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The Boy Scouts On The Range
CHAPTER I.
ROB SURPRISES A COW-PUNCHER
Northward from Truxton, Arizona, the desert stretches a red-hot, sandy arm, the elbow of which crooks about several arid ranges of baked hills clothed with a scanty growth of chaparral. Across this sun-bitten solitude of sand and sage brush extend two parallel steel lines – the branch of the Southern Pacific which at Truxton takes a bold plunge into the white solitudes of the dry country.
Scattered few and far between on the monotonous level are desert towns, overtopped by lofty water tanks, perched on steel towers, in the place of trees, and sun-baked like everything else in the "great sandy." These isolated communities, the railroad serves. Twice a day, with the deliberate pace of the Gila Monster, a dusty train of three cars, drawn by a locomotive of obsolete pattern, – which has been not inaptly compared to a tailor's goose with a fire in it – makes its slow way.
Rumbling through a gloomy, rock-walled cut traversing the barren range of the Sierra Tortilla, the railroad emerges – after much bumping through scorched foothills and rattling over straddle-legged trestles above dry arroyos – at Mesaville. Mesaville stands on the south bank of the San Pedro, a scanty branch of the Gila River. To the south of this little desert community, across the quivering stretches of glaring sand and mesquite, there hangs always a blue cloud – the Santa Catapina Range.
The blazing noonday sun lay smitingly over Mesaville and the inhabitants of that town, when on a September day the dust-powdered train before referred to drew up groaningly at the depot, and from one of its forward cars there emerged three boys of a type strange to the primitive settlement.
The eldest of the three, a boy of about seventeen, whom his two friends addressed as Rob, was Rob Blake, whom readers of the Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol – the first volume of this series – have met before. His companions were Corporal Merritt Crawford of the same patrol, and the rotund Tubby Hopkins, the son of widow Hopkins of Hampton, Long Island, from which village all three, in fact, came.
"Well, here we are at Mesaville."
Rob Blake gazed across the hot tracks at the row of raw buildings opposite as he spoke, and the town gazed back in frank curiosity at him. Opposite the depot was a small hotel, on the porch of which several figures had been seated with their chairs tilted back, and their feet on the rail, as the train rolled in.
As it pulled out again, leaving the boys and an imposing pile of baggage exposed to the view of the Mesavillians, six pairs of feet were removed from the porch-rails as if by machinery, and their several owners bent forward in a frank stare at the newcomers.
"Must think a circus has come to town," commented Tubby.
"Well, they know where to look for the elephant," teased Merritt mischievously.
"And for the laughing hyena, too, I guess," parried the fat youth, as the corporal went off into a paroxysm of suddenly checked laughter.
The boys had bought sombreros at Truxton, and in their baggage was clothing of the kind which Harry Harkness – at whose invitation they had come to this part of the country – had advised them to buy. But as they still wore their light summer suits of Eastern cut and make, their generally "different" look from the members of the Mesaville Hotel Loungers' Association was quite sufficient to excite the attention of the latter.
Readers of the Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol will recall that in that book was related the formation of the patrol at Hampton Harbor, L. I., and how it had been effected. How the boys of the patrol had many opportunities to show that they were true scouts was also told. Notably was this so in the incident of the stolen uniforms, in which the boys' enemies, Jack Curtiss, Bill Bender and Hank Handcraft, a disreputable old town character, were implicated.
It will also be remembered that while encamped on an island near their home village, the Boy Scouts put off in a motor dory to the rescue of a stranded cattle ship on which Mr. Harkness, a cattle rancher, and his son Harry, a lad of the boys' own age, were returning from London, whither they had just taken a big consignment of stock. In return for their services, including the summoning of aid by wireless, Mr. Harkness invited the boys to spend some time on his cattle range. What adventurous boys would not have leaped at the invitation? But for a time it appeared as if it would be impossible for Rob and his chums to accept it, owing to the fact that the Hampton Academy, which they all attended, resumed its school term early in the fall.
Just at this time, however, something happened which was very welcome to all three of the Scouts. Serious defects had been discovered in the foundation of the Academy, and it had been decided that it would be unsafe for the scholars to reassemble till these had been remedied. It was estimated that the work would take two months or more. Thus it had come about that the invitation of Mr. Harkness was accepted. To the boys' regret, however, only the members of the Patrol who stood that day on the platform at Mesaville had been able to obtain the consent of their parents to take the long, and to Eastern eyes, hazardous, trip.
Arrangements had been made by letter for Harry Harkness, the rancher's son, to meet the boys at Mesaville, but the train had rolled in and rolled out again without his putting in an appearance.
"Maybe Harry fell in that river and was drowned," suggested Tubby, pointing ahead down the tracks to the trestle crossing the San Pedro River. At this time of the year the so-called river was a mere trickle of mud-colored water, threading its way between high, sandy banks. The boys burst into a laugh at the idea of any one's drowning in it.
"He'll be here before long," said Rob confidently. "It's a drive of more than fifty miles to the ranch, remember, and we can't start out till to-morrow morning, anyhow."
Just then a white-aproned Chinaman appeared on the porch of the hotel and vigorously rang a bell. At the signal the lounging cow-punchers and plainsmen rose languidly from their chairs and bolted into the dining-room. From the few stores also appeared the merchants of Mesaville, most of whom lived at the hotel.
"Sounds like dinner," remarked Tubby hopefully, sniffing the air on which an odor of food was wafted across the tracks. "Smells like it, too."
"Trust Tubby to detect grub," laughed Rob.
"He's a culinary Sherlock Holmes," declared Merritt, but his remark was made to Rob alone, for Tubby was beyond the reach of his sarcasm. He had started at once to cross the tracks and find the dining-room.
"I guess it wouldn't be a bad idea to have something to eat while we're waiting," said Rob. "Let's go over."
Tubby was already installed in a seat at the long table when his chums entered. He had in front of him a plate of soup, on the top of which floated a sort of upper crust of grease. From time to time an investigating fly ventured too near the edge and was miserably drowned. It was Tubby's initiation into desert hotel life, and he didn't look as if he was enjoying it.
On both sides of the table, however, the cow-punchers, teamsters, and Mesaville commercial lights, were shoveling away their food without the flicker of an eyelash. Opposite to Tubby were seated two young fellows in cowboy garb, who seemed to extract much noisy amusement from watching the stout youth eat. They didn't seem to care if he overheard their somewhat personal remarks.
"Ah, there's a lad who'll be a help to his folks when he grows up," grinned one of the stout boy's tormentors, as Rob and Merritt took their seats.
"Which will be before you do," placidly murmured Tubby, continuing to eat his soup.
A shout of laughter went up at this, and it wasn't at Tubby's expense, either.
The two youths who had been so anxious to display their wit reddened, and one of them angrily said something about "the fresh tenderfoot."
"Here's two more of 'em," tittered the other, as Merritt and Rob came in. Rob wore on his breast, but pinned on his waistcoat and out of sight, the Red Honor for lifesaving, which had been presented to him for heroism at the time of the waterlogging of the hydroplane, as narrated in the Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol. Merritt also wore the decoration in the same inconspicuous place.
As the leader of the Eagle Patrol sat down, however, his coat caught against Tubby's shoulder