The Boy Scouts On The Range Part 23

"Don't know. The minute he came sky-hooting into the camp I'd a notion it was some one I've seen afore some place," rejoined Bill vaguely.

"Yes, yes; but do you think he overheard?"

"Dunno. We weren't expecting company, and therefore didn't lower our voices. Say, Clark, what if--what if he did hear?"

"Then Harkness will find out everything."

"Yes, if----"

"Well, if what?"

"If we don't bring him down. If we should kill him, we could easy blame it on the Indians. In fact, I guess the ranch folks would conclude the redskins did it, anyhow."

Clark's ruddy face grew pale at Bill's sinister suggestion.

"If he overheard, he knows enough to send us all to jail," prompted Bill.

"That's right, too. Do you think you could----"

Clark hesitated, as if the thought his mind held was too dreadful for him to voice.

"Bring him down, you mean?" inquired Bill cheerfully. "Don't know. We're hitting up a hot pace for good shooting."

"Say, Bill, I think you are the most cold-blooded fellow I ever met."

"Oh, I'm cool, all right, in such a case as this," rejoined Bill.

"Hark!"

Both drew rein for a second and listened. The beat of hoofs in front of them suddenly slackened. So near was the sound that it seemed as if it could not have been more than a few feet ahead.

"Right through that brush there!" whispered Clark, and hot as the day was, he s.h.i.+vered as if stricken with a sudden fever.

Bill Bender coolly raised his rifle. He deliberately aimed it into the leafy screen. The next instant its deafening report rang out. It was followed by a loud crash from beyond the bushes, as if some heavy body had fallen.

Clark fairly turned his pony round. He was too much of a coward even to dare to ask the question that forced itself to his lips. No such qualms a.s.sailed Bill Bender, however. He pressed spurs to his pony, and in a second flashed round the trees that hid what lay on the trail beyond. A second later a loud cry of astonishment broke from his lips. It was mingled with curses.

"What's the matter?" hailed Clark tremblingly.

"Come here."

"Oh, Bill, I don't want to. I----"

"Come here, I say. There's nothing to be afraid of."

Thus urged, Clark, whose cheeks were still ashen under the bronze, urged his pony forward, and presently joined Bill. The latter had dismounted, and was standing over a dark, still object in the road.

It was the pony Rob had borrowed so hurriedly.

It lay stone dead, pierced in a vital spot by Bill Bender's bullet.

"But the b-b-boy, is he----" stuttered Clark.

"He's gone!" exclaimed Bill.

"Gone?" echoed Clark in an amazed tone.

"Yes, clean wiped out."

"But how?"

"Ask me an easy one."

"Hasn't he left a trail?"

"No, that's what makes it so queer. He must have had an aeroplane."

For half an hour or more both youths searched the dusty trail and beat in and out of the dense brush, but not a trace of the missing boy rewarded their close scrutiny of the surroundings. Had the earth opened at that spot and swallowed Rob up bodily, he could not have vanished more utterly. The only trace of the missing boy was his sombrero, lying by the dead pony.

Absolutely dumfounded with amazement, the two worthies finally gave up their search, and taking the saddle and bridle off the dead pony, made their way back to their camp, carrying Rob's broad-brimmed hat.

At about the same hour that Clark and Bill were searching among the pinon and scrub growth for some solution of the mystery of Rob's inexplicable disappearance, an equally perplexed party was a.s.sembled on a small rise some miles away. The latter group consisted of Mr.

Harkness, his son, the Boy Scouts of the Ranger Patrol, Corporal Merritt Crawford and Tubby Hopkins, Blinky and two other cow-punchers.

The day before, following the rescued Tubby's return to the ranch with his companions, the expedition to find the missing Rob had been hurriedly formed. The cliff face had been reached in quicker time than would have seemed possible, and an examination by the cow-punchers and the Boy Scouts soon showed which way Rob had been carried off.

The broken shrub at the entrance to the tunnel, with the end pointing into the darkness, indicated clearly enough to Merritt that Rob had made a Boy Scout sign that his trail lay that way.

Leaving their ponies in charge of one of the cow-punchers who had accompanied them that far, the party had proceeded through the tunnel on foot. They were led by Blinky, who was almost as expert a trailer as an Indian, and had at the present moment arrived near the site of the Indian camp from which Rob had escaped the night before. Had the boy only known it, on his wild flight he had pa.s.sed within a few miles of those who were searching for him in the darkness.

With the earliest light they had picked up the trail once more, and now they had reached its termination, the camp of the Moquis. But to reward their activity and perseverance they found only black ashes and scattered traces of cooking and stabling. Of the camp itself, all trace had vanished.

Blinky bent over the ashes and stirred them with his fingers.

"Been gone some hours," he announced, after an examination. "The ashes are plumb cold."

"How far do you think they will have proceeded by this time?" inquired Mr. Harkness.

"Maybe twenty miles or more," rejoined the cow-puncher. "It's hard to tell. These redskins travel fast, boss, as you know."

"Yes, I do know," rejoined the rancher bitterly; "especially when they have a good reason to. But what do you suppose they carried off the poor boy for?"

"Maybe they figgered he was a spy from the Indian territory, and maybe they thought they could get a good price for him if they held him long enough."

"I guess you are right, Blinky," said the rancher sadly, sitting down upon an outcropping rock.

He flicked his riding boots meditatively for some seconds with his rawhide quirt, which he still carried, and then spoke.