CHAPTER XXIV.
FACING THEIR FOES.
"Nat, wake up!"
"_Nat!_"
"NAT!"
Joe's third exclamation awoke the slumbering boy and he raised himselfon the rough couch on one arm.
"What is it, Joe?" he asked, gazing in a startled way at his chum. Joewas sitting bolt upright on the rough, wooden-framed bed, and gazingthrough a dilapidated window outside upon the moon-flooded canyon.
"Hark!" whispered Joe, "don't you hear something?"
"Nothing but the water running down that old flume behind the hut."
"That's queer, I don't hear it any more either," said Joe; "guess itwas a false alarm."
"Guess so," assented Nat, settling down once more in the blankets. Fromvarious parts of the rough hut came the steady, regular breathing ofDing-dong Bell, Cal and Herr Muller. The latter must have been having anightmare for he kept muttering:----
"Lookd oudt py der sapphires. Lookd oudt!"
"No need for him to worry, they are safe enough in the hiding placewhere Cal used to keep his dust when he had any," grunted Joe, stillsitting erect and on the alert, however. Somehow he could not get itout of his head that outside the hut he had heard stealthy footsteps afew moments before.
The Motor Rangers and their friends had arrived at Cal's hut in thecanyon that afternoon. Their first care had been to dispose safely ofthe box of precious stones in the hiding place mentioned by Joe. Theevening before their last act at the camp by the ruined hut had been toconsign the remains of the dead miner to a grave under the great pines.Nat with his pocketknife had carved a memorial upon a slab of timber.
"Sacred to the memory of Elias Goodale. Died----."
* * * * *
And so, with a last look backward at the scene of the lonely tragedy ofthe hills, they had proceeded. Nat had not mentioned to his companionsthat he was sure that he had seen some one at the window, as they bentover the sapphires. After all it might have been an hallucination. Theboy's first and natural assumption had been that whoever had peepedthrough the window was a member of Col. Morello's band, sent forwardto track them. But then he recollected the burned forest that laybehind. It seemed hardly credible that any member of the band couldhave passed that barrier and arrived at the hut at almost the same timeas the Motor Rangers. Had Nat known what accurate and minute knowledgethe colonel possessed of the secret trails and short cuts of that partof the Sierras he might not, however, have been so incredulous of hisfirst theory.
The same afternoon they had reached a summit from which Cal, pointingdownward, had shown them a scanty collection of huts amid a dark seaof pines.
"That's the place," he said.
Half an hour's ride had brought them to the canyon which they found hadbeen deserted even by the patient Chinamen, since Cal's last visit.His hut, however, was undisturbed and had not been raided by timberrats, thanks to an arrangement of tin pans set upside down whichCal had contrived on the corner posts. The afternoon had been spentin concealing the sapphire chest in a recess behind some rocks somedistance from the hut. A short tour of exploration followed. As Calhad said on a previous occasion, the camp had once been the scene ofgreat mining activity. Traces of it were everywhere. The hillside washoneycombed with deserted workings and mildewed embankments of slag.Scrub and brush had sprung up everywhere, and weeds flourished amongrotting, rusty mining machinery. It was a melancholy spot, and the boyshad been anxious to leave it and push on to Big Oak Flat, ten milesbeyond. But by the time they reached this decision it was almost darkand the road before them was too rough to traverse by night. It hadbeen decided therefore to camp in Cal's hut that night.
"Pity we can't float like a lot of logs," said Joe, as he stood lookingat the water roaring through the flume which was a short distancebehind the hut.
"Yep," rejoined Cal, "if we could, we'd reach Big Oak Flat in jig time.This here flume comes out thereabouts."
"Who built it?" inquired Nat, gazing at the moss-grown contrivancethrough which the water was rushing at a rapid rate. There had been acloudburst on a distant mountain and the stream was yellow and turbid.At other times, so Cal informed them, the flume was almost dry.
"Why," said Cal, in reply to Nat's question, "it was put up by somefellows who thought they saw money in lumbering here. That was afterthe mines petered out. But it was too far to a market and after workingit a while they left. We've always let the flume stand, as it isuseful to carry off the overflow from the river above."
Somehow sleep wouldn't come to Joe. Try as he would he could not dozeoff. He counted sheep jumping over a fence, kept tab of bees issuingfrom a hive and tried a dozen other infallible recipes for inducingslumber. But they wouldn't work. Nat, after his awakening, had,however, dozed off as peacefully as before.
Suddenly, Joe sat up once more. He had been electrified by the sound ofa low voice outside the hut. This time there was no mistake. Some humanbeing was prowling about that lonely place. Who could it be? He was notkept long in doubt. It was the voice of Dayton. Low as it was there wasno mistaking it. Joe's heart almost stopped beating as he listened:--
"They're off as sound as so many tops, colonel. All we've got to do isto go in and land the sapphires, and the kid, too."
"You are sure they have them?"
"Of course. Didn't I see them in old Goodale's hut? You always saidthe old fellow was crazy. I guess you know better now. These cubsblundered into the biggest sapphire find I ever heard of."
Joe was up now, and cautiously creeping about the room. One afteranother he awoke his sleeping companions. Before arousing Herr Muller,however, he clapped a hand over the German's mouth to check any outcrythat the emotional Teuton might feel called upon to utter.
Presently the voices died out and cautiously approaching the window Natcould see in the moonlight half a dozen dark forms further down thecanyon. Suddenly a moonbeam glinted brightly on a rifle barrel.
"They mean business this time and no mistake," thought Nat.
Tiptoeing back he told the others what he had seen.
"Maybe we can ketch them napping," said Cal, "oh, if only we had atelephone, the sheriff could nab the whole pack."
"Yes, but we haven't," said the practical Nat.
Cal tiptoed to the door and opened it a crack. If there had been anydoubt that they were closely watched it was dispelled then.
Zip!
_Phut!_
Two bullets sang by Cal's ears as he jumped hastily back, and buriedthemselves in the door jamb.
"Purty close shooting for moonlight," he remarked coolly.
"What are we going to do?" demanded Joe.
"Well, thanks to our foresight in bringing in all the rifles andammunition, we can make things interesting for them coyotes fer a longtime," rejoined Cal.
"But in this lonely place they could besiege us for a month if needbe," said Nat.
Cal looked grave.
"That's so, lad," he agreed, "we'd be starved and thirsted out beforelong. If only we could communicate with Big Oak Flat."
Nat dropped off into one of his deep studies. The boy's active mindwas revolving the situation. It resolved itself into a very simpleproposition. The colonel's band was well armed. They had ampleopportunities for getting food and water. Situated as the Motor Rangerswere, the others could keep them bottled up as long as they couldstand it. Then nothing would be left but surrender. Nat knew now fromwhat Joe had told him, that it was no fancy he had had at the hut.Dayton had been on their track and had unluckily arrived in time forhis cupidity to be tempted by the sight of the sapphires. His injurywhen the man-trap fell must have been only a slight one. Nat knew thecharacter of the outlaws too well to imagine that they would leave thecanyon till they had the sapphire box and could wreak their revenge onthe Motor Rangers.
True, as long as their ammunition held out the occupants of the hutcould have stood off an army. But as has been said, without food orwater they were hopeless captives. Unless--unless----
>
Nat leaped up from the bedstead with a low, suppressed:--
"_Whoop!_"
"You've found a way out of it?" exclaimed Joe, throwing an arm aroundhis chum's shoulder.
"I think so, old fellow--listen."
They gathered around while in low tones Nat rehearsed his plan.
"I ain't er goin' ter let you do it," protested Cal.
"But you must, Cal, it's our only chance. You are needed here to helpstand off those rascals. It is evident that they are in no hurry toattack us. They know that they can starve us out if they just squatdown and wait."
"Thet's so," assented Cal, scratching his head, "I guess there ain't noother way out of it but--Nat, I think a whole lot of you, and don't youtake no chances you don't have to."
"Not likely to," was the rejoinder, "and now the sooner I start thebetter, so good-bye, boys."
Nat choked as he uttered the words, and the others crowded about him.
"Donner blitzen," blurted out Herr Muller, "I dink you are der pravestpoy I effer heardt of, und----"
Nat cut him short. There was a brief hand pressure between himself andJoe, the same with Ding-dong and the others, and then the lad, witha quick, athletic movement, caught hold of a roof beam and hoistedhimself upward toward a hole in the roof through which a stone chimneyhad once projected. Almost noiselessly he drew himself through it andthe next moment vanished from their view.
"Now then to cover his retreat," said Joe, seizing his rifle.
The others, arming themselves in the same way rushed toward the window.Through its broken panes a volley was discharged down the canyon. Achorus of derisive yells greeted it from Morello's band.
"Yell away," snarled Cal, "maybe you'll sing a different tune beforedaybreak."
In the meantime Nat had emerged on the roof of the cabin. It was adifficult task he had set himself and this was but the first step. Butas the volley rang out he knew that the attention of the outlaws hadbeen distracted momentarily and he wriggled his way down toward theeaves at the rear of the hut. Luckily, the roof sloped backward in thatdirection, so that he was screened from the view of any one in front.
Reaching the eaves he hung on for a second, and then dropped the tenfeet or so to the ground. Then crouching like an Indian he dartedthrough the brush till he reached the side of the old flume.
He noted with satisfaction that the water was still running in a goodstream down the mouldering trench. With a quick, backward look, Natcast off his coat and boots, and flinging them aside picked up a boardabout six feet long that lay near by.
The water at the head of the flume traversed a little level of ground,and here it ran more slowly than it did when it reached the gradebelow. Extending himself full length on the board, just as a boy doeson a sleigh on a snowy hill, Nat held on for a moment.
He gave one look about him at the moonlit hills, the dark pines andthe rocky cliffs. Then, with a murmured prayer, he let go.
The next instant he was shooting down through the flume at a rate thattook his breath away. All about him roared the voices of the waterwhile the crosspieces over his head whizzed by in one long blur.