"Yes, that is bad," agreed d.i.c.k. "But it can"t be helped. I never did see anything like the sudden way those cattle disappeared, and how we got lost."
For that they were now completely lost, amid the low hills, was an accepted fact to the boys. They had ridden here and there, until, in mercy to their ponies, they pulled reins. Yet they had gotten no farther on their way, nor had they seen sign of the cattle. It was growing late, too, and they realized that soon they must find a camping place for the night, unless they located the homeward trail.
Of course to Bud, or any of the older cowboys of Diamond X ranch, the problem that puzzled Nort and d.i.c.k would have been easy to solve.
Knowing the country as they did, the cowboys could easily have sensed which way to ride, even though the bunch of cattle might have eluded them.
But the two easterners did not even know which way to head to get back to their friends. They were completely lost and turned about, and their situation was growing more desperate.
I say "desperate," yet that word is used only in a comparative sense.
They were in no immediate danger, for they were in the clean, open country, and not in a tangled forest or jungle. There were no wild beasts near, only peaceful cows and steers. They had coverings for the night, and greasewood shrubs, as well as a tree here and there amid the foothills, offered fuel for a fire. They had a small amount of "grub"
with them, and they had pa.s.sed several springs of water, so they would not thirst, and they had the means of making coffee, though no milk was at hand. So, all in all, their situation was not at all "desperate,"
though it was perhaps annoying.
"Let"s fire our guns!" exclaimed Nort suddenly. "We forgot all about them. Bud told us they were mainly used for signaling out here, and we might let him and the rest know where we are by firing a few shots."
"Sure! Go to it!" agreed d.i.c.k. "But don"t fire too many cartridges,"
he added.
"Why not?"
"Well, there"s no telling when we may want the sh.e.l.ls, and we haven"t any too many."
"That"s so," agreed Nort. "Well, we"ll each fire two, at intervals."
This they did, but such echoes were aroused amid the hills by the reverberations of the reports that the lads doubted whether Bud and the other cowboys could accurately determine whence the sound of the firing came.
"We"ve done our best," said Nort, after the fourth shot had gone echoing among the hills. "Now let"s ride on a little, and if we don"t get out, or find those cattle, we"ll pick a good place to camp for the night."
This struck d.i.c.k as being the best thing to do and they urged their tired ponies forward. d.i.c.k was casting his looks about, seeking for a suitable place to make the night camp, when he was attracted by a shout from Nort, who was off to one side.
"Did you find "em?" cried d.i.c.k, eagerly. "The cattle or our cowboys?"
"No, but look!" yelled Nort. "We"re coming to a city!"
He pointed toward the east and there, on the far side of a green valley, amid green hills, was the vision of a small city, on the banks of a good-sized river. As the boys watched they saw a steamer come up to a dock and stop, though the scene was too far away to give them more details.
"Now we"re all right!" yelled d.i.c.k.
But, even as he spoke the vision faded from the eyes of the startled boys. It melted from sight as do some moving pictures, when the "fade out" is used. It was as though a veil of mist came between the vision and the boys, or as if some giant hand had wiped it from a great slate with a damp sponge.
CHAPTER XVII
THE NIGHT CAMP
"Well, what do you know about that?" exclaimed Nort, as he turned to look at his brother, when the vision of the city on the river bank had disappeared.
"Were we dreaming, or did we really see something?" asked d.i.c.k, pa.s.sing his hand over his eyes in dazed fashion.
"We saw something all right," a.s.serted Nort, "and I"m wondering if I saw the same thing you did--a city--the steamer and----"
"I saw it, too," declared d.i.c.k, interrupting his brother"s recital.
"But where did it go? A fog must have rolled up between us and it.
But now we know which way to ride. I don"t know what town that was, but they can tell us how to get back to Diamond X ranch."
"It"s queer," murmured Nort, as d.i.c.k urged his horse in the direction of the vision they had just beheld.
"What"s queer?" asked d.i.c.k.
"Seeing that town," his brother went on. "Bud never said anything about the ranch being so near a place where they had a river steamer.
There isn"t a boat of that size on the river around here."
"No," a.s.sented d.i.c.k. "This must be farther down. Anyhow, let"s. .h.i.t the trail for there. We aren"t lost any more, I reckon."
"Doesn"t seem," murmured Nort. But, even as the two brothers urged their tired, broncos forward, another strange thing happened. In the very same place where they had seen the vision of the town and the steamer, only to witness it vanish, there appeared in sharp detail a large ranch, with its corrals, its bunk house and main buildings.
"There! Look!" cried d.i.c.k. "There"s Diamond X!"
Nort shaded his eyes with his hands, and peered long and earnestly.
"Diamond X!" he murmured. "That isn"t our ranch! Our bunk house isn"t so near the corral, and, besides----"
Then, even as he spoke, this vision vanished as had the other, being wiped out of sight; fading slowly as if some unseen operator in a movie booth had cut off his light.
The brothers turned and stared at one another. Suddenly the truth dawned upon them.
"A _mirage_!" exclaimed Nort.
"That"s what!" a.s.sented d.i.c.k. "Two mirages! We saw one after the other, a city and a ranch in the same place!"
And that is what the visions had been--mirages, those strange phenomena of the west--of desert places--natural occurrences in localities where the air is abnormally clear, and where conditions combine to transpose distant scenes.
Of course the explanation is simple enough. Of the mirage the dictionary says it is "an optical illusion arising from an unequal refraction in the lower strata of the atmosphere, causing images of remote objects to be seen double, distorted or inverted as if reflected in a mirror, or to appear as if suspended in the air."
The word comes from a Latin one, meaning "to look at," and that is about all you can do to a mirage--look at it. It is as unsubstantial as the air in which it is formed.
There are many varieties of mirages seen in the West, and if the boys had seen a double one, or had the vision of the city and ranch been inverted, they might have sooner guessed the secret of it. But the particular mirages they had viewed had, through some trick of air refraction, been imposed on their eyesight rightside up, and wonderfully clear.
I do not suppose all the stories that have been written of mirages are true, but it is certain that many strange tricks have been played on the eyesight of observers by these phenomena, and more than one luckless prospector, or cattleman, has followed these visions, only to be tantalized in the end by finding, just as Nort and d.i.c.k did, that they merely vanished, dissolving into nothing.
Telling of their experiences afterward, Nort and d.i.c.k declared that when they had visualized the steamer moving up to her dock, they had actually seen figures disembarking.
"That _couldn"t_ be!" declared Bud. "Your eyes must have been blinking and you _thought_ you saw figures. I"ve been fooled by mirages myself, but though you might make out something as large as a steamer moving, I never yet saw one of these visions clear enough so that you could make out people moving about. You can see a town, or a ranch, sometimes right side up, and sometimes upside down, but you can"t make out people. I won"t say that it is impossible, but I"ve never seen it, nor heard of anyone who has," the boy rancher concluded.
"Well, it was wonderful enough as it was," declared Nort, and even those who have seen many mirages will agree with this, I think.
"Well, that sure was queer!" exclaimed Nort, rubbing his eyes again.