CHAPTER XVII.
IN THE CLUTCHES OF THE GRIZZLY.
Blinky's conviction that the signaling had something to do with Robwould have been strengthened if he could have been so stationed as towatch the making of the first smoke telegraph Merritt noticed. On thedistant hilltop Clark Jennings, Hank Handcraft and Bill Bender werestooped over a fire of green wood, alternately covering and uncoveringit with a horse blanket. The signaling was being done under Clark'sdirection, as neither of the Easterners knew anything about the Indiansmoke language. Clark, during his long residence in the West, had pickedup his knowledge of it from Emilio Auguardo, the halfbreed who had onceworked on his father's ranch. Through this man, too, he had become quitean intimate of the Moquis, as we have seen.
"Douse it! Uncover it. Douse. Uncover. Douse. Uncover."
Clark Jennings's commands came in regular rotation, with differingintervals between each order. In all essentials, those three enemies ofthe boys were using a telegraph code antedating by centuries the systemin use to-day on our telegraph lines.
"Ought to be getting an answer soon," muttered Clark, shading his eyeswith his hand and standing erect on an upraised slab of rock, the betterto command a view of the distant hills in the section in which he hadreason to believe the Moquis had proceeded.
"Hold on! Douse that fire!" he cried suddenly.
Against the sky, not more than five miles distant, an answering threadof smoke had unrolled, like the coils of a slow serpent. Up it waveredand then stopped abruptly, to be followed by another puff. It was as ifa locomotive lay beyond the distant hill. The puffs of smoke resembledthe vaporous belchings of an engine stack when it is starting up.
"They say for us to wait here and they will send a messenger," announcedClark finally.
"Well, I guess we can wait as well as anything else," rejoined HankHandcraft, extending himself lazily on the sun-warmed ground. "Are theygoing to send a pony?"
"Don't know," rejoined Clark shortly. "Wonder what we'll do if Harknesshits our trail?"
"Don't bother about that. He'll be too busy rounding up that boy Rob,"replied Bill Bender. "Queer where that kid went to."
"Queer is no word for it," agreed Clark; "and what bothers me is that weare likely to have trouble with him yet if we're not careful."
"You think he is alive, then?"
"Must be, unless he melted into thin air."
"That's so."
"By the way, Clark," struck in Hank Handcraft suddenly, after a periodof deep thought, aided by the consumption of sweet grass stalks,"wouldn't the present time be a good one to drop in on Harkness'smavericks?"
"By thunder! you're right," was the reply. "Harkness is pretty sure tohave the whole ranch force, or every one he can spare, spread out,seeking for that young cub. The Far Pasture will be pretty sure to beleft unguarded. You're right, Hank; we'll see what the chief has to say,and then, if we can get a few Indians to help us, we'll make the bigdrive. Ha, ha! won't Harkness be sore if he finds the boy, to discoverthat it's cost him the loss of a few thousand dollars' worth of beef!"
In further discussion of their plans the three worthies spent the nexthour or so. By that time it was dark, and the thin, silver nail-paringof the new moon showed above the eastern hilltops. It grew very still,the deep silence being broken only by the hoot of an owl or the chirpingof some night insect.
Suddenly, and quite near at hand, a twig snapped loudly. Instantly thehands of each of the three flew to their weapons, but an instant laterthey perceived that they, at least, had no cause for alarm from thenewcomer who had thus announced his arrival. It was an Indian that stoodbefore them while they still stared in a startled way into the darkshadows.
"Chief Black Cloud!" exclaimed Clark, as the figure silently glided intothe small circle, shrouded in the folds of a heavy blanket.
The chief had tied his pony some distance away, and had advanced withcustomary stealth on the camping place of his allies.
"How!" grunted the chief, squatting down on his haunches. "You wanttalk?"
"Well, that's the reason we lighted up our little wireless plant,"grinned Hank.
"Hum! My brother with the hair on his face is foolish," snapped thechief, while the others laughed aloud at Hank's discomfiture. He did notagain adopt a flippant tone toward the impressive figure which sat incouncil with them.
"Chief Black Cloud," began Clark, "in the Far Pasture of Harkness, therancher, below the places of the dwellers in the cliff, are many youngcattle. They are unbranded, and if we can cut them out and get themaway we can all be rich--make heap money."
"Um!" grunted the chief, waiting for what was to come.
"Harkness and his men are all away, seeking for a lost boy----"
"Hum! Black Cloud know," interpolated the Indian.
"Then you _did_ take him off!" burst out Bill Bender. "Why didn't youhave sense enough to keep him?"
"Hush!" ordered Clark sharply. He was sufficiently conversant withIndian character to know that the chief might be mortally offended byadverse comments on anything his tribe might have seen fit to do. ButBlack Cloud paid no attention to the interruption.
"What you want Moquis to do?" inquired the chief, going right to theheart of the matter, for he had quite acumen enough to reason that fromthe conciliatory tone Clark adopted he had some service to ask.
"That you will help us on the cattle drive," rejoined Clark boldly.
The Indian shook his head.
"No can do," he said decisively. "Mayberry, the Indian agent, is in themountains seeking us now."
Here the chief permitted himself a grim smile.
"But Mayberry kind man. If we go back to reservation, make no trouble,everything all right. All the same as before. But if we steal the cattleof the white men, then the white man visit us with his anger."
"It will be easy and no chance of being found out," urged Clark.
But the chief shook his head.
"No. My people here for snake dance. Not for steal white man's cattle."
"Then you won't help us?"
"No."
"You'll be sorry for it, you old idiot!" snapped out Clark, foolishlyletting his temper get the better of him for an instant.
The Indian drew himself up with haughty dignity. Slowly he gathered thefolds of his blanket about him. Then, and not till then, did he speak.
"Black Cloud is never sorry for his deeds. But perhaps white men willsorrow for theirs," he said, with extraordinary dignity and force, andthe next instant he was gone.
"Say, Clark, it seems to me you've put your foot in it," muttered Hank,as the offended Indian strode off.
"He looked Black Cloud by nature, as well as by name," commented BillBender. "He glared at you as if he would read your thoughts, Clark."
"I hope not," laughed the young ranchman, though with a rather uneasynote in his assumed carelessness, "for they had a lot to do with him, Ican tell you."
"What do you mean?"
"That we'll have to do the Indian act again."
"How do you mean?"
"Why, steal the cattle, disguised as Moquis. But come on, hit the trail.We'll be getting back to the ranch. I'll tell you as we go."
As my readers will have seen, the above conversation throws a strangeside light on Indian morality. The Moquis, of whom Chief Black Cloud waspatriarch, had had not the slightest objection to "hold up" the boys andto capture Rob for ransom, but at the seriously punishable crime ofcattle stealing they balked. What the consequences of this decision wereto be to Clark Jennings and his companions we shall see later on. At theJennings ranch they met Jess Randell, and here the four sat late,discussing the big coup which they hoped was to retrieve all theirfortunes. At length they arrived at a decision, and arranged a planwhich they deemed offered every security against discovery.
* * * * *
It is now time to revert to the fortunes of Rob, of whom we last heardwhen the three worthies into whose camp he had been catapulted with suchveloc
ity were searching in vain for a clew to his whereabouts. As willbe recalled, after leaping on the back of Hank Handcraft's pony, the boyhad dashed off down the trail at top speed, without a very clear idea ofwhere he was bound for. As he rode he heard the sounds of the pursuit,and simultaneously with the sharp report of Bill Bender's gun, he felthis pony halt and stagger beneath him.
For an instant of time it seemed to Rob as if he was bound to becaptured by his pursuers, but in his extremity his mind worked with thelightning-like rapidity common to quick intelligences in moments ofgreat stress.
At the precise instant that his little mount gave a groan and plungedforward into the dust of the trail, Rob reached above his head andseized the low-hanging branch of a small, stout tree. With the activityof the practiced athlete, he swung himself up into the thick greenery asthe poor pony lay in its death struggles below. Rapidly working his wayamong the branches, he was soon several feet from the trail.
While Bill Bender and Clark Jennings were hanging over the dead pony andsearching in vain for the boy's trail, Rob was noiselessly making hisway over rocks and stones down into a deep-timbered gully. He couldhardly keep himself from an exultant laugh as he pictured the chagrinand amazement of his old enemies at his total disappearance.
He rapidly sped on, and after an hour or more of traveling, feelinghimself safe once more, he halted. Up to that moment he had pressed onwithout feeling much fatigue. The excitement of the rapid happeningssince he had slipped upon the Indian pony's back had sustained him. Now,however, that he felt comparatively safe, the inevitable relapse came.Rob's knees began to feel strained and weak, as they had never feltbefore. His head, too, buzzed queerly, and a feeling of overpoweringlassitude assailed him in every limb.
"Good gracious! am I going to play out?"
The boy asked himself the question with every feeling of dismay.
He was in a solitary, remote part of even those wild mountains, andalthough he was on a small eminence, he could see nothing at any pointof the compass but dreary, monotonous woods or rocky patches ofsun-burned wild oats and foxtail. By the height of the sun and itsdirection, he guessed that it was about noon, and that he had beentraveling in a southerly direction, but even of this, in his suddencollapse, he had no very clear notion. All he really knew was that hecraved food with a wild, aching longing in his every fibre that hadnever before assailed him.
"I wonder if starving men in cities ever feel like this?" the boy askedhimself. "Woof! I could eat a horse raw cheerfully."
Then came an interval of utter lassitude of mind and body, in which theboy lay stretched out on the hot ground, without a thought of anything.A strange ringing began to sound in his ears and his head felt dizzy.
"Got to get out of the sun," he thought in a dim, remote sort of way.
He voiced his thought aloud, and his tones sounded faint and far away tohim, like the accents of another person.
"Brace up, Rob, brace up," he began repeating to himself, as he made fora patch of deep shadow under a bush covered with a kind of purpleberry.
But in spite of his determination to "brace up," even the slight effortof crawling to the grateful shade bothered him so badly that, havingreached it, he could only lie on his side and pant like an exhaustedcreature.
All at once a sound was borne to his ears that made him sit uperect--the bright light of hope gleaming in his eyes.
Heavy footsteps were coming toward him. The boy cared little whether theadvancing individual was friend or foe. His coming meant food, at least;for surely no enemy could be so inhuman as to refuse nourishment to aboy in the pitiable condition of Rob Blake.
"There's something queer about those footsteps, though," mused the boy,as the sounds drew nearer, accompanied by a sort of low, growlinggrumbling.
What can it be?
"Sounds like--like---- Great Scott! Silver Tip!"
Into the small clearing on one side of which Rob lay beneath hissheltering bush, there had suddenly lumbered the half-legendary monarchof the Santa Catapinas.
It was Silver Tip, the giant grizzly! For a second the monster's small,piglike eyes glared in blank astonishment at the encounter. He washunting honey, and this sudden meeting with a white boy in the wildestpart of his own particular domain evidently had struck him "in a heap,"so to speak.
The next instant, however, the expression of his wicked little opticschanged to one of active malevolence. He swung his great bulk savagelyabout--like the giant heavings and swayings of a picketed elephant. Thesmall spot of snow-white hair that gave him his name shone out on hisdark, shaggy hide like a bull's-eye. It was right over his heart. If Robhad had a rifle, he could have pierced it as unerringly as a target.
With a crazy yell, the boy leaped to his feet and rushedstraight at his monstrous shaggy opponent.]
But the lad was weaponless, and almost unconscious from fatigue andexhaustion. Indeed, delirium had been dangerously near when Silver Tipcame lumbering into the clearing. The sight of the monster had tippedthe delicately adjusted balance.
With a crazy yell, the boy leaped to his feet and rushed straight at hismonstrous shaggy opponent. In sheer astonishment, Silver Tip reared hisimmense bulk upward.
"Ha, ha! I'll kill you, you old thief, you old murderer!" yelled Robdeliriously, as he hurled his slight form straight against the monstroushairy tower of rugged strength.
The great forepaws--armed with claws as sharp and heavy as chilled-steelchisels--extended. In another instant the lad would have been in themonster's death grip, when an intervention, as sudden as it wasunexpected, occurred.