For a long time he lay silent on the narrow ledge, so absorbed in the difficulties of the situation that he forgot everything. Even the recollection that there was a strong likelihood of the Indians pursuing them down the pa.s.sage had entirely gone out of his mind--displaced by Tubby"s accident. Suddenly the boy started up with a bound, which almost projected him over the ledge after Tubby.
A hand had been placed on his shoulder.
Before Rob could utter a sound another hand was placed over his mouth and he felt himself lifted from his feet. Peering down into his face, the startled boy could make out, in the faint starlight, half a dozen cruel countenances.
How bitterly he blamed himself for being thus caught off his guard! The simplest precaution would have kept him safe, but he had allowed the soft-moccasined red men to slip up on him without placing the slightest difficulty in their path. If ever a boy felt foolish and angry, it was Rob, as his silent captors slid noiselessly as cats into the black mouth of the tunnel of the cave-dwellers.
"I"m a fine scout to be caught napping like that," was his thought.
But as the redskins bore him into the narrow portal, they were compelled to release one of his hands. Rob took advantage of this to break a shrub, in a way which he knew would indicate as plain as print to any Boy Scout who saw it which way he had been carried off.
The next instant they were in the black tunnel. The Indians ran swiftly but noiselessly, bearing in their sinewy arms the powerless boy.
Frightened Rob was not. His brain was too busy thinking up some plan of escape for that. His uppermost emotion was impatient anger at his folly.
Even a loose rock, placed at the mouth of the pa.s.sageway, would have been tripped over by the Indians, and thus have given him warning of their coming. Bitterly he blamed himself for his oversight. More bitter still were his thoughts, as his mind reverted to poor Tubby, hanging alone in s.p.a.ce, without any means of knowing what had become of Rob, for the shelf, or ledge, on which the sudden drama of his taking off had been enacted, overhung the cliff face as an eyebrow does an eye.
On and on traveled the Moquis, almost noiselessly pitter-pattering along the dusty floor of the pa.s.sage. They skillfully avoided treading on the carca.s.s of the skinned mountain lion, and it was not long before they emerged in the bowl-like valley in which Rob had seen the solitary marksman who had made a sieve of his hat.
At the rocky portal the Moquis paused and grunted gutturally, and then started forward on a steady jog-trot once more.
"Well, this is a luxurious way of riding," thought Rob, as he reposed in the sort of armchair the arms of the Indians formed, "if the circ.u.mstances were different, I wouldn"t mind taking a long trip like this."
It was so dark in the cup-like valley that the boy could see but little of the country. He only knew they were in the strange depression by noting how the dark walls upreared against the lighter hue of the star-sprinkled sky.
Before long, however, his tireless kidnappers began to trot along over rising ground. For what seemed hours they traveled thus. Presently the boy became aware of a faint glare in the near distance. At the same time, the short, sharp yapping of a mongrel dog was borne to his ears.
Before many moments had pa.s.sed, they came in sight of several tepees, pitched under a grove of trees in a small, and seemingly inaccessible, canon. The cook fires were lighted, and big pots hung over some of them.
Children, squaws and dogs swarmed about, the curs yapping and snapping at each other. As the Indians who had captured the boy gave a shrill screech, the village literally boiled over with activity. From the tepees poured braves and squaws and more children. All rushed forward to meet the returning redskins.
"Well, they seem glad to see us," thought Rob to himself; "wish I could say the same for myself. If only I knew how Tubby came out, I"d feel better."
As he was borne into the circle of firelight, the boy was surrounded by a curious, chattering crowd, who pulled his clothes about, and poked him inquisitively. Suddenly, a tall Indian, his face hideously daubed with red, yellow and black, emerged with a stately stride from a tepee covered with rude pictures of hunts and battles. He regarded the boy with a piercing eye for a moment, and then, raising his arm, pointed to another tepee, and gave some sort of an order.
Instantly Rob"s arms were seized and pinioned by the Indians who had brought him from the cliff, and he was hustled over the ground and flung roughly into the tepee.
"So that"s their game, is it," gritted out Rob savagely, every drop of his fighting blood aroused by the cold-blooded ferocity of his manner of entrance into the patched and smoky tent.
"Well," he went on, "there"s no use getting mad, I suppose. Anyhow, it"s a strange experience--captured by real Indians. That"s more than any of the Boy Scouts at home can say, anyhow."
No attempt had been made to bind him, and Rob therefore peeped out of the flap of his place of confinement to see what was going on about him.
His experience of Indians had hitherto been confined to the Wild West show variety. He was deeply interested in the life of the tepee village, as he watched it busily moving about him. The savory smell of the Indians" supper, as they dispatched it, caused a strange sensation of emptiness about Rob"s ribs, but no one came near him with food.
"I"ll be hanged if I"ll ask them for it," grunted Rob to himself, "especially after the way they chucked me in here."
When the meal was over, the braves pulled out their clay-bowled pipes and smoked stolidly. Not one threw even a glance at his tepee, and Rob began to think they must have forgotten him. He grew terribly thirsty, and not far from the camp there must be a brook, as he realized, by hearing the silvery tinkle, tinkle of its waters over the rocks.
"Well, as no one will bring me a drink, I"ll go and get one," thought the boy to himself, and he boldly threw back the flap of the tent and marched out.
For an instant a wild hope flashed across him that he could escape. No attempt was made by any member of the smoking circle to check him, and the boy reached the bank of the stream without the slightest interference being opposed to his movements.
"I"ll try it," thought Rob. "I believe they"ve forgotten me."
He placed his foot on a rock and was about to spring to the farther bank of the little creek, when a sharp voice behind him checked him abruptly:
"White boy, come back!"
The words came in the guttural, grunting tone that was unmistakably Indian.
Rob wheeled, and found himself looking into the muzzle of a gleaming rifle-barrel.
CHAPTER XII.
TUBBY"S PERIL.
"That"s queer; I don"t see a sign of him."
Merritt Crawford, on the return of the Boy Scouts with ropes and help, peered about the ledge for a trace of his leader, but in vain.
"He can"t have gone over, too."
It was Blinky who suggested this alarming possibility.
"Don"t suggest such a thing," protested Merritt. "Hullo, Tubby!--below there--are you all right?"
"Fine and dandy, but snake down a rope as soon as you can, will you, and you might tie a sandwich on it, if you don"t mind."
"You can have your sandwich when we get you up," promised Merritt, as the others, despite their worry over Rob"s disappearance, broke into a loud laugh at Tubby"s unconcerned manner.
"Come on, now, and lend a hand with the ropes," ordered Blinky, who had brought several lariats up on his pony, and was busily engaged in tying them together so as to form a long lifeline. Tubby had not yet been informed of Rob"s disappearance, as it was feared that it might unnerve him.
A fresh difficulty now presented itself. On the narrow ledge there was not sufficient room for the holders of the rope to brace themselves. To haul up the stout youth, therefore, it was necessary to return to the summit of the cliff. This was quickly done, but you may be sure that great caution was exercised in mounting the steps cut in the rock face.
The fate of Tubby was fresh in their minds, even without the reminder that he was still clinging to his uncertain support, so far below them.
Blinky began looking about for a suitable tree, around which to take a turn of the rope, as soon as they reached the summit. One was found about fifteen feet back from the lip of the precipice.
"Now, then," ordered the cow-puncher, as he tied a big loop in one end of his long line, "we"ll see if this will reach."
He dropped it over the edge of the cliff and dangled it about so that it rattled against the rock. This was in order that the fat boy could hear it and indicate in which direction he wished it swung.
"Is it near you, now, Tubby?" shouted Blinky, peering down into the darkness and tentatively swinging the rope.
"A little more to the right," came up the stout boy"s voice, as steady as if he was asking for another helping of ice cream.
"That boy"s grit clear through, even if he does like to play the giddy goat sometimes," muttered the puncher.
"How"s that?" he asked a minute later.