CHAPTER XXIII
THE PONY RIDERS UNDER FIRE
With many a whoop and hurrah, the boys dashed into the home camp inthe early forenoon of the following day.
Lige had left them three miles down the trail, that he might make ashort cut to Eagle Pass for the purpose of getting word to the parentsof the boys, that their trip had been concluded, and asking thatdirections for their further journeys might be sent to them at Denver,where they were to travel by easy stages.
The trail to camp being clear and easily followed, he felt noapprehension in allowing them to go on alone.
"Halloo the camp!" shouted Ned, hurling his sombrero on high, ridingunder and deftly catching it as it descended.
"Why, there's no one here!" exclaimed Tad Butler, looking aboutinquiringly, as they rode in.
Walter swung from his pony, and, hurrying to the tents, glanced intoeach in turn.
"That's queer. Looks as if no one had been here in a month. Well,suppose we unpack and wait."
"Somebody has been through these tents in a hurry," declared Tad afterhaving made a hasty examination on his own account. "Did you noticethat everything in the Professor's tent had been fairly turned insideout? There are our bows and arrows lying out there near where the campfire was."
Now, the boys began to feel real concern.
"Tether the ponies and we will go out and see if we can find them,"commanded Tad Butler.
"Shall we take our guns?" asked Stacy.
"Better not. Take your bows and arrows if you wish. We are going onthe trail of two-footed game now, and we do not want to have guns. Wemight use them and be sorry for it afterwards."
Realizing the wisdom of his words, the boys laid aside their rifles,grabbed up their bows and quivers, and following Tad, who immediatelystruck off in the direction of the cave. Tad's own experience therewas still fresh in memory.
At the entrance, they halted.
"Look at that! What do you think of that?" exclaimed Tad.
Above the entrance to the cave hung suspended a broad strip ofsheeting. On it had been scrawled, evidently with a piece of bluntlead, the words:
THIS CLAIM BELONGS TO AB DURKIN. KEEP OFF!
The boys gazed at each other in amazement.
"We'll find out whom this claim belongs to!" declared Tad sternly."I don't believe what that notice says at all. There is somethingmore to this than we know about. Who'll go into the cave with me?"
"I will," chorused the boys.
"Follow me, then."
Tad moved forward, with the rest of the boys following closely behindhim. But, as they started, a revolver shot rang out and a bullet sangby the head of Tad Butler.
"Back to the rocks!" shouted the boy, springing from the open placewhere they had been standing, at the same time urging his companionsforward.
"What does this mean?" demanded Ned Rector.
"I don't know. We are in for trouble. Spread out and hide behindthe boulders as well as you can, while we crawl back to camp.Chunky, you run for Ben Tackers as fast as your fat legs will carryyou!"
With more order than might reasonably have been expected under thecircumstances, the boys retreated rapidly, two more shots zipping overtheir heads as they leaped over a projecting ledge and scurried tocover without losing any time.
"I guess they're trying to scare us, that's all," decided Ned.
They could hear their unseen enemies, clambering down the rough groundthat lay on either side of the cave, evidently bent on following them,now and then sending a bullet at one or the other of the dodgingfigures of the Pony Riders.
"Humph! Looks like it, doesn't it?" snapped Tad.
Suddenly rising to his full height, the boy waved his sombrero andhailed the men who bad been firing at them.
"Hold on, there! What are you trying to do? You're shooting at us!You had best look out what you are doing, unless you want to got intotrouble yourselves. I----"
The answer came promptly.
A gun barked viciously, and the plucky lad's sombrero was snipped fromhis hand, with a bullet hole through its broad brim.
Tad ducked behind a rock with amazing quickness.
"Spread out a little more, fellows. It won't be so easy to hit us," hecommanded. "Walter, you watch out on either side of us, while Ned andI take care of the front."
"Wish I had my rifle. I'd show them," growled Ned.
"I don't," snapped Tad. "We've got trouble enough as it is."
The boys had been carrying on their conversation in low tones, thatthey might not betray their positions to their enemies.
"Get out of there, you young cubs!" suddenly roared a voice, whoseowner they could not see. "I'll l'arn ye to interfere with otherfolks' business. I'll give yer five minutes to shake ther dust of thishy'ar mounting off yer feet. If any of ye is here then, it'll be theworse for ye. This claim belongs to Ab Durkin. Now, mosey! D'ye hear?"
Tad Butler did hear. And now he saw as well as heard.
Ab, confident that he had nothing to fear from the boys, had taken hisstation on a large boulder, from which position he was giving hisorders to the Pony Riders. Tad, peering from behind the rock where hehad taken refuge, saw an evil face, topped by a weather-worn sombrero,and, beyoud it, the figures of four other men whose faces he wasunable to make out.
"I say, will ye git?"
"No!" shouted Tad, his face flushing, as all the old fighting spiritin him came to the surface.
"Then, take the consequences!"
Ab Durkin raised his revolver, peering from rock to rock, not certainnow as to the exact location of the boys. He seemed ready to fire theinstant he made out the mark he was seeking.
Tad Butler never had been more cool in his life, and a strange senseof elation possessed him.
Motioning to the boys to lie low, Tad fitted an arrow to his bow,after which he waited a few seconds, keenly watching the enemy andmeasuring the distance to him, with critical eyes.
All at once the boy's right arm drew back. There followed a sharptwang.
"Ouch!"
The mountaineer leaped straight up into the air, which action wasfollowed by two shots in quick succession, as both of the man'srevolvers were accidentally discharged, the bullets burying themselvesharmlessly in the ground in front of him.
Tad's arrow had sped home. Its blunt end had been driven with powerfulforce, straight against the left ear of Ab Durkin, having beendeflected slightly from where Tad had intended to plant it.
"Lie low!" commanded the boy.
The next instant, a shower of revolver shots flattened themselvesagainst the rocks all about the boys.
"Give them a volley and drop back quickly!" ordered Tad.
Three bows twanged, and yells of rage told the boys that at least someof their missiles had gone home. This was a different sort of warfarefrom anything to which these mountaineers had been accustomed, and,somehow, it had begun to get on their nerves, desperate men thoughthey were.
"Follow me. We must change our positions again. They've got our rangenow," directed Tad, and the boys, wriggling along on their stomachs,to the left, dutifully followed their leader.
Tad was heading for a clump of sage brush, so that their operationsmight be the better masked. While he was doing so, the mountaineers,who also had taken to cover, were bombarding the rocks from which thePony Riders had just made their escape.
From their new position the boys were overjoyed to find that theirenemies were in plain view.
"Take careful aim, and when I count three, let go at them. See thatnot one of you misses," directed the leader.
"Ready, now! One, two, three!"
Three bowstrings sang, and as many mountaineers, with yells of rage,began shooting, fanning every rock and bush about them, in hopes ofdriving from cover their tantalizing opponents.
At first they were at a loss to locate the boys' new position, but,after a little, as the arrows kept coming persistently from the sagebush, the mounta
ineers' bullets began to snip the leaves over theheads of the Pony Riders.
"Shoot slowly, and make every shot count!" directed Tad with sternemphasis.
Once, a bullet grazed Tad's left cheek, and Ned Rector narrowly misseddeath, escaping with the loss of a lock of hair. With raregeneralship, Tad continually changed their positions, which tacticsalso were followed by the mountaineers, all the time crowding the boysnearer and nearer to their own camp.
Chunky had not yet returned, and Tad devoutly hoped that the boy wouldnot be rash enough to attempt to do so now.
If anything, the boys thus far had the best of the battle, andalthough none had sustained a serious wound, every one of themountaineers had marks on his body to show where blunt tipped arrows,driven by a strong arm, had been stopped.
Now, a new danger menaced the brave little band. Their quivers werenearly empty. Tad, discovering it, drew his hunting knife from itssheath, tossing it to Walter Perkins.
"Quick! Cut some sticks and make some arrows. Don't lose asecond. Make them as straight as possible, or we shall be unable tohit a thing."
By the time their supply had become almost exhausted, Walter hadsucceeded in turning out more than half a dozen new arrows. Yet nosooner had they begun driving these at their enemies than themountaineers sent up a yell of defiance. They recognized thepredicament the boys were in.
"Cease firing!" commanded Tad, realizing at once that their enemieshad discovered their plight.
"Fellows, we are about at the end of our rope. Give me thearrows. Then, you two make your get-away. But be careful not to exposeyour bodies to the fire of those brutes. When you get far enough awayrun for Ben Tackers' cabin. You can hide there, anyway," directed TadButler.
"Yes, but what are you going to do? You surely don't intend to remainhere?" protested Walter.
"I'm going to cover your retreat. They'll think we have no moreammunition left and then they'll start to rush us. That's the timeI'll surprise them. We have a few arrows left. They won't be so fastto----"
"See here, Tad Butler, what do you take us for?" demanded Walter, hiseyes snapping. "Do you think we are going to desert you and leave youhere, perhaps to be killed?"
"While we run away?" added Ned. "I guess not. What breed of tenderfootdo you think we belong to?"
"No! We stay with you," announced Walter firmly.
"Oh, very well. I'm sorry. Hold your arrows till you have to shoot,but it would be much better for you to go while you have a chance."
Recognizing the helplessness of the boys, the mountaineers beganmoving on their position, revolver shots occasionally zipping againstthe rocks. It was almost impossible for the boys to return the firewith their few remaining arrows, for fear of exposing themselves totoo great danger.
"I guess it's about up with us," said Tad, coolly stringing his lastarrow.