed Jack's cryof horror.
Standing at the opposite edge of the broken trail--not twenty feet fromhim--was a huge, gaunt grizzly.
As it gazed upon the prey on which it had lumbered so unexpectedly,the horrible brute's little pig eyes blazed malevolently, and its hugefangs began to drip as if in anticipation of the feast to come.
Standing at the opposite edge of the broken trail--nottwenty feet from him--was a huge gaunt grizzly.]