The Boy Scouts On The Range

"Who saw him last?" asked Rob.

"I did," said Jeb Cotton. "He was riding off after a tall fake Indian."

"Any one see him since?"

No, nobody had.

At this moment, while things looked grave, there came a sudden yell, off in the distance. A few minutes later Tubby's rotund form appeared. To the boys' amazement, the fat boy led behind him a mounted figure, bound up like a valuable parcel, with fold on fold of rawhide.

"Why, Tubby, wherever have you been?" demanded Rob.

"On special duty," announced the fat boy importantly. "I have made a prisoner of war."

"What! Why, how?" gasped Merritt.

"Who is it?" shouted Merritt, edging round to get a look at the muffled prisoner.

Mr. Harkness turned his searchlight in the captive's face. In vain the fellow tried to bury his features in the folds of his blanket. His attempts at concealment were useless. A shout of amazement went up as Rob and Merritt recognized the face of Tubby's captive.

It was Jack Curtiss!

Arriving unexpectedly at the Jennings ranch that evening, he had been persuaded to take part in the raid. Knowing little about riding, the former bully of Hampton Academy had boastfully declared he would outride any of the raiders. He had been accommodated with a pony and had taken part in the onslaught which had had such an unexpected conclusion. Tubby, carried away by excitement, had chased the huddled figure, little knowing whom the blanket shrouded. Suddenly Jack Curtiss's pony stumbled, throwing the bully headlong. Tubby had immediately pressed his rifle to the fallen figure's head with the curt command:

"Shut up!"

As soon as his astonished eyes had recognized Jack Curtiss, he saw a fine chance to redeem himself as a hero in the eyes of the Boy Scouts. Tricing Jack up with his lariat, he had led him back in triumph to the rest.

"Hooray, Tubby, I didn't think you had it in you!" cried Merritt, clapping the fat boy on the back.

"Hum! I don't show all my good qualities at once," remarked Tubby, grandiloquently strutting about.

"I wonder what you'd have done if it had been a real Indian?" laughed Harry Harkness.

"Just the same – just the same," rejoined Tubby.

A roar of laughter greeted the stout youth's complacent remark, but it was suddenly checked as a horseman came dashing up to the party.

"Hullo, what's up now?" exclaimed Mr. Harkness amazedly, as the rider drew rein almost at his feet.

"It's an Indian!" exclaimed Merritt.

"Another fake," declared Tubby sagely.

But this time it was a real Indian, and he drew Mr. Harkness aside and spoke some rapid words. The rancher's face showed traces of great excitement, although his voice was calm enough as he turned to the interested group, after some moments of conversation with the red man.

"Ray and Sumner, you join Joyce back there and take these prisoners to the ranch, and see that they are kept under strong guard," he ordered.

"What! Aren't we going back?" inquired Rob.

"No, my boy. I have grave news. The Moquis have rebelled against Black Cloud's authority, and Mr. Mayberry is a prisoner in their camp."

"Is he in danger?"

"He is in the gravest peril. Only prompt action can save his life. Such is the message Black Cloud gave this Indian to bring to me."

A few moments later Rob, mounted on a pony previously ridden by old man Jennings, a tough, wiry little cayuse, was riding beside Mr. Harkness, listening eagerly to the details of his kind-hearted friend's predicament. Behind them spurred the Boy Scouts and the few cow-punchers remaining after a guard had been detailed. Minutes counted, as they well knew, and no rider in the party spared his pony as they pressed rapidly forward, under the Indian's guidance, for the valley of the snake dance.

CHAPTER XXIII.

WORSHIPPERS OF THE SNAKE

About a deep pit, filled to the brim with red-hot, glowing coals, swayed a long line of naked, copper-colored bodies. The glow of the flaming torches illuminated weirdly the surroundings. Steep, rocky walls, bare of timber or vegetation, and the flat, basin-like floor of the deep depression in the mountains formed the secret valley of the Moqui snake dancers.

In lines behind the braves, who were swaying their lithe bodies so rhythmically above the red-hot pit, were grouped scores of stolid-faced Indians. By not the twitch of a single muscle did they display the frenzy that was already at work within them, but their beady, dark eyes glittered as they watched the weird gyrations of the swaying line above the fire.

All at once a low chant arose from the line. Its regular rhythm and booming inflection marked it as being of religious character. Steadily it grew in volume, till half the Indians in that rock-bound basin in the hills were intoning it.

As the line of chief chanters swayed back and forth, from time to time the firelight gleamed on a row of earthen vessels, quaintly illuminated, which stood behind them.

Suddenly one of the dancers turned, and while the shrieks of his fellows grew more and more frenzied, he plunged his hand into the mouth of one of the vessels. He drew his arm forth again, embellished by a hideous ornament – a writhing, struggling diamond-back rattler!

The creature's flat head darted at the man's face, and its fangs seemed to bury themselves in his arm, but his bronze form danced more furiously than ever, and the singing grew louder and more frenzied. The Moqui had reached a pitch of exaltation in which the venom of the serpent was harmless to him.

As the other Indians witnessed the sight their expression of stoicism changed as if by magic. The excitement of the dance was upon them. Suddenly a blood-curdling yell echoed against the rock-bound walls.

A young brave, one of those who had been seated in the front row of the onlookers, sprang to his feet. He cast off his blanket with a shout, standing upright in the firelight, a nude figure of bronze. The play of his muscles showed plain as day in the glare of the glowing pit. Straight up to the earthen jars he gyrated, chanting the refrain of the weird ritual.

Uttering a wild screech, he plunged his arm up to the elbow into its wriggling, deadly contents, and drew forth a vicious-looking sidewinder, or desert rattlesnake – a distinct species from the big diamond-back – and even more deadly.

Without the slightest hesitation, he thrust the monster's spade-shaped head into his mouth, and with one clean bite severed it. He then spat it forth into the glowing pit, where it fell hissing.

This was the signal for yet wilder frenzies on the part of the Indians. One after another the young braves cast off their blankets and rushed forward to repeat the nauseous performance of the snake eater. The ground at the feet of the chanters of the ritual was littered with limp reptiles' bodies. An overpowering, musky stench arose on the air, the odor of scores of burnt envenomed heads.

In the midst of that maddened throng there was but one quiet, unmoved countenance, and that was that of a bearded man, who stood back some distance in the shadows. He eyed the ceremonies with a look that was half contempt and half pity. But he made no motion to interfere, nor did he, in fact, move at all. And for a very good reason. He was bound hand and foot to a post.

His face was white as ashes under its deep bronze, but not from fear, for not a tremor crossed his features. Perhaps a deep wound on the back of his head accounted for it. But Jeffries Mayberry – for our readers must have already recognized the Indian agent – never knew less fear than he experienced as he stood at that moment, captive among a dangerous tribe, rendered doubly formidable as they were by copious doses of cheap liquor and religious frenzy. The Indian agent knew well that the rattlers which the young braves were beheading were far less harmful than the human beings, of whom he was, perhaps, the only self-possessed one in that rocky bowl.

But if Jeffries Mayberry gazed on the ceremonies with contempt, mingled with pity, there was another in the valley who regarded them with almost similar feelings. That person was Black Cloud. The old chieftain had made as stiff a fight as he dared for Jeffries Mayberry's liberation, but had been hooted and jeered down. Diamond Snake was now in full control of the passions and adulation of the tribe, and Black Cloud, the only friend Jeffries Mayberry had within it, at that moment gazed powerlessly on the snake dance. One friendly turn, however, he had been able to do for his white friend, and that was to dispatch the messenger to the ranch of Mr. Harkness. But as Black Cloud, not daring to raise a voice of protest, gazed on the dance, his mind was busy with intense speculation. Even in the event of Mr. Harkness having been reached, it was doubtful if the rancher would arrive in time. The old Indian recognized the symptoms of an approaching climax in the ceremonies, and what that climax was to be he guessed only too well. No white man had ever seen the snake dance of the Moquis and lived to tell of it, if his presence were known. That Jeffries Mayberry was to share the fate of many another unfortunate victim in the tribe's past history, was what Black Cloud feared. That his fears were well grounded we shall presently see.

Suddenly the frenzy died down with the same rapidity with which it had arisen. Above the rim of the rocky basin the silvery edge of the new moon had shown. The height of the excitement was at hand.

Diamond Snake stepped forward from his place in the row of chanters and began to address the tribe in a high, not unmusical voice. As Jeffries Mayberry gazed at his almost faultless form, gleaming like polished bronze in the glare of the fiery pit, he realized what an influence this fine-looking, fiery young Indian must sway among his people. His talk was listened to with deep attention, and seemed to be impassioned and fervid to the last degree.

Although Diamond Snake spoke fast in his excitement, the Indian agent managed to pick out enough of the sense here and there to make out that, as he had suspected, he himself was the subject of the chief's address.

Had he been in any doubt of this, his uncertainty would soon have been dissipated, for all at once every eye in that assemblage was turned on him with a baleful, malignant glare. If Jeffries Mayberry had ever felt one ray of hope, it died out of even his brave heart in that instant.

"Well, I guess Indians are all they say they are, after all," he thought to himself. "Just to think that, after all I've done for those rascals, they've no more gratitude for me than that! Go on, stare away!"

Jeffries Mayberry fairly shouted these last words.

"I wish, though," he continued to himself, while the young chief's voice went on addressing his people, "I wish, though, that they'd turned Ranger loose. I kind of hate to think of him ever being an Indian's horse, for of all maltreaters of horse flesh, they are the worst."

He turned his head – the only portion of his body which was free to move – and gazed back into the shadows where he knew Ranger was tied. For hours after his capture the splendid horse had fretted and raged, but now he had grown quiet.

"Poor old fellow, they've broken his spirit!" thought Jeffries Mayberry. Which goes to show – in the light of what was to come – that a man can get "pretty close," as the saying is, to a horse and yet not know him.

Mayberry could not forbear winking back a little moisture that arose in his eyes as he saw the well-known form of his horse dimly outlined in the darkness behind him. Ranger's head was abjectly hanging down. His whole attitude spoke dejection. As Jeffries Mayberry had said, the horse indeed seemed to be spirit-broken.

All at once, while Mayberry's mind was busy with these thoughts, the young chief ceased his oratory, and the moment for action appeared at last to have arrived. With a concerted yell, the band of naked warriors who had chanted the solemn ritual of the snake dance rushed at the Indian agent. Even in that trying moment he did not flinch. He gazed at them unmoved, as they cast him loose from the post, and then instantly rebound his hands. His legs, however, they left free.

Strange to say, the dominant feeling in Jeffries Mayberry's mind at that moment was one of curiosity. He wondered what they were going to do with him. For one instant a shudder passed through his frame. The fiery pit! Could they mean to thrust him into that?

Such, however, was evidently not their intention, for they led him round to the farther side of the glowing coals, past the rows of seated Indians and squaws, who growled and spat at him as he passed.

"You ungrateful bunch of dogs!" shouted Mayberry, fairly stung into speech. "I hope after I'm gone you'll get what is coming to you!"

If only the soldiers would come, he thought; but realized that without him to guide them it would take the troopers hours, perhaps days, to find the secret valley. No, there was no hope from that quarter. It should be explained here that, although Mr. Mayberry knew about the Indian messenger, he had little faith in the ultimate arrival of Mr. Harkness and the Boy Scouts. They might come, but it would be too late. However, any one would judge Jeffries Mayberry's character very much awry who should conclude that there was any bitterness in his soul. He accepted his fate as a brave man should, without complaint.

"Now what are they going to do?" he thought, as the young braves, having led him past the hissing, spitting ranks of the squaws, arraigned him close to the edge of the pit, which now lay between him and the crowd of cruel faces beyond. His eyes pierced the darkness keenly, but the glare thrown up at his feet prevented him seeing whether or not Ranger still occupied his same position.

Jeffries Mayberry was not to be left long in doubt as to what his fate was to be. A shudder ran through even his strong soul as he saw what the inhuman ingenuity of the Moquis had contrived for his execution.

His legs, which had remained free, were rapidly bound, and he was forcibly thrown upon his face. As he measured his length, the chanting began once more, and the hand of Diamond Snake himself dived into the biggest of the earthen snake jars. He withdrew it, clasping the largest rattler that Jeffries Mayberry had ever seen, – an immense creature of the diamond-back species, fully eight feet long.

As Mayberry's eyes encountered the leaden glint of the deadly rattler's dull orbs, he felt that this was the beginning of the end.

CHAPTER XXIV.

BOY SCOUTS TO THE RESCUE

Amid wild yells from the assemblage on the farther side of the pit, the young brave who had attained temporary ascendency over the tribe cast the snake down on the ground before the recumbent form of the Indian agent. The reptile at first appeared dazed, and made no move, hostile or otherwise. Presently, however, as a deep hush fell over the Indians gazing on the scene, the creature began to sound his rattle.

It was a dull, "horny" sound, like the rattling of dried peas in a bladder. The veins on Mayberry's forehead swelled as he made a desperate effort to burst his bonds, but the green hide held like iron, and he realized that all resistance was useless. Breathing a prayer, he resigned himself for what was to follow. Suddenly the serpent seemed to become endowed with furious rage. It lashed its mottled tail, and then carefully gauging its distance from the captive, coiled itself for the death strike.

Not a sound was to be heard above the deep, expectant hush, as the red glow fell on the strange, cruel scene: the agonized man, helpless, and the flat, triangular head of the deadly reptile, drawn back as if to give greater force to its death blow.

The Indian agent, as he had abundantly shown, was no coward, nor was his a heart to be stirred by any ordinary ordeal. But the cruel suspense that now ensued broke down even his iron nerves. As he gazed like a fascinated bird into the leaden eyes of the menacing rattler, his courage faltered, and he uttered a despairing cry.

It was answered by a cruel jeer from the frenzied Indians. In the tense excitement none of them had, however, noticed the first moves in an act that was destined presently to change the whole complexion of the scene.

Old Black Cloud knew that the agent's heart was wrapped up in his horse. So far as any one knew, Mayberry had neither relative nor close friend in the world. In the Indian's eyes, then, the captive would surely wish his horse near him in the hour of his doom.

For one as skilled in silent movement as the old chief, it was an easy matter to slip from his place in the shadows at the rear of the fascinated horde, and with a couple of deft strokes of his knife set Ranger at liberty. Then he silently stole back, and was seated in his former place in a less space of time than it took Ranger to realize that he was free.

The captive's despairing cry reached the horse's ears, and he knew his master's voice.

While the mocking laugh of the tribe was still echoing from the rocks, four iron-shod hoofs struck the earth in a mighty leap, and Ranger alighted heavily in the midst of the amazed throng. With yells and cries of terror, the Indians, who did not know what had occurred, were bowled over right and left. One young brave lay groaning with a pair of broken ribs. Another's arm was snapped where Ranger's hoofs had struck.

Without pausing one instant, the animal, whose only anxiety was to reach Jeffries Mayberry's side, once more shook his head and, with a shrill whinny, sprang forward. This leap brought him over the heads of the red men, to the very brink of the fiery pit.

Overcoming his natural dread of fire – a far greater terror to horses than almost any other – Ranger gathered his clean-cut limbs for a mighty leap. In one clean jump he cleared the glowing coals. Diamond Snake and his attendant masters of ceremonies had not, in the brief space of time allotted to them for comprehension, made out what was occurring on the opposite side of the pit.

They had not the slightest warning, therefore, when, through the lurid glow, the form of Ranger, crimsoned by the reflection, came leaping like a thunderbolt.

Over went Diamond Snake, toppling backward to avoid the terrible hoofs. With a yell of superstitious terror, the other "priests" gave way. Right and left they ran, shouting that the Great Spirit had sent an infernal messenger among them.

But above all the shrieks, and confusion, and angry shouts rang out one terrible cry. It issued from the lips of Diamond Snake. The hind hoofs of the alighting horse had struck him, and, as has been said, he toppled backward.

Too late he saw behind him the glowing pit of fiery coals. Nerving every muscle in his sinewy frame, the young Moqui warrior strove to avert his doom, but try as he would he could not check his impetus.

He reached the edge of the pit, and with one dreadful cry pitched over backward. For a brief space the red glow grew blackened where he had fallen, but an instant later the intense heat had consumed him, and nothing remained to mark the end of the ambitious young Moqui.

At the moment that Ranger had alighted, the rattlesnake, terrified by the near proximity of the trampling hoofs, released its body as if a steel spring had been set free, and gave its death strike. But as the poison-laden fangs drove toward him, Jeffries Mayberry jerked his head to one side. The rattler had missed. Before it could gather itself for a second attack, it lay, a trampled mass, under Ranger's hoofs. The horse whinnied with pleasure as it gazed at its master. Then it stamped with impatience as it received no response. For the first and last time in his life, Jeffries Mayberry had fainted.

With a howl of rage, like the angry voice of a storm, the Moquis, gathering up their weapons, rushed forward to avenge themselves for the tragic death of Diamond Snake. But they had not reached the edge of the fiery pit before a loud cry halted them. It was Black Cloud. The old Indian stood upright upon a bowlder, and pointed to the entrance of the rocky bowl.

"Now will my brothers listen to the voice of reason?" he shouted above the tumult.

A chorus of jeers and shouts greeted him. The mind of the tribe was a single one in that moment. The death of Jeffries Mayberry, in the same pit as that into which his steed had cast the popular young Diamond Snake, was their raging desire.

"Then look!" rang out the voice of Black Cloud, as he pointed to the rocky path at the westerly side of the bowl.

As the eyes of the redskins followed the patriarch's pointing finger, a perfect howl went up once more. The moonlight illumined the figure of a solitary horseman.

A score of rifles were instantly leveled at him, but as the weapons came to the marksmen's shoulders, the lone rider vanished as suddenly as he had appeared.

"Fools!" shouted Black Cloud, as the Moquis, with cries of rage, pressed on to Jeffries Mayberry's side, "that horseman is the forerunner of the white man's vengeance!"

As he spoke, a rifle cracked, and the noble old chief vanished from the rock. Apparently a bullet from the rifle of one of his own followers had felled him. But, as a matter of fact, Black Cloud, with native cunning, had perceived that in the mood his rebellious followers then were, his safest plan was to keep out of sight. As the bullet hummed past his ear, therefore, he toppled from the rock as if dead. From behind the big bowlder he watched the events that were to follow.

A young brave, anxious to earn the plaudits of his tribesmen by being the instrument of vengeance on Mayberry, rushed forward, and throwing himself on the unconscious man, seized him by the waist and was about to swing him into the flaming pit, when, with a shrill whinny of rage, Ranger's forefeet struck him down. He lay breathing heavily, an ugly wound gaping in his head. As if maddened by this, the great horse plunged, striking and kicking, into the crowd of hated Indians, bowling over and injuring several. But the temporary panic thus created lasted but a minute.

A volley was fired at the noble figure of the raging horse, and he fell, still fighting, by his master's side.

At the same instant a young redskin sprang forward with an uplifted "agency" axe. He raised it above his head, and was about to bury it in the horse's skull, when something struck the axe and sent it whizzing out of his hand. Simultaneously a sharp crack sounded from the upper end of the rock bowl.

Shouts of alarm sounded on all sides. The Moquis realized they were attacked, and that it was a bullet that had sent the axe spinning out of the murderous young brave's hand.

"Hooray!"

The cry rang out loudly above the Indian whoops and cries, as Rob Blake swept down the rocky trail, followed by the Boy Scouts, cheering as if their throats would split.

Right and left the Moquis went down under their ponies' hoofs, too terrified by the very suddenness of the attack to offer any resistance. A few half-hearted shots were fired, and one or two sombreros were drilled, but, aside from that, no one was injured. The arrival of Mr. Harkness and his cow-punchers ended what little resistance there had been. It was soon over, and the Moquis herded in a sullen, defiant band at the lower end of the bowl.

Rob and his friends hastened forward to Jeffries Mayberry's side, and cut his bonds; and the first thing that the rescued man gazed upon when he recovered consciousness was a circle of friendly faces.

"Well, Mayberry," burst out Mr. Harkness, "I told you so. I hate to say it, but I told you so. If it hadn't been for the Boy Scouts here, we'd never have saved you."

"No, I guess not, Harkness," breathed the agent, "and this is not the place to tell you all how I feel. But, but – "

His voice faltered as he gazed at Ranger, who still lay on the ground. Blinky and some of the cow-punchers had been examining his injuries.

"Is Ranger seriously hurt?"

The agent's throat sounded dry. He could hardly bring himself to ask the question.

"No, he'll be around in a while," announced Blinky; "only a tendon on the off front leg is sprained. He'll carry a few scars, though."

And so it proved, for, though Ranger was soon as well as ever, he carried with him to his last days the marks of that night. But his owner, as you may imagine, treasured every one of them, for each blemish spoke to him of his horse's affection and nobility.