"They probably didn"t know they were taking your films, boys," spoke Hank, who had finished making fast the horses. "They very likely thought the boxes held some new kind of food, and they just grabbed up anything they could get their hands on. I reckon the beggars are nearly starving, and that"s what made "em so bold. You"ll notice they didn"t once fire at us--only up in the air. They just wanted to scare us."
"And they took our films, thinking they were something good to eat,"
murmured Blake.
"Yes. I"m not saying, though, that they didn"t hope to stampede the animals; but they went wrong on that calculation, if they had it in mind."
"They have our films," continued Joe, in a sort of daze, so suddenly had the events of the last half-hour occurred. "What can we do?"
"Chase after "em and get our stuff back!" exclaimed Blake, quickly. "I"m not going to stand that loss. They can have the grub if they want it, but I"m going to get back those films that we went to such trouble, and so much danger, to snap."
"But how are you going to do it?" asked Joe.
"Start in pursuit!" cried his chum with energy. "Come on, Hank, you can follow an Indian trail; can"t you?"
"I sure can, when it"s as broad as the one they"ll be likely to leave.
But not now."
"Why not?" asked Blake.
For answer the cowboy guide waved his hand toward the darkness all about. There seemed to be a haze over the sky, obscuring the stars.
"It would be worse than useless to start out on the chase now," said Hank. "We can"t do anything until morning."
"But they"ll be too far away then," objected Blake. "And, while it might do little harm if they opened those film boxes in the darkness, it sure would spoil every picture we took to have them exposed in daylight.
Let"s go now!" and he started toward the animals.
"No," and Hank shook his head. "I don"t think you need worry about not catching those fellers in daylight," he went on. "They won"t go far before stopping to eat the stuff they took from us. Then they"ll have a sleep and start on the trail by daylight. We can do the same, and I think we can catch up with them. It would be risky to start out at night in a country we know so little about. We"ll have to wait."
Blake sighed, but there was no help for it. The upset camp was put in some kind of shape, the horses were again looked to, and the fire once more replenished. The travelers carried an unusually large supply of provisions, and though most of these had been taken, there was still enough food left for a day or two. In that time they might be able to get more, if they could not recapture their own from the Indians.
"We"ll start the first thing in the morning, as soon as it is light enough to see," decided Hank. "And now, if it"s all the same to you boys, I"m going to have a bite to eat. That excitement made me hungry."
"Same here," confessed Joe, and soon they were all satisfying their appet.i.tes.
"Oh, but I do hope we can catch up with them and take those films away from "em," murmured Blake, as he again sought his tent.
"We will," declared Joe, with conviction. "If we have to, I"ll get word to my soldier uncle and have the troops chase "em."
"The only trouble is that it might be too late," spoke Blake. "I"m afraid of the films getting light-struck. But I guess all we can do is to wait and trust to luck."
There was no further alarm that night, and after a hasty breakfast, eaten when it was hardly light enough to see, the remaining supplies and provisions were packed and the ponies saddled.
"I guess we can start now," exclaimed Hank, as he leaped to his steed.
"It will soon be lighter. Forward, march!"
CHAPTER IV
BACK TO "BIG B."
"Well, we haven"t caught up to "em yet," remarked Joe Duncan, about noon the next day, when they stopped for a little lunch and to allow the horses to drink at a water hole and rest.
"No, the beggars keep well ahead of us," agreed Blake, shading his eyes with his hand and gazing off across the hot, sunlit stretch that lay before them. "Oh, if they have opened those film boxes!" he exclaimed hopelessly.
"They have ponies, and that"s more than I calculated on," remarked Hank.
"I thought when they raided our camp that they were after our animals, and when they didn"t take "em I thought it was because they were afraid of being chased as horse-thieves by a sheriff"s posse. Now I see they didn"t want our mounts, as they had plenty of their own. It was grub they were after, and they got it."
"And our picture films," added Blake. "Don"t forget that."
"That was only a mistake, I tell you," insisted Hank, "though, for that matter, the Indians wouldn"t hesitate to take "em just for fun, if they thought they could make trouble that way."
"And they will make a heap of trouble, too, I"m afraid," spoke Blake.
"Here now!" called Joe, in jollier tones. "Don"t come any of that C. C.
Piper business, Blake. Look on the bright side."
"Well, I suppose I ought to, but it"s hard work."
They had traveled all that morning, hoping to come up with the roving band of Indians. But they had had no success.
Hank did pick up the trail of the raiders soon after starting out. The Indians had left their horses tethered some distance from the camp, and had crept up afoot, probably having spied Blake, Joe and Hank from afar the previous evening. And though the moccasined feet of the savages left little trace on the hard and sun-baked earth, there was enough "sign"
for so experienced a trailer as was Hank to pick up.
Thus he had been led to where the horses had been left, and after that it was easy enough to follow the marks of the hoofs.
"There are about twenty-five in this band, as near as I can make out,"
said Hank, "and every one of "em has a horse of some sort. Pretty good travelers, too, I take it, since our animals were fresh and we haven"t been able to come up to "em yet, though we"ve kept up a pretty fair gait. But we"ll get "em yet."
"If only it isn"t too late," spoke Blake, whose one fear was that the valuable picture films would be spoiled. "Let"s hurry on."
"Another little rest will do the horses good," said the cowboy guide.
"Then we can push on so much the faster. Our horses are our best friends, and we"ve got to treat "em right if we want the best service out of them. Another half-hour and we"ll push on."
And, though Blake fretted and fumed at the delay, he knew it would not be best to insist on having his way. Soon, however, they were in the saddle again and once more in pursuit.
"The trail is getting fresher," declared Hank, about four o"clock that afternoon. "Their horses are tiring, I guess, and ours seem to be holding out pretty well."
"Which means----" began Joe.
"That we may get up to them before dark," went on the cowboy. "And then we"ll see what happens."
"Will they run, do you think?" inquired Blake.
"They will as long as their horses hold out, for they must know that this ghost-dance business is about over and that most of their friends are back on the reservations. But when we come up to them----" and the cowboy paused and significantly examined his revolver.