"Oh, for a nice soft bed!" muttered Rob. "But not having one, a good flat stone would do."
Soon afterward, following a lot of feeling about, he managed to find a flat-surfaced rock which seemed to promise well for a rough and ready couch. To the boy"s delight, it retained some of the warmth of the sun which had beaten on it all day, and had he possessed a blanket to throw over it, might not have proved unacceptable as a sleeping place.
Casting himself down on it, Rob soon dozed off, nor did he awaken till the blackness turned to the gray that preceded the dawn. Viewed by daylight, Rob found his surroundings such that he was glad that he had not proceeded any farther during the night. He lay on a hillside behind a screen of chaparral. But what caused him to feel some apprehension, when he thought of what might have happened had he continued his journey, was the fact that below his rock quite a steep slope dropped down to the valley below. It was a drop of some thirty feet, and while in the daylight any active man or boy could have clambered down it without injury, in the dark night it might have meant broken bones.
But Rob had little time to think of such possibilities. Something else suddenly occupied all his attention, and that something was an odor of frying bacon!
Mingled with it came the unmistakable aroma of tobacco. Somebody was camped near him, that was a certainty. His first impulse was to shout, but he checked it. It speaks volumes for the Western training that the boy was rapidly acquiring when it is said that before he showed himself from behind his chaparral, he gazed cautiously through that leafy screen.
Below him he saw three figures seated about a fire, over which was frying the bacon that had aroused his hunger almost to the exclamation point. The three campers, whose ponies were tethered a short distance from them, had their backs turned to Rob, but presently one of them turned to reach something from a saddle bag. Rob came very near to uttering a startled exclamation and betraying his hiding place as he saw the man"s features.
It was Hank Handcraft.
The former beachcomber wore Western clothes and had trimmed his once luxuriant and scraggly beard, but he was none the less unmistakably Handcraft. Nor, as almost simultaneously Hank"s companions turned, was Rob"s astonishment at all lessened, for one of them was Bill Bender and the other was the ranch boy to whom he had given a lesson in jiu jitsu--Clark Jennings.
"Hurry up and stow your grub, Hank," Clark was saying. "We"ve got to light out of this neighborhood for a while and stick around the ranch."
"You think that old Harkness is suspicious, then?" inquired Hank.
"No, our disguises were too good. I"ll bet they"re cussin" the Moquis now."
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Bill Bender. "That was a great idea, dressing up like Indians. I guess we got even on old Harkness for driving those sheep off his pastures."
"You bet! and we"ll do worse to him before we get through," grunted Clark. "It"s pie for me. More especially as I can get even, at the same time, with that young sniffler, Harry Harkness, and his friends from the East--your old pals, Bill."
"No pals of mine. You can bet your life on that," grunted Bill. "The best thing I"d heard for a long time was when you told me about Jack Curtiss shoving that kid Rob into the river. I"d like to have seen it.
If it hadn"t been for those Boy Scouts, as they call themselves, Hank and Jack and I would have been East now, instead of in this G.o.d-forsaken country."
"What are you kicking at?" laughed Clark. "You"ve done pretty well since you"ve been here, and if we can get that bunch of mavericks of Harkness"s, we"ll all have a pocketful of money."
"When are you going after them?" asked Hank, placing a big bit of bacon on a hunk of bread and gnawing on it in a satisfied way that set Rob half crazy to watch.
"Soon as they are turned out on the Far Pasture. When they get over the scare of the stampede, they"ll leave the place unwatched, and we"ll have our chance. We ought to get five hundred apiece out of it, anyhow."
"That would look good to me," grunted Hank.
"Oh, the scoundrels!" breathed Rob to himself. "They"re plotting to steal some of Mr. Harkness"s mavericks. I remember now hearing him speak of turning them out in the Far Pasture."
"Then we can clear out and get back East," concluded Bill, "and take poor old Jack with us. He isn"t making out very well."
"Sort of hanger-on in that gambling place, isn"t he?" asked Clark.
"I guess that"s what you"d call it."
Soon after the group saddled up their ponies and prepared to leave their temporary camp. That they were on the trail, after having concluded their dastardly attempt to stampede Mr. Harkness"s cattle, Rob had no doubt, judging by their conversation.
"Better put that fire out!" warned Clark. "Scatter the ashes. We don"t want any one trailing us."
The three worthies bent together over the ashes, while their saddled ponies stood eying them at some short distance.
"Guess I"d better pull back out of this before they take it into their heads to look around," thought Rob, who in his eagerness to hear what was going forward below had thrust his head out through the bush which screened him.
With the object of drawing back again, he braced himself on one hand and pushed backward. How it happened he never knew, for he had been very careful, but suddenly the small rock on which the pressure of his hand rested gave way with a crash.
Clawing wildly at the bush, Rob sought to save himself from being flung headlong down the hill into the camp below him, but it was too late.
Down the hill he shot at lightning speed, in the midst of a roaring, rattling landslide of rocks and earth.
The men in the camp started and turned as the sudden uproar of Rob"s involuntary toboggan slide reached their ears.
"What the----" shouted Hank Handcraft.
"Who is----" began Clark, when Rob"s feet caught him in the stomach and cannoned him against Hank Handcraft. Clutching wildly to prevent his own fall, Hank caught Bill Bender"s sleeve, and the next instant all three of the campers were rolling in a confused ma.s.s in the ashes of their fire.
"It"s a bear!" yelled Hank.
"Bear nothing!" bellowed Clark Jennings, as Rob scrambled to his feet and darted off like a shot. "It"s a boy!"
"After him!" shouted Bill Bender, s.n.a.t.c.hing up a rifle and aiming it.
"That kid"s Rob Blake."
CHAPTER XV.
WHAT BECAME OF THE SCOUT?
But even as the former Long Islander raised the weapon to his shoulder, it was dashed down by Clark Jennings.
"Look out, you idiot!" he bellowed. "Do you want to kill the ponies?"
Rob, the instant he had recovered his self-possession, which preceded the recovery of the surprised plotters by some seconds, had made a dash for the ponies, which, as has been said, stood, saddled and bridled, near at hand.
"Yip-yip!" he screeched, as he leaped onto the back of the first one he reached.
Excited by the shouts and cries of the three amazed campers, and half-crazed by Rob"s sudden leap onto its back, the animal plunged forward and vanished in a flash into the dark woods which veiled an abrupt turn in the trail.
"Now, shall we shoot, Clark?" urged Bill Bender.
"No, no; waste no time doing that. Hank, you stay here and look after things. Come, Bill--quick--the ponies!"
In a second Bill and Clark were mounted and dashing off down the trail in a cloud of dust, in hot pursuit of the lad.
"Do you think he heard what we were talking about?"
Clark Jennings propounded the question as they clattered down the trail.
Not far in front they could hear the rapid hoof beats of Rob"s mount.