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CHAPTER XIX.
AT BAY IN THE CANYON
“Dodge back!” suddenly snapped Ned, as he seized hold of Jimmy and half-pulled him along; while Harry and Jack, although they did not understand what it was all about, made haste to tumble pellmell in the direction the scout master was dragging the fourth chum.
A gun cracked and chips of stone flew up very close to their feet. This was quite enough to tell the others what sort of danger menaced them. It doubtless acted as a spur to hasten their departure from the open, for in another moment they were to be seen huddled under a shelf of rock, each fellow eagerly handling his rifle as though ready to give a good account of himself.
“Was it just one man made us skip out like all that?” Jimmy wanted to know, for he was proud, and the thought would have come back to him many times later on, to cause heartburnings and keen regrets.
“No, there was a bunch of them there,” Ned informed them. “I recognized Ally Sloper, Coyote Smith and Lefty Louie. There was another big man along, a regular giant, with a bushy head of hair and the look of a terror!”
“Wow! I wonder now if that wasn’t Amos’s awful dad?” Jimmy exclaimed.
“But what are we going to do about it, Ned?” Harry wanted to know. “Here we are, caught in a little rat-trap, seems like. If we start to run out of this canyon, how do we know what they’ll do? They’ve shot once already and, perhaps, stand ready to give us a volley. This is a bad job, seems to me. See what your everlasting teasing of Ned gets us into, Jimmy.”
“Well, we ain’t all dead yet, are we?” the other naively wanted to know, “and our guns ought to shoot just as straight as the ones they handle, which I reckon now are only the kind punchers carry, and no good at a distance. Chirk up, Harry, and listen to what Ned’s goin’ to say.”
Instead of speaking Ned crept cautiously forward a little ways, and when he returned again, reported that so far as he could see the men on the ledge had disappeared.
“But that’s not saying they’re gone, is it?” asked Jack.
“I’m afraid not,” replied the scout master. “You see, they command the passage from up there on that ledge. If we try and go out, they can drop rocks down and give us a volley from their guns, while we wouldn’t be able to sight them.”
“Two might stay here and keep the ledge covered while the others went out,” suggested Harry, “and play the game that way. With our rifles we’d make things so warm for the bunch they’d hardly dare show themselves. And after the first two got out, why, they could hold the fort for the others. How’s that, Ned?”
“Not bad,” replied the one addressed, “only I’m afraid there may be others near by. I heard some one shout just then, which I take it must be a signal. There goes another yell from across the canyon.”
“By jinks! I believe we’re surrounded!” ejaculated Jimmy, and strange as it might seem, there was something not unlike a vein of gratification in his voice, as though the boy really felt pleased to know they were in for another spell of action.
“We’re going to have a fight, that’s certain!” announced Jack, handling his weapon with nervous fingers, in sharp contrast to Ned’s steady ways.
“Well, this ought to make a pretty fair sort of a fort, I should think,” Harry remarked, as he indicated the slanting rock under which they had crawled, and which sheltered them fairly well from any peril that might be hovering above.
“But if they once get up above us in the canyon, and below as well, they could pour in what is called an enfilading fire, and make it mighty unpleasant under our rock mushroom fort,” Jack explained.
“Which will be apt to happen, sooner or later, if they mean to give us trouble,” assented Ned.
“Then we’d better get a hustle on and see if we c’n side-step any,” Jimmy was heard to remark.
“Keep watching, up and down, and shoot at any moving thing you glimpse,” Ned told them, as he started to creep further under the shelf.
“Where are you going, Ned?” Harry asked, filled with curiosity.
“To see what chance there is of our finding a safer refuge than this,” replied the scout master. “Somehow, I seem to have a notion that there’s a sort of crevice in the canyon wall close by. If it turns out that way and it’s big enough for us to crawl in, why, we’ll be better fixed to stand that crowd off.”
“Good luck to you!” Jimmy called after him.
“Don’t watch what I’m doing, but keep guard in front!” were the last words Ned sent back over his shoulder.
A minute later and Jack announced that he believed there was some one moving up amidst some scraggy bushes growing in a spot where earth had fallen down into the rocky cut.
“I’ve got half a mind to send a shot up there and rout him out,” he declared.
“Cut her loose then,” Jimmy told him.
“If it doesn’t do anything else,” Harry observed, “you’ll publish plain warning of our intention to fight back and give as good as we take. When they hear the crack of a rifle, perhaps, they’ll make up their minds they don’t want to bother us as much as they thought they did in the start.”
So Jack pressed the trigger of his weapon, which promptly went off with a roar, owing to the fact that at the time he was crouching in a confined space under the shelf of rock.
“Look at that, would you?” cried Jimmy.
A man had jumped into momentary view, in the midst of the leafless bushes, and making a wild spring, vanished back of a neighboring spur of rock.
“He thought it was too hot out in the open,” said Harry. “I wonder if you winged him with that shot, Jack?”
“I’d like to believe I did,” came the answer, as Jack worked the mechanism of his rifle, so as to send out the useless brass shell, and shoot another cartridge from the magazine into the firing chamber; “but from the way he jumped, in didn’t look much like he’d been struck. Don’t forget to watch the other side, too. If they get started coming in on us, we’d be in a peck of trouble.”
He had hardly spoken when a gun sounded, and they heard the splash of the bullet mushrooming against the stone close by.
“Wow! that’s getting pretty close, let me tell you!” cried Jimmy, stooping to pick up the rough-edged, flattened circle of lead, and then immediately dropping it with a cry: “Say, that’s as hot as anything! It burned my fingers to beat the band. And there goes another shot down the canyon. They’re meanin’ business this time, boys! If one of us gets in line with a bullet, his name will be Dennis.”
In the temporary absence of the scout master Jack thought that the duty of looking after their safety devolved on him.
“Here, creep back more, everybody!” he ordered, “and snuggled down the best you can behind any stones you find. Make yourself as small as anything, while that lead’s singing around here.”
“Wish I could find a chance to bang away back at the nervy crowd,” grumbled Jimmy, as he sprawled out like a huge frog and listened to several shots from as many different quarters. “What’s sauce for the goose ought to be sauce for the gander, too. It’s a poor rule, I always heard, that don’t work both ways.”
Try as hard as he would, however, Jimmy seemed unable to find a chance to discharge his gun with anything like a prospect of results. The bullets continued to flit around them, making all sorts of queer and blood chilling noises. There were several narrow escapes, too; and once Harry actually felt a tug at his arm that, upon investigation, showed him a slit in the khaki material of which the sleeve of his coat was made, proving that a passing bullet had almost drawn blood.
Several minutes had passed since this bombardment commenced, and it showed no signs of slackening. If it continued much longer there was a chance that one of the scouts might stop a bullet, and the prospect did not seem very pleasant, to say the least.
While this was going on, and all hands were grumbling, because they found so little use for their trusty rifles, Jack heard some one gently calling his name.
“Hello! is that you, Ned?” he asked joyfully, for he felt sure that the return of the scout master would mean a new rift in the clouds.
“Yes, tell the other boys to back in here after you!” the other scout went on to say.
“Yes, it’s here, but hurry and get started!” Ned continued, from the darker depths beyond.
Of course, when the others heard that there was an opportunity to creep out of the fire zone they lost no time in making a move. Jimmy was declaring at the same time that it certainly gave him a pain to be compelled to “take water” in that way, and without having inflicted any material damage that they knew of on the enemy.
“If we’d only knocked half a dozen of the skunks off their pins, it wouldn’t be so bad,” he lamented; “but I ain’t had any chance. It ain’t fair, that’s what; and me just crazy to try my Marlin on that lot of mutts. But wait, that’s all; my time’s agoin’ to come yet, and then, look out, that’s what!”
When they had backed some ten feet or more they came to the wall of the canyon. Ned was waiting to show them where he had found a fissure into which he must undoubtedly have crawled some little ways, seeking to find out what sort of a haven of refuge it would turn out to be.
“I struck a match,” he told his comrades, as they pushed into the split in the wall, “and as near as I could make out, there’s a little cave right here. We’ll take possession and hold the fort against a hundred enemies.”
“Hurrah! that’s right, we will!” shrilled the irrepressible Jimmy, always quick to seize upon any excuse for giving tongue.
Already they seemed to have passed beyond the reach of the flying bullets, although, of course, the ambitious rustlers did not know that and were still banging away right merrily.
“If only they’d keep that up until they’d fired away every scrap of their ammunition, wouldn’t it be just fine,” Harry suggested, “then we could go out and do a little holding-up on our own hook.”
Ned lighted another match, so that all of them might see what manner of refuge had been found in this emergency. It turned out to be a fair-sized cavity, nothing unusual, but capable of answering their needs.
There was, of course, no way of blocking the entrance, but with four guns to stand guard there did not seem to be much reason to fear that the enemy could ever rush their fortress.
“But it makes me clear mad to think that while we’re cooped up here, like rats in a trap, that crowd can hunt around for our ponies and get away with the lot,” Jack complained.
At that Jimmy raised a row.
“And that’d be the last I’d see of my calico broncho, just when I was growing attached to him, too!” he bleated.
“But from what you told us,” Jack remarked, bitingly, “there was a time when you had to throw your arms around his neck in order to become attached to him. But never mind, Jimmy, the rustler that gets your Spot will be sorry for it, if I’m any judge of tricky horses. It may be the best thing that ever happened to you. Some times blessings come in disguise; and, if the pony’s stolen, it may save you from getting a broken collarbone.”
The shooting presently ceased. Whether the rustlers considered that they had accomplished the end they had in view and utterly demoralized the enemy; or, discovered the change of base on the part of the four scouts, no one was able to more than guess.
“Seems to me I can hear somebody talking close by,” Jack remarked, when some time had passed without any renewal of the bombardment.
“Get ready to repel boarders, then!” urged Harry, “for they must have discovered where we’ve crawled. Do you think they’ll try to carry the fort by assault, Ned?”
“I don’t believe so, if they’re the kind of men I take them to be,” replied the scout master. “It would take more than a dozen desperate men to get in here past the hot fire we’d start playing on them, and I reckon there isn’t that many in the bunch. No, if they do anything at all, look out for some trick.”
“But they can’t drop down on us, because there’s only one entrance and we’ve got that covered,” Jack asserted. “It’s dark enough in here, but we could see if anybody came against that line of light, and pepper him in a jiffy. I don’t see what way they could fool us, Ned.”
“I hope I’m mistaken, that’s all,” the other returned, but his vigilance did not relax a particle, nor was he at all sanguine as to the rustlers going away and leaving them to make their escape as they pleased.
The minutes dragged along. Every little while Jimmy would declare that he caught those low voices again, or it might be a rustling sound that puzzled him. Some of the other scouts admitted that they heard something of the same sort, though unable to explain what it might mean.
These things kept them constantly on the alert. Their nerves were held up at a high tension all the while they crouched there, keeping continual watch and ward.
Jimmy had several times grumbled that it seemed like a shame, that four able-bodied scouts should be bottled up in this silly way, and begged Ned to think up a plan that would change the situation around, giving them a chance to play the aggressor.
He was about starting in for the third time to vent his disgust, when the others heard him begin to sniff.
“What’s the matter, Jimmy; think you smell dinner cooking?” jeered Jack.
“No, I don’t, more’s the pity; but I did get a whiff of the most disagreeable smoke that ever was, or could be. There she comes again, with the breeze sendin’ the same right into this little snuggery, hot-footed. Oh! my, don’t that take the cake, though? Whatever can they be burnin’ and how does it happen to get in here?”
“It’s the trick I told you they’d be playing on us, Jimmy,” said Ned, seriously. “That’s what they call the stink weed, and the smoke’ll drive us out of here yet.”
CHAPTER XX.
SMOKED OUT
What Ned had said appalled them all. The situation had seemed peculiar and distressing before, because they could not see far enough ahead to even guess how it might turn out; it became positively terrifying now.
They had heard some of the punchers speak about the powerful agency of the weed mentioned by the scout master. One man had told how it was often used to force wolves from their rocky dens. When set to smouldering, it produced a smoke that was quite irresistible, and which overpowered man or beast.
“Why can’t we find a way to keep it out of the cave?” Jack presently demanded, when they found themselves rubbing their eyes, in spite of themselves, and beginning to feel half choked in the bargain.
“The opening is too wide to think of closing it, more’s the pity,” Harry answered, with deep regret in his voice.
“And even then we couldn’t keep the smoke out,” Ned told them; “because we’d have to get air, and where that can enter the smoke could too.”
“This is sure the worst deal I ever struck!” gasped Jimmy. “It takes your breath away like fun, and makes you think your eyes are bored in your head. They call it by the right name, I tell you, for it certainly does smell rank. Whew! somebody fan me, or I’ll go under.”
Nobody took the trouble to oblige Jimmy. The fact was they all felt it just as badly as the freckled-faced scout; and each fellow was trying the best he knew how to get temporary relief.
“How’s it going to end, Ned?” asked Jack, and his voice sounded very queer, for he was talking between his teeth, not wishing to open his mouth wider than he could possibly help.
“One of two ways,” returned the scout master, gloomily.
“You mean we’ll just have to hoist the white rag and give up?” continued Jack, in deep disgust.
“Either that or be overcome here; and nobody wants to let that happen, because some of us might suffocate. Anything would be better than that, it strikes me,” was what the leader told Jack.
“What if we rushed out and started to fight our way through?” suggested Harry, who had been listening to what his comrades said; and the surprise of it all was that he, the peace-loving member of the little band, should so suddenly display such ferocity; but then it could be laid to the terrible fumes that were driving them all nearly distracted.
Ned shook his head, though, of course, none of them saw this, for it was next door to dark under the protecting ledge, and particularly in the little cave that Nature had scooped out of the solid rock.
“It would be useless,” he told them.
“Yes, I reckon they’re all ready to meet us with a hot fire and some of us would go under,” Harry admitted, sadly. “But we can’t stand this much longer, Ned. Oh! if only there was another opening to the cave, how fine it would be to slip out and leave them doing their grand smoking act.”
“But there isn’t, I’m sorry to say,” admitted Ned. “I took the trouble to explore it through and through, and there’s not the first chance to find another crack.”
“Have you any plan, Ned?” pleaded Jimmy, who was choking at a terrible rate and seemed half-blinded already.
“Only a half-way idea,” replied Ned. “Here it is for what it’s worth. Three of us will surrender, by walking out and shouting that we give in. Jack must manage to hide somewhere in here and stand for it a little while longer. There’s just the smallest chance going that they’ll skip him; and, if it happens, he can hang around and help us out later.”
“I’m afraid it won’t work, Ned; because they must have seen that there were just four in our bunch, all told; and they’ll never be happy till they root me out,” was the opinion Jack expressed.
“All the same it may be worth trying,” Ned declared; “and even if you’re found out we can be no worse off than if we all gave up. This is a case that needs quick action.”
“Then just as you say, Ned, we’ll try it,” Jack agreed. “I’ll see if I can stand this rank smell a little while longer. Perhaps it may seem so bad that none of the rustlers’ll care to crawl in and look around. You can kind of give them to understand that one of your crowd has keeled over earlier in the fight. There’s just a little hope it may pan out. Now, for goodness’ sake get a move on as soon as you can. I’ll find a place behind some loose stones to lie down and play dead. Hope when the time comes for me to crawl out I won’t be too weak to move.”
Each of the other scouts squeezed Jack’s hand. He was a prime favorite in the troop, and they disliked leaving him behind more than they could tell; but there seemed little choice and Jack was always so willing to sacrifice himself for the good of others.
Ned took the lead.
“Keep close behind me,” he told Harry and Jimmy, as they started to crawl over to where they knew the exit must be; for the smoke was now getting so dense that even the faint light was shut out.
Reaching this place Ned shouted, though he found himself so hoarse that he hardly knew his own voice; and several times choked, as though he was close to the border of having a fit.
“Hello! hello out there! we want to surrender! We’re choking, and can’t stand it any longer. Don’t fire on us, and we’ll come out! Hello! hello!”
There came an answering hail, close at hand.
“All right, come along, but be sure and hold your hands up over yer heads, or you might get hurt! understand that, kids?”
“Yes we’re nearly all in! Here we come!”
With that Ned led the way, and staggering weakly, the three scouts groped their passage through the haze of bitter smoke toward the faint gleam of daylight that they could begin to see through the pall.
While they were still engulfed in this mantle they felt their guns rudely jerked from their hands and fierce clutches taken upon their garments. But the relief was so great when they reached the blessed air in the canyon, almost free from the acrid fumes of that terrible stink weed, that for the moment they could think of nothing else.
Each of them stood there, blinking, and rubbing their smarting eyes. Rude laughter jarred on their nerves, and they began to observe that a circle of lawless punchers stood around, apparently quite amused at the sight of their agony.
“Seems ter me thar was four o’ the tenderfeet kids; how ’bout that, Ally?” one of the rustlers observed in a voice that sounded like the grumble of thunder.
Ned managed to look at the speaker, and he just seemed to know without being told that this giant must be the “awful dad” of the lad Amos, whom they had helped out of the quicksand. He was indeed a striking figure, and must inspire terror in almost any man who happened to run counter to his will. When Hy Adams growled his dislike for anything, plans were apt to be hastily changed, and in a fashion calculated to suit his whim.
There was another alongside who caught Ned’s especial attention, too. He had only to take note of the fact that this tall party bore a scar on his left cheek to feel confident that this must be the rustler chief, Clem Parsons, who had played fast and loose with the United States Government, so that his apprehension by the Secret Service officers was apt to put quite a feather in the cap of the one fortunate enough to cause his arrest.
“There was four of ’em,” Ally Sloper observed, as he pushed forward at this juncture and faced the prisoners; and raising his voice he turned to Ned and added: “Where’d that other feller skip out to? Was he knocked over by our fire? We know that he never got away, we had the canyon blocked with a cork in the neck of the bottle.”
“We’ve lost him, somehow,” Ned replied, brokenly, as though deeply grieved by the fact; “and we hope you’ll look around and find our chum, who may be bleeding to death somewhere in the canyon behind a rock.”
His eagerness to have them search seemed to allay any suspicion that may have started to arise.
“Oh! we’ll give a sort of look when we’re getting out of this hole,” the man Ned took to be Clem Parsons observed carelessly; “but it’s too unpleasant around these diggings right now to stay any longer than we have to. Later on, if we happen to think of it, we may come back and look him up. Get a move on now, boys, and we’ll strike for the upper camp.”
Those who had hold of the three prisoners urged them forward, and it was evident that they meant to leave the vicinity of the recent fight. When Ned was sure of this he allowed himself to have a most violent fit of coughing, and managed to mix in several significant signals that were not unlike the howl of the wolf in the stillness of a night on the open plain.
This he knew must be heard by the suffering scout inside the cave. It would tell Jack they were going, and that he could immediately make a start looking toward relief from the overpowering fumes.
Ned would have been better satisfied could he have received a return sign from the devoted chum, to assure him all was well; but of course that was utterly out of the question. He could only hope that dear old Jack would not by this time have become so weak from his sufferings as to be unable to make his crawl out to the pure air, and then follow after them.
The three scouts looked quite dejected at first. They were so accustomed to having things come their way that this thing of being made prisoners galled them. Jimmy in particular bewailed the circumstances attending their capture. He seemed to think that it was next door to a disgrace because they had not been able to put up a desperate resistance, and at least disable several of the foe before yielding to superior force.
“’Tis a shame, that’s what it is,” he kept on muttering, grimly, “to have to put up your hands like we did without knockin’ the stuffin’ out of a few of the enemy. I’ll never be able to look myself in the face again, sure I won’t.”
“Oh! yes you will, Jimmy,” Harry assured him; “I expect to live to see the time when you sit beside a fire, gobbling your rasher of bacon and fried potatoes, and telling the story of this adventure to some of the other boys in the troop.”
“Now, that’s adding insult to injury!” declared Jimmy, sadly; “when you go and make my mouth water tellin’ about breakfast stuff. Chances are they’ll try to starve us while they hold the lot for ransom.”
Ned gave him a punch in the side when he said this.
“Let up on that kind of talk, Jimmy,” he whispered sternly; “don’t put the notion in their heads. If they once knew who Harry was, and what he came out here to do, they’d think up some scheme to get even with Colonel Job. Even Ally Sloper didn’t hear what our mission was, and thinks we’re just on the plains to have a good time. And keep up your spirits. Leave it to Jack; he’s our best hope just now.”
They were walking by themselves at the time, the rustlers forming a sort of cordon around them though separated by a dozen or two feet; and hence the scouts found an opportunity to exchange a few remarks in whispers without being overheard.
After that Harry and Jimmy did pluck up a little more hope. So long as Jack was free to move around they might expect assistance, though none of them could give more than a vague guess what shape it might take. Jack was to decide upon his own course. He might think it best to follow them up, and then, after seeing where the cattle thieves had their secret camp, make his way back to where the ponies had been left, mount, and head for the ranch at top speed in order to bring a rescue party to their relief.
How they hugged that hope to their hearts as they climbed upward after those of their captors who were in the van. Ned was wideawake all the while. He believed that Jack must surely follow them, and in order to make his task as easy as possible the scout master was trying in every way he knew how to leave plain indications of their having passed along this way.
All this had to be done in a fashion calculated not to attract the attention of the rustlers. If they realized that he was purposely turning over stones every now and then by pretending to stumble, they would know what this implied; consequently the rustlers would lay a trap for the comrade who was expected to follow; and hence Jack, when coming creeping along the trail, might walk into an ambush, so that he too be taken prisoner.
An hour passed, and all of the scouts were becoming very weary of climbing, much against their will, when indications ahead told them they must be getting close to the rustlers’ camp.
It was hidden in the most isolated part of the mountain range, and where there did not seem to be one chance in ten that any cow puncher would ever stray in search of lost steers. Faint wreaths of smoke first told the sharp-eyed Ned that the camp was near by; then he heard a dog bark, and a horse neigh, as well as sounds very similar to the rattle of steers’ horns when being driven from one pasturage to another.
Ten minutes later and they were walking into the camp. They boys observed everything closely, for they never expected to again find themselves in the midst of a gang of reckless rustlers, and it was their policy to “make hay while the sun shone.”
Strange to say they had not been searched up to now for any valuables, though the man who was leader of the rustlers had looked to make sure they were not armed with any weapons besides their rifles and hunting knives, both of which had been taken away from them.
Harry wished now he had thought to ask Jack to lend him his little camera, for the spectacle of that camp was one they must often wish to remember in future days. Still, as those who dwelt in the heart of the mountains were mostly fugitives from justice, it was hardly likely they would permit any one to snap off a picture that must prove of value to the officers who were often looking for them far and wide.
The afternoon was pretty well done by now. Had their original plans been carried out the boys would have been entering camp by this time. Instead they found themselves in one of the most distressing situations in their career; prisoners among the lawless rustlers, who must know that much of their recent defeat was due to the coming of these Boy Scouts to the cattle ranch bordering the Colorado country.
