The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon Part 17

"That's the point, Bob."

"It sure beats everything how you can get on to these things, Frank.

Here I'm going to be a lawyer some day, so they tell me; and yet I don't seem to grab the fine points of this game of hide-and-seek as you do."

"Oh! well," Frank remarked, consolingly; "a lawyer isn't supposed to know much about trails, and all such things. That comes to a fellow who has spent years outdoors, studying things around him, and keeping his wits on edge all the while."

"I hope to keep on learning more and more right along," said Bob.

"Here comes John Henry back, to tell us he has found a good place for camping to-night; so no more at present, Bob."

It proved just as Frank had said. The guide declared that as the sun was low down, the canyon would soon be darkening; and they ought to make a halt while the chance was still good to see what lay around them.

Accordingly they made a camp, and not a great distance away from the border of the swirling river that rolled on to pa.s.s through all the balance of that wonderful gulch, the greatest in the known world.

They had come prepared for this, carrying quite a number of things along that would prove welcome at supper time. A cheery fire was soon blazing, and the guide busied himself in preparations for a meal; while the two boys wandered down to the edge of the river, to throw a few rocks into the current, and talk undisturbed.

"There are several other camps not far away," remarked Frank. "I could see the smoke rising in two places further on."

"Yes," added Bob, "and there's one behind us too, for I saw smoke rising soon after we halted. Perhaps that may be Eugene's stopping place; eh, Frank?"

"I wouldn't be surprised one little bit. Just look at the river, how silently it pushes along right here. It's deep too; and yet below a mile or so it frets and foams among the boulders that have dropped into its great bed from the high cliffs."

"And they do say some bold explorers have gone all the way through the canyon in a boat; but I reckon it must be a terrible trip," Bob ventured to say.

"Excuse us from trying to make it," laughed Frank; "by the time we'd reach Mohave City, where that bottle was picked up, there wouldn't be much left of us. But let's go back to camp now. John Henry must have grub ready."

Three minutes later he suddenly caught Bob's sleeve.

"Wait up!" he whispered. "There's somebody talking to our guide right now; and say, Bob, don't you recognize the fellow?"

"If I didn't think it was silly I'd say it was old Spanish Joe, the cowboy we had so much trouble with on Thunder Mountain," Bob declared, crouching down.

"Well, think again," said Frank; "and you'll remember that Abajo is his nephew!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THERE'S SOMEBODY TALKING TO OUR GUIDE RIGHT NOW."

_Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon_ _Page 134_]

CHAPTER XV

THE TREACHEROUS GUIDE

"Why, of course he is," declared Bob; "and it looks as if our old enemies had cropped up again, to join forces with the new ones. That will make three against us; won't it, Frank?"

"The more the merrier," replied the other, but Bob could see that he was inwardly worried over the new phase of the situation.

"Look at the way Spanish Joe is arguing with John Henry!" said Bob. "The guide keeps pointing this way, as if he might be afraid we'd come back, and see him talking with Old Joe. Now they shake hands, Frank. Do you think any bargain has been struck between them?"

"I'm afraid it has," replied his comrade, gritting his teeth with displeasure. "John Henry has sold us out, and gone over to the enemy for cash. I saw him hide something in his pocket."

"Then what will we do about him?" asked Bob, clenching his fist, as if it might give him considerable pleasure to take the treacherous guide personally in hand, and teach him the needed lesson.

"That's easy," chuckled Frank. "We'll keep on guard to-night, and when he sees how we hang to our guns he won't try any tricks, you may be sure."

"And in the morning?" Bob went on.

"Why," declared Frank, firmly; "there's only one thing to be done--we must fire John Henry, even if we have to pay him the whole sum agreed on for the week."

"I'm glad to hear you say that, Frank; because I'd hate to have him along. Why, he might take a notion to step on my fingers when I was climbing up after him, and claim it was only an accident, but if I had a broken leg, or a cracked skull, that wouldn't do me any good, I take it."

"There, Joe is moving off, and we can head for camp," Frank remarked, as they still hovered behind the spur of rocks that had concealed them, though allowing a view of the little camp.

"But you don't want to tell John Henry that we saw him making a bargain with Spanish Joe, I take it?" Bob questioned.

"That's right, we don't; and try to keep from looking as if you suspected him. Now his back is turned, come along," and Frank, rising, led the way.

The preparations for supper went on apace. The guide was unusually talkative, Bob thought, and he wondered whether it was not the result of a disturbed conscience. Perhaps John Henry might not be wholly bad, and was worried over having entered into an arrangement to betray his generous young employers.

"What are we going to do for a guide when we let him go?" asked Bob, later on, after they had eaten supper, and John Henry had wandered down to the river for a dip, as he said.

"We'll have to trust to luck to pick up another," Frank declared. "And if it comes to the worst, we can go it alone, I reckon. I've never been up against such a big job as this, but I think I'd tackle it, if I had to. But wait and see what another day brings out."

When it came time for them to retire they began talking about their ranch habit of standing guard. The guide laughed at the idea of any harm coming to pa.s.s while they were there in the canyon.

"Lots of other tourists are camping inside of three mile from here," he said; "and I heard the sheriff of the county himself is somewhere down in the canyon; so it don't look as how there could anything happen. But just as you says, boys; if it makes you feel better to stand guard, I ain't got a thing agin it."

The night pa.s.sed without any sort of attack. Either Frank or Bob sat up all the time, with a trusty rifle ready; but there was no occasion to make use of the weapon.

With the coming of morning they made ready to eat a hasty breakfast.

After this was over Frank found himself compelled to discharge the guide.

"We've concluded to do without your services, John Henry," he said, as the man stood ready to start forth on the way along the canyon, heading East.

"Me? Let me go? What for?" stammered the fellow; turning red and then white as a consciousness of his guilt broke upon him.

"Here's what we promised to pay you for the week," continued Frank. "We want no hard feelings about it. Never mind why we let you go. You can think what you like. But next time you hire out to a party, John Henry, be careful how you let anybody hand you over a few dollars to make you turn against your friends."

The man tried to speak, and his voice failed him. They left him standing there, holding the bills Frank had thrust into his hand, and looking "too cheap for anything," as Bob said. Perhaps he feared that the boys might tell what they knew about him, and in this way destroy his usefulness as a canyon guide ever afterwards.

"Good riddance to bad rubbish!" declared Bob, after they had gone on half a mile, and on looking back saw John Henry still standing there as if hardly knowing whether to be sorry, or glad over having received full pay for a week after only working a single day.

"And here we are cut loose from everybody, and going it on our own hook," laughed Frank. "But it would be foolish for us to think of doing without a guide if so be we can find one. We'll ask every party we meet, and perhaps in that way we can strike the right man."