II.
NEWS OF THE MOQUIS
"Wow!" yelled the onlookers, as Clark's body struck the floor with a resounding thwack.
Jess was in an agony of excitement over the sudden downfall of his friend. He was just about to hurl himself upon Rob when a sudden detaining arm fell on his with a heavy pressure.
"Hold on there. We want fair play."
It was Merritt Crawford who spoke, and Jess sullenly dropped his belligerent look. Somehow, the happenings of the last few seconds had altered the aspect of the tenderfeet materially in the eyes of the two young cow-punchers.
"I'll fix you," growled Clark furiously, scrambling to his feet.
"Why did you let him get up?" asked Tubby, his round cheeks glowing with excitement.
"Because I want to give him plenty of rope," said Rob, a grim look creeping over his usually pleasant face.
A sudden furious onrush on the part of Clark prohibited further conversation.
"Go in and eat him up, Clark!" shouted a lanky, long-legged cow-puncher, one of several who had been attracted by the rumpus.
"Looks as if your friend had developed a sudden attack of indigestion," grinned Tubby delightedly, as Rob's fist collided with the advancing Clark's jaw, much to the latter's astonishment.
"Never seed nothing like it," commented the landlord, somewhat less melancholy now. "Clark's the champeen round here."
"He may be when he's got a gun to back him up, but not when he has to fall back on his fists," retorted Merritt.
"Look out!" he yelled suddenly, as the young cow-puncher, finding that fair methods seemed to have failed, attempted a foul blow below Rob's belt.
But there was no need of the warning. Rob had seen the blow coming halfway, swiftly delivered as it was. The cowardly attempt at foul tactics thoroughly enraged him.
"I thought Westerners fought fair," he gritted out, gripping the astonished cow-puncher by the wrist of the offending hand. Before Clark could gasp his astonishment, his other wrist was captive.
Then a strange thing happened. Before any one had time to realize just how it occurred, Clark's body was describing a sweeping arc in the air. His heels rushed through the atmosphere fully five feet from the floor. Like the lash of a whip, his powerless body was straightened out as he reached the limit of the aerial curve he had described. At the same instant a dismayed yell broke from his pallid lips as Rob let go.
Over the veranda rail, and out into the dusty road the young cow-puncher followed his revolver. He landed in a heap in the white dust, while Rob yelled triumphantly:
"Now pick up your gun and profit by the lesson in manners I've given you."
So saying, the boy calmly seated himself once more in the disputed chair, only a slight, quick movement of his chest betraying the great physical effort he had been through. After all, surprising as it had seemed, there was nothing very amazing about Rob's achievement. At the Hampton Academy athletics had always been a boast. The trick Rob had just put into execution he had learned from his physical instructor, who in his turn had picked it up from a Samurai wrestler of Japan. But to the cowboys, and other loungers about the Mesaville Hotel, the feat had been little short of marvelous.
They eagerly thronged about the boy as he took his seat once more, and this time he remained in undisputed possession of it.
"Whip-sawed, that's what Clark was," exclaimed one of the group.
Another, the same tall, lanky fellow who had just been urging the young cow-puncher on to what he thought would be an easy victory, approached Rob.
"Say, stranger," he asked eagerly, "will you teach me that thar contraption?"
"Couldn't do it," rejoined Rob soberly, although a smile played about the corners of his lips.
"Why not?"
"Because, then, you'd know as much as I do," responded Rob. The assemblage burst into a loud roar of laughter, in which you may be sure, however, there were two voices which did not join. Those two were Clark Jennings' and Jess Randell's. The former had just picked himself up and stuffed his gun in his pistol pocket. A malevolent scowl marked his face as he did so. Nor did Jess smooth over matters by remarking audibly:
"Say, Clark, what was the matter with you?"
"Chilled feet, I guess," chortled Tubby, who had overheard the remark.
"Get away from me, can't you?" snarled Clark irritably, facing round on his well-meaning crony, "why didn't you help me out?"
"Help you out – how?"
"Why, trip that tenderfoot up when I rushed him."
"Oh, shucks, I thought you fought fair," said Jess, a little disgusted in spite of himself.
"So I do," snorted Clark, "when I'm winning."
"Well, come on round and see to the ponies. We'll think up some way to get even with these grain-fed mavericks before very long," comforted Jess.
"You bet, and in a way they won't forget, either," Clark Jennings promised himself, as he followed his companion to the corral.
Not long after this, the boys perceived, far out on the sultry plain, a sudden swirl of dust.
"Something coming," shouted Tubby, who, strange to say, had been the first to notice the approaching column of dust.
"Team," briefly grunted the landlord, "did I hear you fellers say you was waiting for some one from the Harkness range?"
"Yes, you did," said Rob.
"Waal, I guess that's them now. Must have a bear-cat of a team in to kick up all that smother."
Closer and closer grew the dust cloud, and presently, from its yellow swirls, emerged the heads of the leaders of an eight-mule team. Behind them lumbered a big, broad-tired wagon, from the bed of which a high seat was reared like a watch tower. By the driver's side was a long iron foot brake. As the team approached the bank of the sandy little dried-up river, where the road took a dip, the driver placed his foot on the brake and a loud screeching and groaning resulted, as the big wagon, with the hind wheels locked, slid down the far bank. As the front wheels thundered across the rough bridge above the thin thread of luke-warm water, the heads of the first mules emerged over the top of the bank nearest the hotel.
"Mountain style," commented the long, lanky cow-puncher admiringly, as the driver, a tall, sun-burned lad of about Rob's age, whirled a long whip three or four times round his head and concluded the flourish with a loud "crack" as sharp and penetrating as a pistol shot.
An instant later the heavy wagon and its eight, dust-choked, sweating mules swept up in front of the hotel porch. The driver, flinging the single line with which he drove to his companion, clambered from his lofty perch and was immediately surrounded by the three tenderfeet.
"Well, you certainly come into town with a flourish of trumpets," laughed Rob, after the first salutations between the Eastern boys and Harry Harkness, the rancher's son, had been exchanged.
"Sorry to have kept you waiting so long," responded the other, who in order to speak had pulled down a big red handkerchief which had bundled up the lower part of his face and kept it dust-proof while he drove; "but the fact is, we had some trouble on the way. A bunch of Moquis are out, and – "
"Indians!" gasped Tubby, with round eyes.
"Yes, regular Indians," laughed Harry; "the Moquis' reservation is off a hundred miles or more to the northwest, near Fort Miles, but – "
"They're off the reservation," cut in Tubby, proud of his knowledge.
"Out fer a snake dance, I reckon," put in the long, lanky cow-puncher, who had been an interested listener.
"Why, hello, Lone Star," exclaimed Harry. "I didn't know you were in town. Yes," he went on, "there's a secret valley in the Santa Catapinas which has been used by them for centuries for their festivals, and although they are supposed to be kept within the limits of the reservation, every once in a