Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert Part 22

"Water!" cried the man hoa.r.s.ely as he rode up to them and would have fallen from his saddle had Hippy not sprung forward and grabbed him. He placed the exhausted man on the ground, and raising the rider's head, held a canteen to his lips.

"Take it easy, old top. Don't choke yourself. We have plenty, but you mustn't try to drink it all at once," admonished Lieutenant Wingate.

"Get food," directed Grace. "Coffee and whatever else you think he can eat."

Ping glided away to prepare the food, Nora and Anne, in the meantime, having brought water for the traveler's pony.

In a few moments the man sat up, holding his head in his hands.

"Here, bathe your face. It will cool you off," urged Elfreda. The traveler did so, and, by the time the coffee was ready, he was able to stand.

Ping had fried some bacon, and, with the coffee and biscuit, the traveler had a meal the like of which he had not eaten for many a long day. As yet, the man had spoken only one word--"water"--but he regarded the outfit with wide, inquiring eyes, as he ate greedily of the food placed before him.

"Where going?" he asked after finis.h.i.+ng.

"Specter Range, I believe. Perhaps taking in the Shoshones. I am not certain. Our guide, Hi Lang, is not here just now."

"Bad gang there. Drove me out. Will drive you out." He would say no more, shaking his head when Grace pressed him for an explanation. After an hour's rest, during which the caller drank water until they feared for its effect on him, he filled his water bags from the water hole and lashed them to his pony and mounted.

Elfreda handed him a chunk of bacon, which he acknowledged with a nod, and stuffed it into his kit.

The traveler now threw back his shoulders and peered at each member of the outfit in turn as if to impress their faces on his mind, then swept off his sombrero.

"Thankee, folks," he said, and, putting spurs to his pony, galloped away.

"There is one man to whom it would be perfectly safe to entrust a secret," declared Miss Briggs with emphasis.

"What a strange character," murmured Anne, as she gazed after the galloping pony. "I wonder who he can be."

"I am curious to know what he meant by warning us against the mountains," interjected Elfreda Briggs.

"And I am rather concerned about Mr. Lang," added Grace. "He must be a long way from here, else he would have heard our signal shots. I have an idea that our late caller must have heard them and that it was he who answered. That must be it. If so I am glad, for the poor fellow was ready to drop and so was his horse. Shall we fill the buckets?"

They did. The ponies were thirsty again, and it required several bucketfuls to satiate thirst, after which everything fillable was filled with water. Grace, to pa.s.s away the time, got out her la.s.so and tried to throw it, but she made a complete failure. In turn, each of the others tried their hand at throwing the rope, but with no better success. Ping offered himself for a mark, chattering like a magpie as, each time, the loop of the la.s.so collapsed before reaching him.

"What for you makee so fas.h.i.+on?" he cried between laughs, chuckles and grimaces.

"Never mind, Ping. You will not talkee 'so fas.h.i.+on' one day. When I learn to throw the rope, which I shall, I will rope you when you are not looking," threatened Grace.

"No can do," grinned the Chinaman. "HAI YAH! Man b'longey top-side horse," he cried, pointing off over the desert.

Looking in the direction in which he was pointing, the Overland girls saw in the far distance a horseman, sitting his mount so motionless that at first they were not positive whether it were a horseman or a distorted cactus plant.

Grace ran for her binoculars and for some minutes studied the stranger.

"That's our caller," suggested Hippy.

Maybe he has decided to hang around for another meal. I don't know that I blame him."

"No, it is not the same man, at least not same pony," answered Grace, snapping gla.s.ses shut. "The man yonder is riding a black pony. The one who called on us rode a nearly white animal. I can't imagine why he is so interested, but he is surely watching us.

However, we won't worry so long as we have a water tank at hand."

At four o'clock in the afternoon the mysterious stranger was still in practically the same place. He appeared to move only when his pony stepped forward a few paces for more sagebrush.

"Man b'longey top-side horse!" cried Ping, again pointing in another direction.

The Overlanders saw a cloud of dust rolling toward them over the desert, ahead of the cloud being a horseman riding at a swift gallop.

"This would seem to be our day at home, judging from the number of callers who are dropping in," observed Elfreda.

Grace threw up her gla.s.ses and took a quick look.

"I can't make him out," she said. "It can't be Mr. Lang, for this man is coming from a direction different from the one he took, if the footprints of his pony leading out of this camp are any indication."

"Man b'longey horse hab go chop-chop!" volunteered Ping.

Looking quickly toward the west the Overlanders were amazed to find that the silent horseman who had had them under observation for hours was no longer in view. Though not more than two or three minutes had elapsed since Grace Harlowe last saw him, he had disappeared as suddenly as if the sands of the desert had opened and taken him in.

"Maybe he has fallen into a tank, just as I did," suggested Hippy.

"Mr. Lang is coming. It is he, after all," cried Grace joyously, as she gazed at the swiftly moving cloud of dust that Ping had called her attention to some moments before.

CHAPTER XV

THE GUIDE READS A DESERT TRAIL

"Did you shoot?" called the guide, pulling his pony down sharply.

Both pony and rider were gray from the desert dust, and the guide's face was lined with perspiration streaks. It was plain that he had ridden hard and long.

"Yes. Did you find water?" cried Emma.

"I did, twenty miles or nigh that, from here. What's that?" he demanded, pointing to the water hole.

"We have water, Mr. Lang," Grace told him, "Mr. Wingate fell through a crust and discovered a tank. There is water in plenty.

We are so sorry that you had all that journey for nothing. Ping!

Water for Mr. Lang and a bucketful for his pony. How long since did you hear our signal shots?"

"More'n an hour ago. I wasn't certain, but I thought I heard three shots. My journey was not for nothing, for I have found a tank and there we will make our next camping place." The guide paused to lift the bucket that Ping had fetched, and to drink deeply from it.

"Who's been here?"

"What makes you think anyone has?" teased Emma.

"Plain as daylight. I followed a pony's trail in for more than two miles. There's the tracks where he went away," answered the guide quickly.