eh?"
"Yes, sent him head first over the bank. Wish he'd broken his neck. The kid is one of that bunch that was responsible for my leaving Hampton."
"Is that so? I don't wonder you are sore at him. Why didn't you hit him a good crack on the head while you were about it?"
"Oh, I figured that a cold bath would do as a starter. Wait till that bunch gets up to the mountains. Clark and Jess and my friends, Bender and Handcraft, will attend to them."
Tubby's brain was in a whirl. He had had no difficulty in recalling one of the voices, – that of the one who had spoken of sending Rob over the bank of the San Pedro. Who the other was he couldn't imagine, however, except that he was evidently a crony of the first speaker. Impulsively the stout youth shook Rob's shoulder, and as the other opened his eyes, enjoined him to silence.
"Say, Rob, who do you think is in the next room?" he gasped.
"I don't know, I'm sure. The emperor of China?" asked Rob in a sleepy voice.
"Hush! don't talk so loud. It's Jack Curtiss!"
"What!"
"It is. I'm sure of it. He was boasting about having shoved you over the bank of the river."
"Whatever can he be doing out here?"
"Living on the allowance his father sends him, I suppose. I heard before we left Hampton that he was some place in the West. I guess his father would soon stop his allowance if he knew he was up to his old tricks. Mr. Curtiss thinks that Jack is studying farming."
"Raising a crop of mischief, I guess," breathed Rob, in the same cautious undertone that the two boys had used throughout their conversation. "I wonder if Bill Bender and Hank Handcraft are with him?"
"That reminds me. I heard him mention them. They are on some ranch up in the mountains – where we are going, I gathered."
"That means trouble ahead," mused Rob.
"Are you going to have Jack arrested?"
"No, how can I prove that it was he who shoved me in? Just overhearing a conversation is no proof. I know now, though, why that laugh I heard sounded so familiar."
Both boys listened for some time, but they heard no further talk from Jack Curtiss and his companion regarding themselves. Their talk seemed to be about money matters, and as well as they could gather, Jack was in debt to some gamblers for a large sum which he despaired of raising.
"I've only got a month to get it in," they heard him say.
"Well, we'll hit upon a plan, never fear," rejoined his companion.
The next morning Harry Harkness was told of the happenings of the night. He, of course, already knew of the bold attempt of the former bully of Hampton Academy to kidnap one of the Boy Scouts, as related in the first volume of this series, and was inclined to warn the boys to be careful of such a dangerous character. Viewed in the cheerful light of the early day, however, the boys did not regard the matter so seriously. Indeed, they forgot all about Jack and his threats in the bustle of preparation for their long trip across the waste lands.
Breakfast was soon disposed of, and then the boys in a body made for the corral. Jose had been told two hours earlier to catch up and hitch the mules, but the long-eared animals were still browsing at the hay pile, and not a vestige of Jose was to be seen when the boys emerged.
"There he is in the hay," shouted Rob suddenly, pointing to two long, thin legs sticking out of the fodder heap.
"Asleep again, the rascal," exclaimed Harry. "Come on, Rob; you lay hold of one leg, and I'll take the other."
Both boys seized hold of a designated limb, and soon the sleepy Jose, expostulating loudly, was hauled out into the sunlight.
"Why aren't those mules hitched?" demanded Harry.
"Me go sleep," grinned the Mexican teamster apologetically, showing a row of white teeth.
"We don't need telling that. You are always asleep, except when you're eating. Get busy now and hitch up."
Urged thus, Jose soon had his rawhide rope circling, and in ten minutes had caught up the team with far more agility and skill than would have been suspected in such an easy-going individual.
The mules were soon attached to the heavy wagon and the single line which guided them threaded. This manner of driving was new to the boys, but they were soon to find that most teamsters in the far West use only a single rein attached to the lead mules on the right side. The others follow the leader. If the driver desires to turn his team to the left, instead of pulling the single line, he shouts, "Haugh!" and over swings the team.
The boys' baggage had lain at the depot all night, and accordingly the first stop was made there. It was soon loaded on, and then, with a loud cry of, "Ge-ee, Fox! Gee-ee-e, Maud!" from Jose, the lead mules swung to the right. Over the bridge, beneath which Rob had met his misadventure of the night before, thundered the heavy vehicle. Swinging in a broad circle, they then headed toward the south, where the Santa Catapinas, blue and vague, were piled like clouds on the horizon.
Early as was the hour at which the start was made, however, two persons in Mesaville besides the hotel employees were up to see it. These were Jack Curtiss and the friend who had shared his room the night before. They peered out of the window at the four boys with eager glances.
"Look them over well, Emilio," Jack urged his companion, who in the daylight was seen to have a swarthy skin and the cigarette-stained fingers of a Mexican town lounger. Emilio Aguarrdo was a half-breed gambler, and a thoroughly vicious type of man. In him were combined the vices and evil passions of two races. His thin lips curled back from his yellow teeth as he watched the boys, who, with shouts and laughter, were loading up their belongings, while Jose slept on his lofty seat.
"I won't forget them, Jack," he promised, as the wagon started off, the long whip cracking like a gatling gun.
All that morning the wagon lumbered on across the hot plains, an occasional jack-rabbit or coyote being the only sign of life to be seen. As the sun grew higher, the boys saw in the far distance the strange sight of the town of Mesaville, hotel and all, hanging upside down above the horizon. It was a mirage, as clear and puzzling as these strange phenomena of the desert always are.
As the hours wore on, the mountains, from mere wavy outlines of blue, began to take on definite form. They now showed formidable, seamed and rugged. As well as the boys could perceive at that distance, the hills were covered with dark trees to their summits and intersected by dense masses of shadow, marking cañons and abysses. A more forbidding-looking range could hardly be imagined, yet in the foothills to the southeast there grew great savannas of succulent bunch grass on which several ranges of cattle roamed.
The noon camp was made in the foothills near a small depression in which grew some scanty grass of a dried-up, melancholy hue. The wagon road was at some little distance from this, and as soon as a halt was made, Jose, at Harry's orders, took a shovel from the wagon and started for the dip in the foothills.
"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