Comrades of the Saddle Part 9

At the end of two hours, as they mounted the crest of a great roll in the prairies, the dried-up course of a stream was disclosed.

"If you follow that, it will lead you to Lone Creek," explained Horace. "Down about ten miles there's a place called the Witches'

Pool, where we go fishing. It's so deep it never dries. We'll go there some day."

"More ghosts?" inquired Larry as he repeated the name of the pool.

"No, no ghosts," laughed Mr. Wilder, "just the _ignis fatuus_, or will-o'-the-wisps. All cowboys are very superst.i.tious, you must remember. The land round the pool is swampy and at night you can sometimes see the lights dancing about. I suppose some one saw them, and, finding no person there, immediately decided the pool was a gathering place for witches."

"Pete says it's the bodies of the men who have died of thirst on the plains searching for water," declared Horace in an awed tone.

"That's an ingenious explanation, but it is not the truth, my boy.

The lights are caused by certain gases that come from the marshy ground and glow when the atmosphere is in a certain condition.

Over in Scotland, on the peat bogs, they call them 'friars'

lanterns.'"

"My, but I'd like to see one," sighed Tom.

"Then I'm afraid you'll be obliged to camp by the pool. You might go there a hundred nights and never see a sign of one," returned the ranchman. And then, as the shadows cast by the mountains were reaching farther and farther out onto the prairie, he thought it best to turn the minds of the boys into other channels.

"Shall we camp in the open or would you rather push on to the foothills?" he asked. "It'll be dark by the time we get there."

"I vote to keep going," answered Larry.

"How far is it?" inquired Tom, who was beginning to feel the effects of the many miles in the saddle.

"About fifteen, which means two hours at least, because the darker it gets the slower we'll be obliged to go till you two get more used to riding the plains," responded Bill.

"If we keep on, and I feel stiff in the morning, we'll be there and I shall not be compelled to cover the fifteen miles," mused the younger of the brothers as much to himself as to the others. "I'm for pushing on, too."

Laughing at their guest's discomfort, the others readily acquiesced, and they crossed the stream bottom.

Save the noise made by themselves, the twitter of birds, and the occasional cry of some prairie dog routed out by their approach, the silence of the plains was intense. At first Tom and Larry did not notice it, but as they rode mile after mile they began to feel its depression.

"It often drives men crazy," a.s.serted the ranchman when Larry mentioned his feeling. "That's why we never send a man out alone to herd. Having some one to talk to it a big relief, I can tell you, after you've been a week or so on the prairies with nothing but a bunch of stolid cattle. The very monotony of their grazing and chewing their cuds gets on your nerves."

As darkness came on, however, the awful silence was broken. From all sides came the barking of coyotes, as though they were signaling one another their whereabouts.

"That howling would scare me a great deal quicker than any ghosts or witches," observed Tom. "My, but it's mournful! Do they keep that up all night?"

"Indeed they do," replied Horace, delighted to think one thing had been discovered which the two visitors feared, "only it gets worse the darker it grows. Besides, when they are hungry, they'll follow you and attack you."

"That wouldn't be so bad so long as you had a gun with you,"

interposed Larry. "I'd like to get a shot at one."

"Then there's your chance, over on the left," exclaimed Mr. Wilder.

Unslinging his rifle, the elder of the Alden boys looked eagerly in the direction indicated. But it was so dark he could see nothing and he said so.

"Can't you see those two little b.a.l.l.s of fire right opposite you?

If you can't, say so. I'll stop him myself," returned the ranchman.

Yet even as he spoke the coyote turned and fled.

"It's just as well," added Mr. Wilder after he had announced the fact. "You'll have a chance to shoot at something better than a measely prairie wolf to-morrow, I hope."

"Or perhaps to-night," chimed in Horace. "Maybe a ghost'll attack our camp."

"That will do, youngster. If you talk any more about ghosts, I'll make you ride back to the ranch in the dark. If you keep on, you'll work yourself up so you'll think every sound you hear is a Spaniard from the mine, and there will be no sleep for any of us."

This command had the desired effect, and Horace gave up the attempt of trying to frighten his friends.

For a time the darkness grew more and more intense till it was all the riders could do to make out the forms of one another. But at last the clouds pa.s.sed over, revealing the stars, and soon the moon rose, full and brilliant, changing the swaying gra.s.s into a seeming sea of silver with its light.

In wonder the brothers gazed at the transformation and Larry said:

"I wish the plains could be like this always. They don't seem half so terrible."

But the boys soon had other things to think about. They were so close to the mountains that they could see the great cliffs glistening in the moonlight above the trees from which they rose, sheer.

"I don't wonder they say these mountains are haunted," exclaimed Tom. "I can almost believe I see men moving along the top of that middle cliff."

"Better curb your imagination then," chided Mr. Wilder. "It's a good thing we've got to pitch camp pretty soon or you'd all get the nerves."

At Tom's words the other boys had sought the middle cliff with their eyes and suddenly Bill exclaimed:

"Tom's right, father! There are men moving along the top of the precipice!"

Mr. Wilder had been intent on searching the base of the mountains for a place to camp for the night. But at his elder son's statement he looked up quickly, drawing rein that he might be sure the motion of his horse played no trick on his eyes.

Breathlessly the others waited his decision.

The cliff at which they all were staring so intently was about half way up the mountain and above it rose another wall of rock. And it was against the base of this latter that the objects which attracted Tom's attention were silhouetted.

"By jove! They are men," exclaimed Mr. Wilder excitedly. "I never knew there was a trail along the base of that cliff before."

The boys were tremendously stirred up as they heard this confirmation.

"Perhaps they are the men going to guard the Lost Lode for the night," Horace whispered. "They wouldn't need a trail to walk on, father."

"Steady, boy, steady," returned the ranchman. "Those men are flesh and blood, don't worry about that. Who they are I don't know.

Probably some hunters like ourselves."

"That couldn't be the way to the mine, could it?" hazarded Larry, whose eagerness to discover a silver mine had received new impetus.

"Can't we go there to-morrow and find out?"

"We'll see when to-morrow comes," declared Mr. Wilder. "But there's no occasion to get excited. The mountains are full of men hunting and prospecting all the time. Come on, we'll camp under that big tree up there to the right. Whoever gets there first will be boss of the camp."

The challenge for a race, with the honor of being in command of the hunt as the prize, served to take the boys' thoughts from the mysterious men on the trail as nothing else could, and quickly they leaped their ponies forward.