John Goldfrap - The Boy Scouts On The Range

"Going to dig potatoes?" asked Tubby casually, as he watched the lazy Mexican saunter off.

"No, water," responded Harry. His serious tone precluded any possibility that he was joking. But the idea of water in that sterile land seemed so ridiculous to the boys that they burst into a laugh.

"I mean it," declared Harry. "Here, you fellows, take those buckets from under the wagon. We carry them to water the mules. Pack them over to that dip and in half an hour you'll be back with them full."

"Huh! guess I could carry all the water that will come out of that place in one hand," commented the fat boy.

"Don't be rash," laughed Harry; "before long you'll take digging for water as a matter of course."

"Wish you could dig for ice-cream sodas," muttered the fat boy absently, picking up a bucket and starting off after Jose. Rob and Merritt followed, while Harry busied himself unhitching the mules for their noonday rest. This done, he lighted a fire of sage-brush roots, and awaited the return of the boys.

The first thing the boys saw Jose do when he got to the bottom of the dip was to lie flat on his stomach and place an ear to the ground.

"He's going to sleep again," suggested Merritt.

"Looks like it," agreed Rob.

But this time the Mexican did not drop off into a peaceful slumber. Instead, he presently straightened up, and shouldering his shovel, began tramping off once more. The boys followed him over several dips and rises till at last he descended into another depression in which grew some scanty herbage. Here he repeated the other performance and arose with a grunt of satisfaction. Suddenly he began digging furiously.

"Wow! he's making the dirt fly," exclaimed Tubby, as the industrious Mexican dug as frantically as though his life depended on it. So fast did the work of excavation proceed that soon quite a large hole had been made in the soft ground.

"Pity they haven't got him down at Panama," commented Merritt dryly.

Jose had paid no attention to the boys hitherto, but now he suddenly shouted, pointing downward into the hole: "Mira qui!"

"What's that about a key?" asked Tubby.

"Try to conceal your natural ignorance," rejoined Merritt, with withering scorn. "He said, 'Mira qui.' That means 'Look here.'"

"Oh, and 'latcha-key' means open the door, I suppose," retorted the stout youth. "You're a fine Spanish scholar, you are."

"I've a good mind to throw you into that hole," threatened Merritt.

"Try it," shouted the stout youth, hopping about aggravatingly.

"I will."

Merritt made a rush at the irritating Tubby, who leaped provokingly away. But suddenly he gave utterance to a yell of dismay, as in his efforts to retreat he stumbled into the hole which Jose had dug. By this time, to Rob's astonishment, for he had been watching Jose's methods with interest, quite a lot of muddy water had appeared, and into this accumulation of moisture the stout youth fell with a resounding splash.

Even the solemn Jose smiled as Tubby sputtered and splashed about in the pool.

"Come out of that water," commanded Merritt.

"Call this water?" demanded Tubby, sputtering some of it out of his mouth. "Ugh! it tastes more like soap suds to me."

"Him alkali," grinned Jose, as Tubby scrambled out and stood, rather crestfallen, on the verge of the magic pool; "mucho malo."

"What's 'mucho malo'?" demanded Tubby of Merritt, the self-appointed interpreter.

"It means you're a nuisance," retorted Merritt, which reply almost brought on a renewal of hostilities. Rob checked them, however, by reminding the stout youth that the water was for drinking and not for bathing purposes. The boys were anxious to dip their buckets in and return to the wagon, but Jose told them they must wait till the water cleared.

"Pretty soon him like glass," he said.

Sure enough, after a long interval of waiting, in which there was nothing to do but look at the sand and the burning blue sky above it, the previously muddy seepage water began to take on a green hue. With a yell, the boys rushed forward to dip it up.

But as they bent over the brink of the water hole a sudden shout from Jose made them look up. They echoed the Mexican's yell as they did so, for outlined against the sky was a startling figure.

It was that of an Indian, his sinewy limbs draped in a blanket of gorgeous hue, and astride of a thin, active-looking calico pony. For an instant the piercing eyes of the red man and the white boys met, and then, with a strange cry, he wheeled his pony and vanished over the rim of the depression.

"Was that an Indian?" gasped Tubby, for the figure of the red man had appeared and vanished so swiftly that it seemed almost as if it might have been a delusion.

"Moqui, very bad Indian," grunted the Mexican, who seemed nervous and fearful all of a sudden.

"Oh, I thought maybe it was a jack-in-the-box," said Tubby, with a cheerful grin, which froze on his face, however, as suddenly as it had come.

The rim of the water hole was surrounded by twenty or more wild figures, the companions of the solitary horseman. They had appeared as if by magic.

The interval of silence which succeeded to the discovery that they were surrounded by Moquis was the most trying any of the party had ever known. Resistance was useless, for each of the Indians carried a rifle of modern make, and even had the boys been armed, they could not have defended themselves.

"What do you want?" demanded Rob at length, of an Indian who, judging by his ornate feather headdress, seemed to be the chief of the party.

"White boys go to mountains?" demanded the chief.

"Yes. We are going to the Harkness ranch," rejoined Rob, a trifle more boldly, as there did not seem to be any active antagonism in the chief's tone.

"White boys got money?"

"It's a hold up!" gasped Tubby.

"Say, hold your tongue for once, can't you?" snapped Merritt angrily.

"Yes, we have some money. Why?" inquired Rob.

"We want um."

It was a direct demand, and as the boy hesitated, a grim look spread over the chief's face. Rob, like the others, carried most of his money in a belt about his waist, but each lad had a few bills in his wallet and some small change in his pockets.

"Say, what is this – Tag Day?" demanded Tubby, as the chief, having solemnly taken all Rob's small change, drew up in front of the stout youth and extended his dirty palm.

"All right," said the fat boy, hastily digging down into his pocket, as the red man stared steadily at him. "Here's all I've got. Take it, Chief What-you-may-call-um, and I hope whatever you get with it chokes you."

Fortunately for Tubby, the chief did not understand this, or it might have fared badly with the irrepressible youth. Merritt's turn came next, and then Jose, with many lamentations, surrendered a few small silver coins.

"All right. You go now," said the chief, as with a shrill, wild yell he dug his naked heels into his pony's sides, and the little beast plunged up the steep bank. Echoing his shrill cries, the other Indians joined him, and the body of marauders swept off across the foothills at a rapid pace.

"So that's the noble red man, is it?" demanded Tubby. "Hum! back home we'd call them noble panhandlers."

"What did they want the money for?" asked Rob of the Mexican, who was still wringing his hands over the loss of his pocket money.

"Moqui's go snake dance. Moocho red liquor," explained the guide from across the border.

"Oh, that's it, is it?" said Rob. As he spoke, his eyes fell suddenly on a small piece of paper the Indian chief had dropped when he rode up the steep side of the water hole. He picked it up and opened its folds carefully. It appeared to be a scrap torn from a notebook, and the boy stared as his eyes fell on the name "Clark Jennings, His Book."