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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43917 ***
+
+[Illustration: Straight and true it sped to its mark. The lion had
+already crouched for a spring when Nat's missile was discharged.
+
+                                                        --Page 18.]
+
+
+
+
+THE MOTOR RANGERS THROUGH THE SIERRAS
+
+
+    BY
+
+    MARVIN WEST
+    AUTHOR OF "THE MOTOR RANGERS' LOST MINE," ETC.
+
+
+    NEW YORK
+    HURST & COMPANY
+    PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+    Copyright, 1911,
+    BY
+    HURST & COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+    CHAPTER                                   PAGE
+        I. INTO THE SIERRAS                      5
+       II. BETWEEN TWO FIRES                    17
+      III. IN A RUNAWAY AUTO                    31
+       IV. MOTOR RANGERS TO THE RESCUE          43
+        V. AN APPOINTMENT ON THE TRAIL          55
+       VI. SOME RASCALS GET A SCARE             66
+      VII. A PHOTOGRAPHER IN TROUBLE            77
+     VIII. LOST IN A PETRIFIED FOREST           87
+       IX. THE MIDNIGHT ALARM                   99
+        X. ALONG THE TRAIL                     110
+       XI. TREED! TWO HUNDRED FEET UP          125
+      XII. NAT'S LUCKY ESCAPE                  135
+     XIII. THE VOLLEY IN THE CANYON            147
+      XIV. A "LOONITACKER" HORSE               159
+       XV. THE MOTOR RANGERS' PERIL            170
+      XVI. THE HORNS OF A DILEMMA              181
+     XVII. IN COLONEL MORELLO'S FORTRESS       191
+    XVIII. A RIDE FOR LIFE                     201
+      XIX. OUTWITTING HIS ENEMIES              211
+       XX. HERR MULLER GETS A CHILLY BATH      220
+      XXI. THE FIRE IN THE FOREST              232
+     XXII. A DASH THROUGH THE FLAMES           242
+    XXIII. THE HUT IN THE MOUNTAINS            258
+     XXIV. FACING THEIR FOES                   272
+      XXV. THROUGH THE FLUME                   285
+
+
+
+
+The Motor Rangers Through the Sierras
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+INTO THE SIERRAS.
+
+
+"Say Nat, I thought that this was to be a pleasure trip?"
+
+Joe Hartley, the perspiration beading his round, good-natured
+countenance, pushed back his sombrero and looked up whimsically from
+the punctured tire over which he was laboring.
+
+"Well, isn't half the pleasure of running an auto finding out how many
+things you don't know about it?" laughingly rejoined Nat Trevor, the
+eldest and most experienced of the young Motor Rangers, as they had
+come to be called.
+
+"V-v-v-variety is the s-s-spice----" sputtered our old friend William,
+otherwise Ding-dong Bell.
+
+"Oh, whistle it, Ding-dong," interjected Joe impatiently.
+
+"_Phwit!_" musically chirruped the stuttering lad. "Variety is the
+spice of life," he concluded, his hesitating manner of speech leaving
+him, as usual, following the puckering of his lips and the resultant
+music.
+
+"That's no reason why we should be peppered with troubles," grumbled
+Joe, giving the "jack" a vicious twist and raising the rear axle still
+higher. "Here it is, only three days since we left Santa Barbara and
+I'm certain that I've fixed at least four punctures already."
+
+"Well, you'll be a model of punctuality when----" grinned Nat
+aggravatingly, but Joe had sprung from his crouching posture and made
+for him threateningly.
+
+"Nat Trevor, if you dare to pun, I'll--I'll--bust your spark plug."
+
+"Meaning my head, I suppose," taunted Nat from a safe distance, namely,
+a rock at the side of the dusty road. "'Lay on, Macduff.'"
+
+"Oh, I've more important things to go," concluded Joe, with as much
+dignity as he could muster, turning once more to his tools.
+
+While he is struggling with the puncture let us look about a little and
+see where the Motor Rangers, whom we left in Lower California, are now
+located. As readers of "The Motor Rangers' Lost Mine" know, the three
+bright lads with a companion, oddly named Sandrock Smith, had visited
+the sun-smitten peninsula to investigate some mysterious thefts of
+lumber from a dye-wood property belonging to Mr. Pomery, "The Lumber
+King," Nat's employer. While in that country, which they only reached
+after a series of exciting and sometimes dangerous incidents, they
+stumbled across a gold mine in which Nat's father had, years before,
+been heavily interested.
+
+Readers of that volume will also recall that Hale Bradford, the Eastern
+millionaire, and his unscrupulous associates had made a lot of trouble
+for Nat and his companions after the discovery. The exciting escape
+of Nat in a motor boat across the waters of the Gulf of California
+will also be called to mind, as well as the story of how matters
+were finally adjusted and Nat became, if not a millionaire, at least
+a very well-to-do young man. The gift of the auto in which they were
+now touring was likewise explained. The splendid vehicle, with its
+numerous contrivances for comfortable touring, had been the present of
+Mr. Pomery to the lads, as a token of his esteem and gratitude for the
+conclusion to which they had brought the dishonest dealings of Diego
+Velasco, a Mexican employed by Mr. Pomery.
+
+On their return to California proper, the lads had spent a brief time
+with their parents, and Nat had seen his mother ensconced in a pretty
+house on the outskirts of Santa Barbara. It had been a great delight to
+the lady to leave the tiny cottage in which straitened circumstances
+following the death of Nat's father, had compelled them to live. Joe
+Hartley, we know, was the son of a department store keeper of Santa
+Barbara, and Ding-dong Bell was the only child of a well-to-do widow.
+So much for our introductions.
+
+Inactivity had soon palled on the active minds of the Motor Rangers,
+and they had, with the consent of their parents, planned another trip.
+This time, however, it was to be for pleasure. As Nat had said, "We had
+enough adventures in Lower California to last us a lifetime." But of
+what lay ahead of them not one of the boys dreamed, when, three days
+before, they had started from Santa Barbara for a tour of the Sierras.
+Nat was desirous of showing that it was feasible to hunt and fish and
+tour the mountains in an automobile just as well as on horseback. The
+car, therefore, carried rifles and shot guns as well as fishing rods
+and paraphernalia for camping. We shall not give an inventory of it
+now. Suffice it to say that it was completely outfitted, and as the
+details of the car itself have been told in the previous volume we
+shall content ourselves with introducing each as occasion arises.
+
+The particular puncture which Joe was repairing when this volume opens,
+occurred just as the lads were bowling over a rather rough road into
+Antelope Valley, a narrow, wind-swept canyon between two steep ranges
+of mountains. The valley is in the heart of the Sierras, and though
+too insignificant to be noted on any but the largest maps, forms a
+portion of the range well known to mountaineers. It is a few miles from
+the Tehachapi Pass, at which, geographers are agreed, the true Sierra
+Nevadas begin.
+
+"Say, fellows," exclaimed Nat suddenly, looking about him at the
+sky which from being slightly overcast had now become black and
+threatening, "we're going to have a storm of some sort. If you're ready
+there, Joe, we'll be jogging along. We ought to be under shelter when
+it hits."
+
+"Yes," agreed Joe, wiping his brow with the back of his hand, "it will
+go whooping through this narrow valley like the mischief."
+
+As he spoke he lowered the "jack," and put the finishing touches on
+his repair. The auto carried plenty of extra tires, but naturally the
+boys wished to be sparing of their new ones while the others offered an
+opportunity for a patch.
+
+As the first heavy rain drops fell, sending up little spurts of dust
+from the dry road and the dusty chaparral bordering it, Nat started
+the motor, and the car was soon whizzing forward at a good speed.
+Thanks to its finely-tempered springs and the shock absorbers with
+which it was equipped, the roughness of the road had little effect on
+the comfort of the riders.
+
+"This is going to be a hummer," shouted Joe suddenly, "we'd better get
+up the shelter hood."
+
+Nat agreed, and soon the contrivance referred to, which was like a low
+"top" of waterproof khaki, was stretched on its collapsible frames. It
+fitted all round the auto, enclosing it like a snug waterproof tent. In
+front was a window of mica through which the driver could see the road.
+The erection of the shelter took but a few seconds and presently the
+car was once more chugging forward.
+
+But as the storm increased in violence, the wind rose, till it fairly
+screamed through the narrow funnel of the rocky-walled valley. Through
+his window Nat could see trees being bent as if they were buggy whips.
+
+"If this gets much worse we'll have to find cover," he thought, "or
+else lose our shelter hood."
+
+He glanced apprehensively at the steel supports of the shelter, which
+were bending and bowing under the stress put upon them. As Nat had
+remarked to himself, they would not stand much more pressure.
+
+"Say, the rain is coming in here," began Joe suddenly, as a tiny
+trickle began to pour into the tonneau. It came through a crack in the
+khaki top which had been wrenched apart by the violence of the wind.
+
+"It's g-g-g-gone d-d-d-own the bab-b-b-back of my n-n-n-neck,"
+sputtered Ding-dong Bell protestingly.
+
+"Never mind, Ding-dong," comforted Joe, "maybe it will wash your parts
+of speech out straight."
+
+"I'm going to head for that cave yonder," exclaimed Nat, after running
+a few more minutes.
+
+He had spied a dark opening in the rocks to his right, while the others
+had been talking, and had guessed that it was the mouth of a cave of
+some sort. And so it proved.
+
+The auto was turned off the road, or rather track, and after bumping
+over rocks and brush rolled into the shelter of the cavern. It seemed
+quite an abrupt change from the warring of the elements outside to the
+darkness and quiet of the chamber in the rocks, and the Motor Rangers
+lost no time in lowering the hood and looking about to find out in what
+sort of a place they had landed.
+
+So far as they could see, after they had all climbed out of the car,
+the cave was a large one. It ran back and its limits were lost in
+darkness. The mouth, however, was quite a big opening, being more than
+twenty feet across at the base. It narrowed into a sharp-topped arch at
+the summit, from which greenery hung down.
+
+"Let's see where we are," remarked Nat, taking off his heavy driving
+gloves and throwing them upon the driver's seat.
+
+"You'd have to be a cat to do that," laughed Joe Hartley, gazing back
+into the dense blackness of the cavern.
+
+"That's soon fixed," added Nat, and removing one of the lights of the
+car from its socket he pressed a little button. A sharp click resulted,
+and a flood of brilliant white radiance poured from the lamp. It was an
+improved carbide contrivance, the illuminant which made the gas being
+carried in its socket.
+
+The boy turned its rays backward into the cave, flooding the rough,
+rocky walls, stained here and there with patches of dampness and moss,
+with a blaze of light.
+
+"Say," cried Joe suddenly, as the rays fell far back into the cave but
+still did not seem to reach its terminus, "what is that back there?"
+
+As he spoke he seized Nat's sleeve in a nervous, alarmed way.
+
+"What?" demanded Nat, holding the light high above his head in his
+effort to pierce the uttermost shadows.
+
+"Why that--don't you see it?" cried Joe.
+
+"I do now," exclaimed Nat in a startled voice, "it's----"
+
+"T-t-t-two g-g-glaring eyes!" fizzed Ding-dong Bell.
+
+As he spoke, from behind the boys, came a low, menacing growl. They
+faced about abruptly to see what this new source of alarm might be.
+
+As they all turned in the direction from which the growl had
+proceeded--namely the mouth of the cave--a cry of dismay was forced
+from the lips of the three lads. Stealthily approaching them, with
+cat-like caution, was a low, long-bodied animal of a tawny color. Its
+black-tipped tail was lashing the ground angrily, and its two immense
+eyes were glaring with a green light, in the gloom of the cave.
+
+"A mountain lion!" cried Nat, recognizing their treacherous foe in an
+instant.
+
+"And its mate's back there in the cave," called Joe, still more
+alarmedly.
+
+"G-g-g-g-get the g-g-g-guns!" sputtered Ding-dong.
+
+This was far more easy to recommend than to accomplish, however. The
+lads, never dreaming that they would want their weapons, had left them
+in the automobile. The car, as will be recalled, had been left near the
+mouth of the cave. The mountain lion advancing toward them had already
+passed the auto and was now between them and the place in which their
+weapons were reposing.
+
+The mountain lion, or cougar, ordinarily not dangerous unless it gets
+its foe at an absolute disadvantage, becomes, during the mating season,
+a vindictive, savage brute, if separated from its mate. That this was
+now the case was evident. There was no room to doubt that the two green
+eyes glaring from the remote blackness of the cave were the optics of
+another "lion."
+
+The young Motor Rangers were fairly trapped. Without weapons or any
+means of protecting themselves but their bare hands, they were in
+imminent peril of a nasty conclusion to their sudden encounter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+BETWEEN TWO FIRES.
+
+
+Snarling in very much the manner of an angry cat, the lion, which had
+appeared at the mouth of the cave, began to come forward more rapidly.
+At the same instant, as if by mutual consent, his mate started to
+advance from the rear of the cave. It was evident that if they did not
+wish to be seriously injured, perhaps killed, the Motor Rangers would
+have to act, and act quickly.
+
+But what were they to do? Nat it was who solved the question. The floor
+of the cave was littered with boulders of various sizes, ranging from
+stones of a pound or so in weight, up to huge rocks beyond a boy's
+power to lift.
+
+Stooping down swiftly Nat selected a stone a little larger than a
+baseball, and then throwing himself into a pitching posture, awaited
+the oncoming cougar, approaching from the cave mouth.
+
+The boy had been the best pitcher the Santa Barbara Academy had ever
+produced, and his companions saw in a flash that he meant to exercise
+his skill now in a way of which he had little dreamed when on the
+diamond. His hand described an evolution in the air, far too quick to
+be followed by the eye. The next instant the stone left his grasp, and
+swished through the atmosphere.
+
+Straight and true it sped to its mark.
+
+And it struck home none too quick. The lion had already crouched for a
+spring on the defenseless lads, who stood between himself and his mate,
+when Nat's missile was discharged.
+
+Crack!
+
+The sharp noise of the stone's impact with the skull of the crouching
+feline sounded like a rifle shot.
+
+"Bull's-eye!" yelled Joe excitedly.
+
+And bull's-eye it was. The rock had a sharp edge which Nat, in his
+haste, had not noticed. As it struck the lion's head it did so with the
+keen surface foremost. Like a knife it drove its way into the skull
+and the lion, with a howl of pain and fury, turned, stumbled forward a
+few paces, and then rolled over.
+
+Before the others could stop him, Ding-dong Bell, entirely forgetting
+the other lion, dashed forward to examine the fallen monster. The
+result of his action was that his career came very near being
+terminated then and there. The cougar had only been stunned, and as the
+stuttering boy gave one of its ears a tug, it leaped erect once more
+and struck a blow at him with its chisel-like claws that would have
+torn him badly had they struck.
+
+But Ding-dong, though deliberate in his speech, was quick in action. He
+leaped backward like an acrobat, as he saw the mighty muscles tauten
+for action, and so escaped being felled by the blow. He could feel it
+"swish" past his nose, however, and entirely too close to be pleasant.
+
+In the meantime, Nat, realizing that his best move would be to get to
+their arms, had made a flying leap for the auto and seized an automatic
+rifle of heavy calibre. As Ding-dong leaped back he aimed and fired,
+but in the darkness he missed, and with a mighty bound the wounded
+cougar leaped out of the cave and dashed off through the storm into the
+brush on the hillside above.
+
+"One!" exclaimed Nat, like Monte Cristo in the play.
+
+The others gave a low laugh. They could afford not to worry so much
+now. True, there was one of the cougars still back in the cave, but
+with their rifles in their hands the lads had little to fear.
+
+"I felt for a minute, though, like I did that time the Mexican devil
+sprang on me near the gulf village," said Nat, recalling one of his
+most perilous moments in Lower California.
+
+But there was little time for conversation. Nat had hardly uttered
+his last remark before the cougar at the rear of the cave began to
+give signs that it too was meditating an attack. There are few animals
+that will not fight desperately when cornered, even a rat making a
+formidable foe sometimes under such conditions, and cornered the
+cougar unquestionably was.
+
+"She's coming," warned Joe in a low voice, as a rumbling growl
+resounded above the roar of the storm outside.
+
+"L-l-let her c-c-come," sputtered Ding-dong defiantly.
+
+"Better climb into the car, boys," said Nat in a whispered tone, "we
+can get better aim from an elevation."
+
+Accordingly they clambered into the tonneau of the motor vehicle, and
+kneeling on the seat awaited the onslaught which they knew must come in
+a few seconds.
+
+"I've half a mind to let her go, if we can without putting ourselves in
+danger," said Nat, "it doesn't seem fair somehow to shoot down a poor
+brute in cold blood."
+
+"But that poor brute would attack you without hesitation if you lay
+injured on a trail," Joe reminded him; "these cougars, too, kill
+hundreds of sheep and young calves, just for the sheer love of
+killing, for half of what they kill they never touch."
+
+"That's right," agreed Nat, "still fair play is a jewel, and----"
+
+Further words were taken out of his mouth by something that occurred
+just at that instant, and settled the fate of the cougar then and there.
+
+Ding-dong Bell, whose unlucky day it seemed to be, had, in his
+excitement, been leaning far over the back of the tonneau, peering
+into the darkness at the rear of the cave. He was trying to detect the
+shadowy outlines of the cougar. A few seconds before Joe Hartley had
+said:--
+
+"Look out, Ding-dong, or you'll go overboard."
+
+The stuttering youth's reply had been a scornful snicker. But now,
+however, he craned his neck just a bit too far. His upper quarters
+over-balanced his stumpy legs and body, and with a howl that rivalled
+the cougar's, he toppled clean over the edge of the tonneau.
+
+The floor of the cave sloped steeply toward the rear, and when
+Ding-dong struck it he did not stop. Instead, the momentum lent him
+by his fall appeared to propel him forward down the sloping floor.
+He yelled for help as he felt himself rapidly and involuntarily being
+borne toward the hidden cougar.
+
+By some mysterious combination of misfortune, too, the carbide in the
+lamp, which had not been renewed since they left Santa Barbara, gave
+out with a flicker and a fizz at this moment. The cave was plunged
+into almost total darkness. Nat's heart came into his throat as he
+realized that if the cougar was not killed within the next few seconds,
+Ding-dong's life might pay the forfeit.
+
+"Good gracious!" shouted Joe above poor Ding-dong's cries, "how are we
+going to see to shoot?"
+
+"Aim at the eyes," grated out Nat earnestly, "it's our only chance."
+
+As he spoke there came an angry snarl and a hissing snort. It mingled
+with a shout of alarm from Ding-dong, who had now stopped rolling, but
+was not yet on his feet. The she-cougar had seen his peril and had
+taken the opportunity to bring down at least one of her enemies.
+
+Straight up, as if impelled by a powerful steel spring, she shot. But
+even as she was in mid-spring two rifles cracked, and with a convulsive
+struggle the great tawny body fell with a thud to the floor of the
+cave, clawing and scratching and uttering piercing roars and cries.
+
+"Put her out of her misery," said Nat, as Ding-dong, having regained
+his feet, darted at the top of his speed for the mouth of the cave.
+
+Once more the rifles blazed away at the two green points of fire which
+marked the wounded cougar's eyes. This time dead silence followed
+the reports, which reverberated deafeningly in the confines of the
+cave. There was no doubt but that the animal was dead. But where was
+Ding-dong?
+
+His companion Motor Rangers looked anxiously about them, but could see
+nothing of him. In the excitement they had not noticed him dart by.
+Presently, however, a slight noise near the cave month attracted their
+attention. There was Ding-dong out in the rain, and drenched to the
+skin, peering into the cave.
+
+"C-a-can I c-c-c-come in?" he asked hesitatingly.
+
+"Yes, and hurry up, too," ordered Nat in as stern a voice as he could
+command. "Your first duty," he went on, "will be to dig down in the
+clothes chest and put on dry things. Then you will refill the lamps
+with carbide, which you ought to have done two days ago, and after that
+you may patch up the tear the wind made in our shelter hood."
+
+"And--phwit--after that?" inquired Ding-dong with so serious an aspect
+that they had to laugh.
+
+"I'll think up something to keep you out of mischief," said Nat finally.
+
+While Ding-dong set about his tasks after investing himself in dry
+clothes, the others skinned the cougar and kindled a fire with some
+driftwood that lay about the cave. Hot coffee was then brewed, and
+some of the stores opened. After imbibing several cups of the steaming
+mixture, and eating numerous slices of bread and butter, the Motor
+Rangers felt better.
+
+By this time, too, the storm had almost passed over, only a slight
+drizzle remaining to tell of the visit of the mountain tempest. An
+investigation of the cave failed to show any trace of a regular den in
+it, and the boys came to the conclusion, which was probably correct,
+that the cougars had merely taken to it for shelter from the storm.
+However that was, all three of them felt that they had had a mighty
+narrow escape. Ding-dong inwardly resolved that from that time on
+he would take care to have the lamps packed with carbide, for Nat's
+relation of how nearly the sudden cessation of the light had cost him
+his life gave the stuttering youth many qualms.
+
+"I guess the storm is about over," said Joe, looking out of the cave
+while holding a tin cup of coffee in his hand.
+
+"I see enough blue sky to m-m-m-make a pair of pants for every
+s-s-s-s-sailor in the navy," remarked Ding-dong, who had joined him.
+
+"That's a sure sign of clearer weather," said Nat, "come on, boys,
+pack up the cups and get the car ready and we'll go ahead."
+
+"Where are we going to stop to-night?" asked Joe. "I guess we can't be
+many miles from Lariat, can we?"
+
+"I'll see," rejoined Nat, diving into his breast pocket and pulling out
+a map stoutly mounted on tough linen to prevent tearing. He pored over
+it for a moment.
+
+"The map puts Lariat about fifteen miles from here," he said.
+
+"What sort of a p-p-p-lace is it?" Ding-dong wished to know.
+
+"A small post-office station," rejoined Nat. "I don't imagine that
+there is even a hotel there."
+
+Ding-dong, who didn't object to the luxuries of life, sighed. Somehow,
+he had been looking forward to stopping at a hotel that night. He said
+nothing, however, well knowing how his complaints would be received.
+
+The auto was soon moving out of the cave in which they had had so
+exciting an encounter. Nat was at the wheel and his two companions in
+the tonneau. The faces of all were as beaming as the weather had now
+turned out. These boys dearly loved the sensation of taking to the road
+and proceeding on into the unknown and adventurous.
+
+The rough strip separating the road, as we must in courtesy call it,
+from the steep rock-face in which the cave lay, was speedily traversed
+and the auto's nose headed north. For some time they bowled along at
+a slow speed, the track growing rapidly rougher and rougher, till it
+seemed that nothing on wheels could get over it.
+
+"What's the m-m-m-matter?" asked Ding-dong suddenly of Joe Hartley, who
+for a bumpy mile or two had sat with his head cocked on one side as if
+listening intently for something.
+
+"I'm listening for a puncture," grinned Joe, resuming his posture of
+attention.
+
+As the road grew rougher the walls of the valley began to close in.
+They grew more lofty as the pass grew narrower, till only a thin strip
+of blue sky showed at the summit. The rugged slopes were clothed with
+a sparse growth of pine timber and chaparral. Immense faces of rock
+cropped out among these. The whole scene had a wild and savage aspect.
+
+Suddenly they reached a spot where the road took an abrupt dip
+downward. From the summit the descent looked as steep as the wall of
+a house. Fortunately, they carried an emergency brake, so that the
+steepness of the declivity did not alarm them. Without hesitating
+Nat allowed the car to roll over the summit and begin the drop. The
+exhilaration of the rapid motion made him delay applying his emergency
+just as soon as he should have, and the car had been running at
+considerable speed when there came a sudden shout from Joe:--
+
+"Look, Nat! Look!"
+
+The boy, who had been adjusting his spark lever, looked up suddenly.
+They were just rounding a curve, beyond which the road pitched down
+more steeply than ever.
+
+At the bottom of the long hill stood an obstacle. Nat at a glance
+made it out as a stage coach of the old-fashioned "thorough-brace
+type." It was stationary, however, and its passengers stood about it
+in scattered groups, while, so far as Nat could see, no horses were
+attached to it.
+
+"Better go slow. There seems to be something the matter down there at
+the bottom of the grade," the boy remarked.
+
+At the same instant his hand sought the emergency brake lever and he
+pushed it forward.
+
+There was a loud crack as he did so, and an alarmed look flashed across
+his face as the lever suddenly felt "loose" in his hand. The car seemed
+to give an abrupt leap forward and plunge on more swiftly than ever.
+
+Below him Nat could see the scattered figures pointing upward
+excitedly. He waved and yelled to warn them that he had no control
+over the car which was tearing forward with the speed of the wind. The
+ordinary brake had no effect on it under the speed it had now gathered.
+Lurching and plunging like a ship at sea, it rushed onward.
+
+Directly in its path, immovable as a rock, was the stage coach. All
+three of the Motor Rangers' bronzed, sunburned faces blanched as they
+rushed onward to what seemed inevitable disaster.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+IN A RUNAWAY AUTO.
+
+
+"Can't you stop her?" gasped Joe, clutching the forward portion of the
+tonneau and gripping it so tight that his knuckles went white.
+
+Nat shook his head. He felt that he had done what he could to slow down
+the car. There was nothing left now but to face the end as resolutely
+as possible. As long as they lived the Motor Rangers never forgot that
+wild ride down the mountainside in a runaway car.
+
+The speed can be described by no other word than terrific. The
+handkerchiefs all three of the boys wore about their necks to keep off
+sunstroke and dust streaked out behind as stiff as if cut out of tin.
+Their hair was blown back flat on their heads by the speed, and every
+now and then the car would strike a rock, which at the speed it was
+going would throw it high into the air. At such moments the auto would
+come back to the trail with a crash that threatened to dislocate every
+spring in its composition.
+
+But Nat, his eyes glued to the path in front of him, clung to the
+wheel, gripping it till the varnish stuck to his palms. He knew that
+the slightest mistake on his part might precipitate the seemingly
+certain disaster. Suddenly, however, his heart gave a glad bound.
+
+He saw before him one loophole of escape from a catastrophe. The stage
+was halted against the rocky wall on the right-hand side of the trail.
+So far over toward the rocky wall was it, in fact, that its hubs almost
+scraped it. This left a narrow space between its left-hand wheels and
+the other wall of the pass.
+
+True, it looked so narrow that it hardly seemed possible that the auto
+could dash through, but it was the only chance that presented itself,
+and Nat was quick to take advantage of it. As they saw what the boy
+intended to do the onlookers about the stage broke into a cheer, which
+was quickly checked as they held their breath in anticipation. It was
+one chance in a thousand that Nat was taking. Would he win out?
+
+Closer thundered the auto while the alarmed stage passengers crowded
+to the far side of the pass. Nat, his eyes glued on the narrow space
+between the stage and the wall of rock, bent low over the wheel. His
+heart underwent a terrible sinking sensation as it grew closer and he
+saw how narrow the space was. But he didn't give up on that account. On
+the contrary, the extremely narrow margin of hope acted as a tonic on
+his nerves.
+
+As a naval gunner aims his big projectiles so Nat aimed the thundering
+runaway automobile for the narrow opening between the stage and the
+cliff.
+
+Almost before he realized it he was there.
+
+There was a quick flash of a brightly painted vehicle and white,
+anxious human faces as he shot by the stage and its dismounted
+passengers.
+
+An ominous scraping sound was audible for an instant as the hubs of the
+stage and the auto's tonneau came in contact. To the left, Nat felt
+the scrub growing in the cracks of the rock brush his face, and then,
+amidst a shout of joy from behind, the auto emerged beyond the stage,
+unharmed save for a few scratches.
+
+As Nat brought it to a standstill on the level, the travellers came
+running up at top speed. All were anxious to shake the hand of the
+daring boy who had turned seeming disaster into safety by his grit and
+cool-headedness.
+
+"Pod'ner, you jammed that thar gas brigantine through that lilly hole
+like you wos makin' a poket at bill-yards," admiringly cried a tall
+man in a long linen duster and sombrero, about whose throat was a red
+handkerchief. He grasped Nat's hand and wrung it as if he would have
+shaken it off.
+
+"My name's Cal Gifford. I'm the driver of the Lariat-to-Hombre stage,"
+he announced, "and any of you kids kin ride free with me any time
+you've a mind to."
+
+"Thank you," said Nat, still a bit trembly from his nervous strain, "I
+really believe that if you only had horses we'd accept your invitation
+and tow the auto behind."
+
+As he spoke he started to scramble out of the car, the others following
+his example. The Motor Rangers were anxious to see what had gone wrong
+with their ordinarily trustworthy vehicle.
+
+"Oh, he's quite young," simpered an elderly lady in a big veil, who was
+accompanied by her daughter, a girl of about twenty. An old man with
+fierce white whiskers stood beside them. They were evidently tourists.
+So, too, was a short, stout, blonde little man as rotund as a cider
+keg, who stepped up to the boys as they prepared to examine their car.
+
+"Holt, plez!" he said in an authoritative voice. "I vish to take zee
+phitograft."
+
+Nat looked somewhat astonished at so curt an order, but the other two
+Motor Rangers merely grinned.
+
+"Better let him, pod'ner," suggested Cal Gifford. "He took them road
+agents a while back. Caught 'em in the act of sneaking the express
+box."
+
+"Chess!" sputtered the little German. "I gedt find pigdures of all of
+dem. Dey vossn't looking andt I--click!"
+
+As he spoke he rapidly produced a camera, and before the boys knew
+what was happening he had pressed a little lever, and behold they were
+"taken." But, in fact, their minds had been busy with something else.
+This something was what the stage driver had referred to.
+
+"Road agents?" asked Nat. "You've been held up, then?"
+
+"Yep, pod'ner, that's what it amounts to," drawled Cal nonchalantly, as
+if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.
+
+"The varmints stepped out frum behind that thar rock and we didn't hev
+time ter say 'Knife' afore we found ourselves lookin' inter the muzzles
+of as complete a collection of rifles as you ever saw."
+
+"Un dey tooked avay der horses by der oudtside," put in the German
+tourist. "Oh, I schall have me fine tales to tell ven I get me pack by
+der Faderland."
+
+"The Dutchman's right," said Cal. "The onnery skunks unhitched our
+plugs and scampered 'em off up the trail. I reckon they're in their
+barn at Lariat by this time."
+
+"Oh, dear, and we'll have to walk," cried the young lady, bursting into
+tears.
+
+"And I haf vot you call it, a oatmeal?--py my pig toe," protested the
+German.
+
+"I guess you mean a corn, Dutchy," laughed Cal.
+
+"Vell, I knowed it vos some kindt of cereal," was the reply.
+
+"Seems a shame to see that purty critter cry, don't it?" said Cal,
+nodding his head sidewise toward the weeping young lady.
+
+"This is an outrage! An outrage, I say!" her white-whiskered father
+began shouting. "Why were those highwaymen not shot down? Why didn't
+somebody act?"
+
+"Well, pod'ner, you acted up fer sure," grinned Cal. "Am I mistaken or
+did I hear you say you'd give 'em five thousand dollars for your life?"
+
+"Bah!" shouted the white-whiskered man. "It was your duty sure to
+protect us. You should have fired at them."
+
+"I'd hev bin a hull lot uv use to yer then, except fer funeral poposes,
+wouldn't I?" inquired Cal calmly.
+
+"Bah! sir, bah!" sputtered the angry old gentleman.
+
+"Good thing ther h'aint no mounting lions 'round," drawled Cal. "They
+might think we wuz an outfit of sheepmen by all the bah-bahing we be
+doin'."
+
+"But how is my daughter to get to Lariat, sir?" begged the elderly
+lady. "She hurt her foot in getting off the stage."
+
+"Well, ma'am," said Cal, "supposing yer man yonder takes a try at
+carryin' her instead of wasting wind a-bahing?"
+
+"Voss iss diss bah? Maybe I get a picture of him?" asked the German,
+bustling up excitedly with his camera all ready for business.
+
+"Oh, sir, my husband was excited. He didn't know what he was saying,"
+exclaimed the elderly lady clasping her hands.
+
+"There, ma'am, don't take on. I was only a-having my bit of fun," said
+Cal. "Maybe when these boys get their gasoline catamarang fixed up
+they'll give us a ride."
+
+"But they cannot take all of us, sir," cried the lady, beginning to
+weep afresh.
+
+"There, there, ma'am, never mind ther irrigation--I mean 'Weep not them
+tears,'" comforted Cal. "Anyhow, you and your daughter can get a ride."
+
+"But my husband--my poor husband, sir."
+
+Cal turned with a grin at a sudden noise behind them. The
+white-whiskered man had now turned his wrath on the unfortunate German.
+
+"Out of my sight, you impudent Teuton," he was shouting. "Don't
+aggravate me, sir, or I'll have your blood. I'm a peaceable tourist,
+sir, but I have fought and bled in my time."
+
+"Must hev bin bit by a mosquito and chased it," commented Cal to
+himself as the lady hastened to console her raging better half, and the
+little Dutchman skipped nimbly out of harm's way.
+
+"What yo' bin a-doing to ther ole bell-wether, Dutchy?" inquired Cal.
+
+"I ask him if he blease tell me vere I can get a picture of dot Bah,
+und he get madt right avay quvick," explained the Teuton.
+
+While all this had been going on among the tourists and Cal, the
+other passengers, mainly mountaineers, had stood in a group aside
+talking among themselves. In the meanwhile, the Motor Rangers had been
+examining the damage to their car. They found that the connecting
+rod working the band of the emergency brake had snapped, and that a
+blacksmith would be needed to weld it. Cal, who had strolled up in time
+to hear this decision, informed them that there was a blacksmith at
+Lariat.
+
+"And a good 'un, too," he volunteered.
+
+The stage driver then made a request for a ride on behalf of the young
+lady and her parents.
+
+"Me and the Dutchman and the rest kin hoof it," he remarked. "It ain't
+above five mile, and down grade, too."
+
+"A steep grade?" asked Nat, with some appearance of interest as Joe
+finished unbolting the loose ends of the broken rod.
+
+"No, jest gentle. It runs on 'bout this way all down into Lariat."
+
+"Well, then," said Nat, with a smile, "I'll save you all the trouble of
+walking."
+
+"How's that, pod'ner? We kain't all pile in the hold of that benzine
+buggy."
+
+"No; but I can give you a tow."
+
+"What, hitch my stage on ahind your oleomargerinerous gas cart?"
+
+"That's it."
+
+"By the big peak of Mount Whitney, that's an idee!" exclaimed the
+delighted stage driver, capering about and snapping his fingers like a
+big child. "Wait a jiffy, I'll explain it all to Bah-bah and the rest."
+
+This was soon done, and the Motor Rangers in the interval attached a
+rope to the rear axle of the car and in turn made it fast to the front
+of the stage. The pole of the latter vehicle was then led over the
+tonneau of the auto and Joe and Ding-dong deputed to steer. From the
+driver's box of the stage Cal worked the brake.
+
+An experimental run of a few yards was made, and on the gentle grade
+the plan was found to work perfectly, the auto towing the heavy stage
+without difficulty.
+
+"Now, then, all aboard the stagemotebubble!" shouted Cal, and a few
+minutes later all the passengers, delighted with the novelty of the
+experience, had piled on board. All delighted, that is, except the
+white-whiskered man.
+
+"All aboard that's a-goin' ter get thar!" bellowed Cal, fixing him with
+a baleful eye.
+
+"Bah! Bah!" sputtered the white-whiskered one indignantly, nevertheless
+skipping nimbly on beside his wife and daughter.
+
+But there came a fresh delay.
+
+"Holt on, blease! Vait! I vish a photegrift to take him!"
+
+"Ef yer don't hurry up Dutchy," shouted Cal, "you'll hev a picter of
+yerself a-walking inter Lariat."
+
+But the photo was taken without delay, and amid a cheer from her
+overjoyed passengers, the stage, which moved by such novel means,
+rumbled onward on its way to Lariat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+MOTOR RANGERS TO THE RESCUE.
+
+
+"That came pretty near being like the time we collided with the hay
+wagon in Lower California," commented Joe, as the auto got under way,
+with her cumbersome tow rattling along behind.
+
+"Yes, only this time we didn't hit," laughed Nat, who had quite
+recovered from the strain of those terrible moments when it seemed that
+they must go crashing into the stage.
+
+"A m-m-m-miss is as g-g-g-good as a m-m-m-mile any day," said
+Ding-dong, as his contribution to the conversation.
+
+As Cal Gifford had said, the road was a gentle gradient between steep
+mountain ranges. Consequently, the towing of the coach was an easy
+matter. The two boys in the tonneau steered it by giving the pole a
+push or a tug as occasion required--much as they would have handled
+the tiller of a boat. When the stage showed signs of coming ahead too
+fast Cal shoved the foot brake forward, at once checking the impetus.
+
+Quite a small crowd turned out to witness the strange scene as the two
+vehicles rolled into Lariat. The place was a typical western mountain
+station. There was a small post-office, two or three rough houses
+and a hotel. In the heydey of gold mining, Lariat had been quite a
+flourishing place, but the hand of decay was upon it at the present
+time. The hotel, however, was, as Ding-dong noticed, apparently open
+for business. At least several loungers arose from their chairs on
+the porch, and came forward with exclamations of surprise, as the two
+conveyances lumbered into town.
+
+Nat shut off power in front of the post-office and at the same time
+Cal applied and locked the brakes, bringing the stage likewise
+to a standstill. The postmaster, a long, lanky Westerner, with a
+much-patched pair of trousers tucked into boot tops, was already out in
+front of his little domain.
+
+"Ther horses be back in ther barn," he volunteered, as Cal looked at
+him questioningly. "They come galloping in here like a blue streak an
+hour ago."
+
+"Yep, bin held up again," Cal volunteered as the crowd gathered about
+the stage, "and ef it hadn't been for these bubble boys here we
+wouldn't hev got inter town yit."
+
+"Take everything, Cal?" asked the postmaster.
+
+"Yep; stock, lock and barrel, as the feller says. Left us our
+vallibles, though. I reckon they would have taken them if it hadn't bin
+for the noise this here gasolene giglet made as it come over ther hill.
+Thet scared 'em, and they galloped off, takin' ther plugs with 'em."
+
+"Consarn 'em! I reckon they're some of Col. Merced Morello's gang.
+They've bin active hereabouts lately. Jes heard afore you come in thet
+they'd raided a ranch up north an' tuk two hundred head of stock."
+
+"Outrageous! Outrageous!" exclaimed the white-whiskered man, who had
+been listening with an angry, red countenance, "why does not some one
+capture them?"
+
+"Well, sir," rejoined the postmaster, "if you kin tell us whar ter find
+'em we'll furnish ther men to smoke 'em out. But up to date no one
+ain't bin able ter git a glimpse of 'em. They jes' swoop down and then
+vanish ag'in."
+
+"They've got some hidin' place off in the mountins," opined Cal; "but
+you can bet that the old colonel's foxy enough ter keep it close,
+wherever it is."
+
+"Betcher life," said one or two in the crowd who had heard.
+
+While this had been going on the Motor Rangers had been hard at work
+unhitching their car from the stage. In this operation they had been
+considerably bothered by the crowd which, never having seen an auto
+before, elbowed right up and indulged in comment and investigation.
+Ding-dong caught one bewhiskered old fellow in the very act of
+abstracting a spark plug. The boy promptly switched on the current and
+the investigator, with a wild yell, hopped backward into the crowd,
+wringing his hand.
+
+"The critter bit me," he explained to the crowd. Such was his
+explanation of the sharp electric shock he had received.
+
+The proprietor of the hotel now hastened up, and began urging the
+passengers on the stage to stay the night in his hotel. Another stage
+went on from Lariat, and after a run of sixty miles struck the railroad
+in the valley. This stage was to start in half an hour. After a hasty
+meal the white-whiskered man and his family, and several of the other
+passengers, decided to continue their journey. The boys, however, after
+a consultation, came to the determination to spend the night at Lariat.
+
+Their first care had been to hunt up the blacksmith Cal had referred
+to, and to give into his hands the connecting rod. He promised to have
+it welded as good as new by morning. This arranged, the boys sauntered
+back to the hotel just in time to watch the other stage pull out. On a
+rear seat sat the white-whiskered man. He was still boiling, despite
+the fact that the robbers had not harmed him or his family in any way.
+In fact, he occasionally simmered over.
+
+The last the boys saw of him he had gotten hold of a fat, good-natured
+little man, who looked like a drummer, and they could hear frequent
+exclamations of "Bah!" coming back toward them, like the explosions of
+a rapid-fire gun. A moment later the stage vanished behind a rocky turn
+in the road.
+
+Soon after the boys were called in to supper. Among the company at the
+meal was a tall man with a black mustache drooping down each side of
+his mouth in typical Western fashion.
+
+"He looks like the pictures of Alkali Ike," remarked Joe in an
+undertone as they concluded the meal and arose, leaving the
+black-mustached man and the others still eating.
+
+Outside they found it was a beautiful night. The storm of the afternoon
+had laid the dust, and the moon was rising brilliantly in the clear and
+sharp atmosphere peculiar to the high regions of the Sierras. In the
+silvery radiance every rock and bush was outlined sharply. The road
+lay between black curtains of mountainside, like a stretch of white
+ribbon.
+
+"Let's go for a stroll," suggested Nat, as they stood about on the
+veranda wondering what they could do with themselves till bedtime.
+
+The other two were nothing loath, and so, without bothering to say a
+word to any one, the lads sauntered off down the road. The balmy scent
+of pines and the mountain laurel hung heavily in the air. Nat inhaled
+it delightedly.
+
+"I tell you, fellows, this is living," he exclaimed.
+
+"You bet," agreed Joe heartily.
+
+"T-t-t-that p-p-pie was f-f-fine," said the unpoetical Ding-dong,
+smacking his lips at the recollection of the dessert.
+
+"There you go," said Nat in mock disgust, "always harping on eating."
+
+"T-th-that's b-b-better-phwit--than eating on harpoons, isn't it?"
+asked Ding-dong, with a look of injured innocence.
+
+"I said harping on eating. Not harpoons on eating," retorted Nat.
+
+"Oh," said Ding-dong. "Well, don't wail about it."
+
+"Say, if you make any more puns I'll chuck you down into that canyon,"
+threatened Joe, pointing downward into a black abyss which, at the
+portion of the road they had now reached, yawned to one side of the
+thoroughfare.
+
+"You make me chuckle," grunted the incorrigible Ding-dong, avoiding the
+threatened fate, however, by clambering and hiding behind a madrone
+tree.
+
+"Tell you what I'll do," cried Nat suddenly.
+
+"Well, what?" demanded Joe, as Nat stopped short.
+
+"I'll run you fellows a race to the bottom of the hill."
+
+"You're on," cried Ding-dong from his retreat, and emerging immediately
+thereafter, "don't bust your emergency brake though, or we'll have more
+trouble."
+
+He peered ahead down the moonlit canyon, and noted that the road was
+quite steep for a distance of about a quarter of a mile.
+
+The boys were all good runners and experts, in fact, at all branches
+of athletics. Their blood fairly tingled as Nat lined them up and they
+stood awaiting the word "go."
+
+At last it came.
+
+Like arrows from so many bows the three boys shot forward, Ding-dong
+in the lead. How his stubby legs did move! Like pistons in their speed
+and activity. There was no question about it, Ding-dong could run. Five
+feet or so behind him came Joe and at his rear was Nat, who, knowing
+that he was ordinarily a faster runner than either, had handicapped
+himself a bit.
+
+He speedily overhauled the others, however, although Ding-dong gave him
+a stiff tussle. Reaching the finishing line, Nat looked back up the
+moonlit road. Ding-dong and Joe were speeding toward him neck and neck.
+
+"Go it, Ding-dong!" yelled Nat, "come on, Joe."
+
+In a cloud of dust and small rocks the two contestants rushed on.
+Suddenly one of Ding-dong's feet caught in a rock, and at the impetus
+he had attained, the sudden shock caused him to soar upward into the
+air, as if he were about to essay a flight through space.
+
+Extending his arms spread-eagle fashion, the fleshy, stuttering youth
+floundered above the ground for a brief second, and then, as Joe dashed
+across the line he came down with a resounding crash. Flat on his face
+he fell in the middle of the dusty road.
+
+"Pick him up," exclaimed Nat as he saw the catastrophe.
+
+Joe, who had by this time checked his speed, headed about after Nat,
+and started for the recumbent Ding-dong. As they neared his side,
+however, the lad jumped up with a grin on his rotund features.
+
+"Fooled you, didn't I?" he chuckled.
+
+"Goo--d gracious. I thought you had fractured every bone in your body,"
+exclaimed Nat.
+
+"Can't hurt me; I'm made of cast-iron," snickered Ding-dong.
+
+"I always knew that applied to your head," said Joe, determined to
+tease the boy a bit in revenge for the fright he had given them, "but I
+never realized before that the complaint had spread all over you."
+
+"I'd have won the race anyhow if I hadn't taken that tumble," retorted
+Ding-dong, and as this seemed to be no more than the truth the others
+had nothing to say in rejoinder.
+
+"I guess we had better be getting back to the hotel," said Nat, "we
+want to get an early start to-morrow, so a good night's sleep will be
+in order."
+
+But the words were hardly out of his mouth before he stopped short.
+
+The boy had heard voices, apparently coming from the air above them.
+He soon realized, however, that in reality the speakers were on the
+mountain-side above them. In fact, he now saw that a trail cut into
+the road above the point at which they stood. In their dash down the
+hill they had not noticed it. The other lads, who had also heard the
+voices, needed no comment to remain quiet.
+
+While they stood listening a figure appeared on the trail, walking
+rapidly down it. As the newcomer drew closer the boys recognized
+the features and tall, ungainly outline of the man with the black
+mustache--"Alkali Ike." He came forward as if with a definite purpose
+in mind. Evidently, he was not, like the boys, out for a moonlight
+stroll.
+
+As he approached he stopped and listened intently. Then he gave a low,
+peculiar whistle. It was like the call of a night bird.
+
+Instantly, from the hill-side above them they heard the signal--for
+such it seemed--replied to.
+
+At the same instant whoever was on the hillside above began to advance
+downward. The boys, crouching back in a patch of shadow behind a
+chaparral clump, could hear the slipping and sliding of their horses'
+hoofs as they came down the rocky pathway.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+AN APPOINTMENT ON THE TRAIL.
+
+
+"Something's up," whispered Joe, as if this fact was not perfectly
+obvious.
+
+"Hush," warned Nat, "that fellow who just came down the trail is the
+chap we noticed at supper."
+
+"Alkali Ike?"
+
+"Yes. That's what you called him."
+
+"He must have a date here."
+
+"Looks that way. If I don't miss my guess he's here to meet whoever is
+coming on horseback down that trail."
+
+"Are you going to stay right here?"
+
+"We might as well. I've got an idea somehow that these chaps are up to
+some mischief. It doesn't look just right for them to be meeting way
+off here."
+
+"That's right," agreed Joe, "but supposing they are desperate
+characters. They may make trouble for us."
+
+"I guess not," rejoined Nat, "we're well hidden in the shadow here.
+There's not a chance of their seeing us."
+
+"Well I hope not."
+
+But the arrival of the horsemen on the trail put a stop to further
+conversation right then. There were two of them, both, so far as the
+boys could see, big, heavy men, mounted on active little ponies. Their
+long tapaderos, or leather stirrup coverings, almost touched the ground
+as they rode.
+
+"Hello, Al," exclaimed one of them, as the black mustached man came
+forward to meet them.
+
+"Hello, boys," was the rejoinder in an easy tone as if the speaker had
+no fear of being overheard, "well, you pulled it off I see."
+
+"Yes, and we'd have got more than the express box too if it hadn't been
+for the allfiredest noise you ever heard at the top of the trail all of
+a sudden. It came just as we was about ter go through ther pockets of
+the passengers. Sounded like a boiler factory or suthin'. I tell you we
+lit out in a hurry."
+
+The speaker was one of the pony riders. As he spoke Nat gave Joe a
+nudge and the other replied with a look of understanding. The men who
+stood talking not a score of paces from them had taken part in the
+stage-robbery.
+
+The man on foot seemed immensely amused at the mention of the "terrible
+noise" his companions said they had been alarmed by.
+
+"Why, that was an automobubble," he laughed.
+
+"A bubble!" exclaimed one of the others, "what in the name of the
+snow-covered e-tarnal hills is one of them coal oil buckboards doin' in
+this neck of ther woods?"
+
+"Why, three kids are running it on a pleasure trip. The Motor Rangers,
+or some such fool name, they call theirselves. They hitched the bubble
+on ter ther stage and towed her inter town as nice as you please."
+
+"Did you say they called theirselves the Motor Rangers?" asked the
+other mounted man who up to this time had not spoken.
+
+"That's right, why?"
+
+"One of 'em a fat, foolish lookin' kid what can't talk straight?" asked
+the other instead of replying.
+
+Nat nudged Ding-dong and chuckled, in imminent danger of exposing their
+hiding place. It tickled him immensely to hear that youth described in
+such an unflattering manner.
+
+"Why yep. There is a sort of chumpish kid with 'em. For the matter of
+that all three of 'em are stuck up, psalm singin' sort of kids. Don't
+drink nor smoke nor nuthin'."
+
+"True for you. We're not so foolish," breathed Nat to Joe.
+
+"Why are you so anxious about 'em, Dayton?" asked the other rider who
+had remained silent while his comrade was making the recorded inquiries.
+
+"Cos I know 'em and I've got some old scores to even up with them,"
+was the rejoinder. "Do you remember what I told you about some kids
+fooling us all down in Lower California?"
+
+"Yep. What of it?"
+
+"Well, this is the same bunch. I'm sure of it."
+
+"The dickens you say. Do they travel with much money about them?"
+
+It was the black-mustached man who was interested now.
+
+"I don't know about that. But their bubble is worth about $5,000 and
+one of them has a gold mine in Lower Cal. Then, too, they always carry
+a fine stock of rifles and other truck."
+
+"They'd be worth plucking then?"
+
+"I guess so. At any rate I'd like to get even with them even if we
+didn't get a thing out of it. Ed. Dayton doesn't forgive or forget in a
+hurry."
+
+Small wonder that the boys leaned forward with their ears fairly aching
+to catch every word. Nat knew now why the outline of one of the riders
+had seemed familiar to him. The man was evidently none other than Ed.
+Dayton, the rascal who had acted as the millionaire Hale Bradford's
+lieutenant in Lower California.
+
+Nat, it will be recalled, was captured on the peninsula and an attempt
+made to force him to give up papers showing his right to the mine,
+which the gang Hale Bradford had gathered about him was working. I can
+tell you, Nat was mighty glad that he and his companions happened to be
+there in the shadow; for, thought he to himself:--
+
+"Forewarned is forearmed, Mr. Ed. Dayton."
+
+But the men were resuming their talk.
+
+"Tell you what you fellows do," said the black-mustached man. "Just lie
+off here in the brush for an hour or so and I'll go back to the hotel
+and look around. Then I'll come back and tell you if the coast's clear.
+They've got their auto out in some sort of a shed and if we could run
+it we could swipe the whole thing. Can you run an auto, Ed.? Seems to
+me I've heard you talk about them."
+
+"Can a dog bark?" inquired the other, who if the memory of my readers
+goes back that far, they will recall had at one time been a chauffeur
+for Mr. Pomery.
+
+"Very well then, that's settled. At all events it might be a good thing
+to smash up the car if we can't do anything else with it."
+
+"That's right Al.," agreed Ed. Dayton's companion, "we don't want any
+nosy kids around in the mountains. They might discover too much."
+
+"That's so, too. Well, you leave it to me, Al. Jeffries, and I'll
+bet you that after to-night they'll all be glad to go home to their
+mammies."
+
+But right here something happened which might, but for good fortune,
+have caused a different ending to this story.
+
+Ding-dong Bell, among other peculiarities, possessed a pair of very
+delicate nostrils, and the slightest irritation thereof caused him to
+sneeze violently. Now at the time of the year of which we are writing
+the California mountains are covered with a growth, called in some
+localities tar weed. This plant gives off an irritating dust when it
+is shaken or otherwise disturbed, and the hoofs of the two riders'
+ponies had kicked up a lot of this pungent powder. Just as the rascals
+concluded their plans a vagrant puff of wind carried some of it in
+Ding-dong's direction.
+
+Realizing what serious consequences it might have, the lad struggled
+with all his might against his immediate inclination to sneeze, but try
+as he would he could not keep the ultimate explosion back.
+
+"A-ch-oo-oo-oo-oo!"
+
+It sounded as loud as the report of a cannon, in the silent canyon, and
+quite as startling.
+
+"What in thunder was that?" exclaimed Ed. Dayton wheeling his pony
+round.
+
+He, of course, saw nothing, and regarded his companions in a puzzled
+way.
+
+Al. Jeffries was tugging his black mustache and looking about him
+likewise for some explanation. But he could not find it. In the
+meantime, the boys, in an agony of apprehension, scarcely dared to
+breathe. They crouched like rabbits behind their shelter awaiting what
+seemed inevitable discovery.
+
+"Must have been a bird," grunted Ed. Dayton's companion.
+
+"Funny sort of bird," was the rejoinder.
+
+"That's right. I am a funny sort of bird," thought Ding-dong with an
+inward chuckle.
+
+"Sounded to me more like somebody sneezin'," commented Ed. Dayton who
+was still suspicious.
+
+"It'll be a bad day for them if there was," supplemented Al. Jeffries
+grimly.
+
+"Tell you what we do, boys," came a sudden suggestion from Ed.'s
+companion, which sent a chill to the hearts of the boys; "let's scatter
+about here and look around a bit."
+
+"That's a good idea," was the alarming rejoinder.
+
+Nat was just revolving in his mind whether it would be the better
+expedient to run, and trust to hiding in the rocks and chaparral, or to
+leap up and try to scare the others' ponies, and then escape. But just
+then Al. Jeffries spoke:
+
+"No use wastin' time on that now, boys," he said, "it's gettin' late.
+You do as I say, and then in a while we'll all take a little spin in
+that grown up taxi cab of the Motor Rangers."
+
+To the intense relief of the boys the others agreed. Soon after this
+the trio of rascals separated. Ed. Dayton and his companions rode back
+up the trail while Al. Jeffries started off for the hotel.
+
+As soon as their footsteps grew faint Nat galvanized into action.
+
+"We've got a lot to do in a very short time," he announced excitedly.
+"Come on, Joe! Shake a foot! We've got to beat Mr. Al. back to the
+hotel."
+
+"How?" inquired Joe amazedly, but not doubting in his own mind that Nat
+had already thought the matter out thoroughly.
+
+"We'll skirt along the mountain-side above him. If we are careful he
+won't hear us."
+
+"That is, if Ding-dong can muffle that nasal gatling gun of his,"
+grunted Joe. "Say, young fellow, the next time you want to sneeze when
+we're in such a tight place, just oblige us by rolling over the edge of
+the canyon, will you?"
+
+"I c-c-c-o-o-ouldn't help it," sputtered Ding-dong sorrowfully.
+
+"Couldn't," exclaimed the indignant Joe, "you didn't even try."
+
+"I did too. But I couldn't remember whether the book said that you
+could stop sneezing by pulling the lobe of your ear or rubbing the
+bridge of your nose."
+
+"So you did both?"
+
+"Y-y-y-yes; why?"
+
+"Well, they were both wrong. You should have wiggled your right big toe
+while you balanced a blade of grass on your chin."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+SOME RASCALS GET A SCARE.
+
+
+Everybody in the hotel at Lariat had long retired to bed, when three
+youthful forms stole toward the stable which had been turned into a
+temporary garage for the Motor Rangers' big car. From their bed-room
+window, the boys had, a few moments before, watched Al. Jeffries stride
+off down the trail to meet his cronies for the second time and inform
+them that the time was ripe to put up their attempted trick on the lads.
+
+The doughty Al., on his return to the hotel after the conference at
+which the lads were eavesdroppers, had found nothing to excite his
+suspicion. The boys were all seated on the porch and apparently had not
+moved since he had last seen them. Al. had even sat around with them a
+while, trying to pump them, but of course, after what they knew of him,
+they did not give him much information. Nat had formed an idea that
+the man was a sort of agent for the gang of the famous Morello. That
+is, he hung about towns and picked up any information he could about
+shipments of specie from the mines, or of wealthy travellers who might
+be going through. In this surmise we may say that Nat was correct.
+
+But to return to the three lads whom we left at the beginning of the
+chapter stealthily slipping across the moonlit space between the hotel
+and the stable. All three had changed their boots for soft moccasins,
+in which they made next to no noise at all as they moved. Each lad,
+moreover, carried under his arm a small bundle. Their clothing
+consisted of trousers and shirts. Their broad-brimmed sombreros had
+been doffed with their coats. The Motor Rangers were, so to speak,
+stripped for action. And it was to be action of a lively kind as the
+event was to show.
+
+On their arrival at the stable the boys slipped into an empty stall
+alongside their car, and undoing their bundles, hastily donned what was
+in them. Then Nat uncorked a bottle, while a strong odor filled the
+air. It was a pungent sort of reek, and from the bottle could be seen a
+faint greenish light glowing.
+
+Their preparations completed, the Motor Rangers crouched behind the
+wooden wall of the stall, awaiting the next move on the program.
+
+"And for heaven's sake sit on that sneeze!" Joe admonished Ding-dong.
+
+Before very long the boys could hear cautious footsteps approaching the
+barn, and the sound of low whispering.
+
+"The auto's right in here," they caught, in Jeffries' voice. "Say, what
+a laugh we'll have on those kids in the morning."
+
+"They laugh best who laugh last," thought Nat to himself, clutching
+more tightly a small gleaming thing he had in his hand.
+
+"This is pie to me," they could hear Dayton whispering, in a cautious
+undertone, "I told those kids I'd get even on them for driving me out
+of Lower California, and here's where I do it."
+
+Nat gritted his teeth as he listened.
+
+"You're going to get something that you don't expect," he muttered
+softly to himself.
+
+The next instant the barn door framed three figures. Behind them were
+two ponies. The feet of the little animals were swathed in sacks so
+that they made no noise at all.
+
+"Pretty foxy," whispered Joe, "they've padded the ponies' hoofs."
+
+"Hush!" ordered Nat, "don't say a word or make a move till I give the
+signal."
+
+"There's the car," whispered Jeffries, as they drew closer and the
+shadow of the place enclosed them, blotting out their outlines.
+
+"Seems a shame to run it over a cliff, don't it?" put in Dayton's
+fellow pony rider.
+
+"That's the only thing to do with it," said Dayton abruptly, "I want to
+give those kids a lesson they won't forget."
+
+"So, you rascals," thought Nat, "you were going to run the car over a
+cliff were you? Oh, how I'd like to get my hands on you for just five
+minutes."
+
+"Go on, Dayton. Climb into the thing and start her up," said Jeffries.
+
+"Hope them kids don't wake up," put in Dayton's companion.
+
+"They're off as sound as tops," Al. assured him, "I listened at their
+door after I came out, and they were snoring away like so many buck
+saws."
+
+With the ease born of familiarity with motor vehicles, Dayton climbed
+into the driver's seat and bent over the steering wheel.
+
+Presently there came a sharp click!
+
+"Now!" whispered Nat.
+
+As he gave the word, from behind the wooden partition upreared three
+terrifying objects. Their faces glared greenly and their white forms
+seemed to be shrouded in graveyard clothes.
+
+In unison they uttered a dismal cry.
+
+"Be-ware! Oh be-ware of the car of the Motor Ranger boys!"
+
+"Wow!" yelled Dayton's companion.
+
+As he gave the alarmed cry he fairly reeled back against the opposite
+stall and fell with a crash. At the same instant, an old claybank mule
+tethered in there awoke, and resenting the man's sudden intrusion, let
+fly with his hind hoofs. This shot the ruffian's form full tilt into
+that of Al. Jeffries, who was making at top speed for the door, and the
+two fell, in a rolling, cursing, struggling, clawing heap on the stable
+floor.
+
+"Lemme up!" yelled Al. Jeffries, in mortal terror of the grim sheeted
+forms behind him.
+
+"Lemme go!" shouted Dayton's companion, roaring half in fear and half
+in pain at the reminiscences of the mule's hoofs he carried.
+
+But the startling apparitions, while at their first appearance they had
+made Dayton recoil, only fooled him for an instant. Springing erect
+from his first shock of amazement and alarm he gave an angry shout.
+
+"Get up there you fools."
+
+"Oh the ghosts! The ghosts with the green faces," bawled Al. Jeffries.
+
+"Ghosts!" roared Dayton angrily, "they're no ghosts. Get up and knock
+their heads off."
+
+Suiting the action to the word he leaped from the car and charged
+furiously at Nat. The boy's fist shot out and landed with a crash on
+the point of his jaw, but although Dayton reeled under the force of the
+blow he recovered instantly and charged furiously again on the sheeted
+form.
+
+In the meantime, Al. Jeffries and the other man had rolled apart and
+perceived the state of affairs. The noise of the impact of Nat's fist
+showed conclusively that it was no ghostly hand that had struck the
+blow, and the fact rallied their fleeting courage. As furiously as had
+Dayton, they charged upon the boys. The rip and tear of sheets, and the
+sound of blows given and received, mingled with the angry exclamations
+of the men and the quick, panting breath of the boys.
+
+Suddenly, Nat levelled the little bright glinting thing he had clutched
+in his hand as they crouched behind the wooden partition. He pressed a
+trigger on its underside and a hissing sound followed.
+
+"Sfiz-z-z-z-z-z!"
+
+At the same instant the air became surcharged with a pungent odor. It
+seemed to fill the atmosphere and made nostrils and eyes smart.
+
+"Ammonia!" shouted Al. Jeffries, staggering backward and dabbing
+desperately at his face where the full force of Nat's charge had
+expended itself. As upon the other occasion, when the ammonia pistols
+had been used, the rout of the enemy was complete. With muffled
+imprecations and exclamations of pain, the three reeled, half blinded,
+out of the barn.
+
+At the same instant the boys heard windows thrown up and the sharp
+report of a revolver.
+
+"Fire! Thieves! Murder!" came from one window, in the landlord's voice,
+following the discharge of the pistol.
+
+"Get to the ponies," roared Dayton, "we'll have the whole hornets' nest
+about our ears in a minute."
+
+The others needed no urging. Grabbing Al. Jeffries by the arm, Dayton's
+companion, who was only partially blinded, made for his little steed.
+But Dayton, who had hardly received any of the aromatic discharge,
+suddenly whipped about and snatched a revolver from his side. Before
+the boys could dodge the man fired at them.
+
+Nat felt the bullets fan the air by his ear, but fortunately, the man
+fired so quickly and the excitement and confusion was such, that in the
+moonlight he missed his aim.
+
+"I'll make you smart for this some day!" he yelled, as fearful of
+lingering any longer he swung himself into his saddle. He drove home
+the spurs and with a squeal and a bound the little animal carried him
+out of the region of the hotel.
+
+As for Dayton's companion he was already a good distance off with Al.
+Jeffries clinging behind him on his saddle.
+
+Joe had made for the auto and seized a rifle from the rack in the
+tonneau as Dayton galloped off, but Nat sharply told him to put it down.
+
+"We have scared the rascals off, and that's enough," he said.
+
+In a few minutes the Motor Rangers were surrounded by everybody in the
+hotel, including Cal and the postmaster. They were warmly congratulated
+on their success by all hands, and much laughter greeted their
+account of the amusing panic into which the rascals had been thrown
+by the sudden appearance of the glowing-faced ghosts, followed by the
+discharge of the "mule battery."
+
+"How did yer git the green glowing paint?" asked Cal interestedly.
+
+"Why, we took the liberty of soaking two or three bundles of California
+matches in the tooth glass," explained Nat, "and then we had a fine
+article of phosphorus paint."
+
+"Wall if you ain't the beatingest," was the landlord's admiring
+contribution.
+
+In the midst of the explanations, congratulations and angry
+denunciation of Al. Jeffries and his companions, a sudden piping voice
+was heard.
+
+"Yust von moment blease. Vait! Nod a mofe!--Ah goot, I haf you!"
+
+It was the little German, whom, the boys had discovered, was named
+Hans Von Schiller Muller. He had sprung out of bed in the midst of the
+excitement and instantly decided it would make a good subject for his
+camera. He presented a queer figure as he stood there, in pajamas
+several sizes too small for him and striped with vivid pink and green.
+The shrinkage had been the work of a Chinese laundryman in the San
+Joaquin Valley.
+
+"Say," exclaimed Joe, "you don't expect to get a picture out of that do
+you?"
+
+"Chess. Sure. Vy nodt?"
+
+"Well, because in the first place you had no light," said Joe.
+
+"Ach! Donnerblitzen, miserable vot I am. I shouldn't have got id a
+flash-light, aind't it. Hold on! Vait a minute. I get him."
+
+"Better defer it till to-morrow," said Nat, who like the rest, was
+beginning to shiver in the keen air of the mountains, "it's too cold to
+wait for all your preparations."
+
+And so, when Herr Muller returned to the fatherland there was one
+picture he did not have, and that was a portrait of the Motor Rangers
+as they appeared immediately after routing three notorious members of
+Col. Morello's band of outlaws.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+A PHOTOGRAPHER IN TROUBLE.
+
+
+The boys were not up as early the next morning as they had anticipated.
+In the first place, it was somewhat dull and overcast, and in the
+second they were naturally tired after their exciting adventures of the
+preceding day and night. The first person to hail them as they left
+the dining room where they had partaken of a hearty breakfast was Cal
+Gifford. The stage driver drew them aside and informed them in an irate
+voice that on account of the stage having been held up the day before,
+he had been notified by telegraph early that morning that his services
+would be no longer required by the Lariat Stage Company.
+
+"What are you going to do?" asked Nat, after he had extended his
+sympathies to the indignant Cal.
+
+"Wall, I've got a little mine up north of here that I think I'll go and
+take a look at," said Cal.
+
+"How far north?" asked Nat interestedly.
+
+"Oh, 'bout two hundred miles. I'm all packed ready ter go, but I cain't
+git a horse."
+
+He indicated a battered roll of blankets and a canteen lying on the
+porch. Surmounting this pile of his possessions was an old rifle--that
+is, in pattern and design, but its woodwork gleamed, its barrel was
+scrupulously polished, and its mechanism well oiled. Like most good
+woodsmen and mountaineers, Cal kept good care of his weapons, knowing
+that sometimes a man's life may depend on his rifle or revolver.
+
+"Can't get a horse?" echoed Nat. "Why, I should think there would be no
+trouble about that."
+
+"Wall, thar wouldn't hev bin, but thet little Dutchman bought a nag
+this mornin' and started off ter take picters on his lonesome."
+
+"I guess you mean he hired one, don't you?" asked Joe.
+
+"No siree. That Teutonic sport paid hard cash fer ther plug. He tole
+the landlord that he means ter make a trip all through the Sierras
+hereabout, making a fine collection of pictures."
+
+"He must be crazy, starting off alone in an unknown country," exclaimed
+Nat.
+
+"Thet's jes' what they all tole him, but there ain't no use arguin'
+with er mule or a Dutchman when their mind's set. He started off about
+an hour ago with a roll of blankets, a frying pan and his picture box."
+
+"He stands a chance of getting captured by Col. Morello's band,"
+exclaimed Joe.
+
+"It's likely," agreed Cal, "but what I was a goin' ter tell yer wuz
+that ther plug he bought was ther last one they had here. An' so now
+I'm stuck I guess, till they git some more up from ther valley."
+
+"Tell you what you do," said Nat after a brief consultation with his
+chums, "why not take a ride with us as far as your way lies, and then
+proceed any way you like?"
+
+"What, ride with you kids in thet gasolene tug boat?"
+
+"Yes, we'd be glad to have you. You know the roads and the people up
+through here, and could help us a whole lot."
+
+"Say, that's mighty white of yer," said Cal, a broad smile spreading
+over his face, "if I wouldn't be in ther way now----"
+
+"We'll be very glad to have you," Nat assured him, while Joe and
+Ding-dong nodded their heads in affirmation, "are you ready to start?"
+
+Cal nodded sidewise at his pile of baggage.
+
+"Thar's my outfit," he said.
+
+"All right. Then I'll pay our bill and we'll start right away."
+
+And so it was arranged. Ten minutes later the Motor Rangers in their
+big touring car rolled majestically out of the town of Lariat, while
+Cal in the tonneau waved his sombrero to admiring friends.
+
+"This is ther first time I ever rode a benzine broncho," he declared as
+the car gathered way and was soon lost to the view of the citizens of
+Lariat in a cloud of dust.
+
+The road lay through the same canyon in which they had so fortunately
+overheard the conversation of Al. Jeffries and his cronies the night
+before. It was a sparkling morning, with every object standing out
+clear and intense in the brilliant light of the high Sierras. A crisp
+chill lay in the air which made the blood tingle and the eyes shine.
+As they rolled on with the engine singing its cheering song Cal, too,
+burst into music:
+
+      "Riding along on my gasolene bronc;
+    Instead of a whinny it goes 'Honk! Honk!'
+      If we don't bust up we'll be in luck,
+    You'd be blowed sky-high by a benzine buck!"
+
+About noon they emerged from the narrow canyon into a wide valley, the
+broad, level floor of which was covered with green bunch grass. Through
+its centre flowed a clear stream, fed by the snow summits they could
+see in the distance. Cattle could be seen feeding at the far end of
+it and it was evidently used as a pasture by some mountain rancher.
+As they drew closer to a clump of large redwood trees at one end of
+the valley Nat gave a sudden exclamation of surprise, and stood up in
+the tonneau. Joe, who was at the wheel, sighted the scene which had
+attracted the others' attention at the same instant.
+
+A group of cattlemen could be seen under one of the larger trees, with
+a figure in their midst. They were clustered about the central object,
+and appeared to be handling him pretty roughly.
+
+Nat snatched up the glasses from their pocket in the tonneau and
+levelled them on the scene. He put them down again with an exclamation
+of excitement.
+
+"They're going to lynch that fellow," he announced.
+
+"What!" roared Cal, "lend me them peep glass things, young chap."
+
+Joe stopped the car, while Cal took a long look. He confirmed Nat's
+opinion.
+
+"They've got the rope over a limb of that tree already," he said.
+
+"How are we to help him?" cried Nat, whose first and natural thought
+had been to go to the unfortunate's assistance.
+
+"What do you want ter help him fer," grunted Cal, "like as not he's
+some sort of a horse thief or suthin'. You bet those fellers wouldn't
+be going ter string him up onless he had bin doin' suthin' he hadn't
+orter."
+
+Nat was not so sure about this. From what he knew of the West its
+impulsive citizens occasionally executed a man first and inquired into
+the justice of it afterward.
+
+"Steer for those trees, Joe," he ordered sharply.
+
+Joe, without a word, obeyed, while Cal shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"May be runnin' inter trouble," he grunted.
+
+"If you're scared you can get out," said Nat more sharply than was his
+wont.
+
+Cal looked angry for a moment, but then his expression changed.
+
+"Yer all right, boy," he said heartily, "and if ther's trouble I'm with
+you every time."
+
+"Thanks," rejoined Nat simply, "that's the opinion I'd formed of you,
+Cal."
+
+The car had now left the road and was rolling over the pasture which
+was by no means as smooth as it had appeared from the mountain road.
+However, they made good progress and as their shouts and cries had
+attracted the attention of the group of punchers under the trees, they
+at least had achieved the delay of the execution. They could now see
+every detail of the scene, without the aid of the field glasses. But
+the visage of the intended victim was hidden from them by the circle
+of wild-looking figures about him. As the Motor Rangers drew closer a
+big, raw-boned cattle puncher, with a pair of hairy "chaps" on his legs
+and an immense revolver in his hand, rode toward them. As his figure
+separated itself from the group Cal gave a low growl.
+
+"Here comes trouble," he grumbled, closing his hand over the well-worn
+butt of his pistol.
+
+"Howdy, strangers," drawled the newcomer, as he drew within earshot.
+
+"Howdy," nodded the boys, not however, checking the auto.
+
+"Hold on thar," cried the cowpuncher raising a big, gauntleted hand,
+"don't come no further, strangers. Thar's ther road back yonder."
+
+He backed up his hint by exhibiting his revolver rather ostentatiously.
+But Nat's eyelids never quivered as he looked the other full in the
+face and asked in a tone that sounded like one of mild, tenderfoot
+inquiry:--
+
+"What are you doing there, mister--branding calves?"
+
+"No we ain't, young feller," rejoined the cowpuncher, "Now if
+you're wise you'll take that fer an answer and get out of here
+pronto--quick--savee!"
+
+"I don't see any reason why we can't drive through here," said Nat,
+cunningly stringing out the talk so that the car could creep quite
+close to the group of would-be lynchers.
+
+"You don't see no reason?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Wall, stranger--thar's six reasons here and they all come out at once."
+
+As he spoke the cowpuncher tapped the shiny barrel of his revolver with
+a meaning gesture. Nat saw that he could not go much further with
+safety.
+
+"Now you git!" snarled the cowboy. "You've had fair warning. Vamoose!"
+
+As he spoke the group about the tree parted for a minute as the
+cowpunchers composing it gazed curiously at the auto, which was nearing
+them. As they separated, the figure of the victim became visible. The
+boys greeted the sight with a shout of amazement which was echoed by
+Cal.
+
+"Boys, it's Herr Muller!" shouted Nat.
+
+"Wall ther blamed Dutchman!" gasped Cal, "has he bin stealin' horses?"
+
+"Yep," rejoined the puncher briefly, "he hev. An' we're goin' ter
+string him up. Now you git out."
+
+"All right," spoke Nat suddenly, with a flashing light of excitement
+blazing in his eyes.
+
+"We'll get, but it will be--THIS WAY!"
+
+As he spoke he leaped into the driver's seat, pushing Joe to one side.
+
+The next instant the car was leaping forward with a roar and a bound,
+headed full at the band of amazed and thunderstruck cowpunchers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+LOST IN A PETRIFIED FOREST.
+
+
+Before the lynching party regained its senses Nat had rushed the car
+up alongside Herr Muller. Before that blonde pompadoured son of the
+fatherland knew what had occurred, Joe's strong arms, aided by Cal's
+biceps, jerked him off his feet and into the tonneau. But the long
+lariat which was already about his neck trailed behind, and the first
+of the punchers that realized what was happening darted forward and
+seized it as the car sped forward.
+
+"P-ouf-o-o-o-f!" choked the unfortunate German, as the noose tightened.
+The cowpuncher who had hold of the other end of the rope dug his heels
+into the ground and braced himself. Herr Muller would have been jerked
+clean out of the tonneau by his unlucky neck had it not been for
+Ding-dong Bell, who, with a swift sweep downward of his knife blade
+severed the rope.
+
+As the strain was abruptly relieved the cowpuncher who had hold of the
+other end went toppling backward in a heap. But at the same instant the
+rest came to their senses, and headed by the man who had threatened
+Nat, they clambered on their ponies and swept forward, uttering wild
+yells.
+
+If this had been all, the occupants of the auto could have afforded
+to disregard them, but, apparently realizing the hopelessness of
+attempting to overtake the fleeing car they unlimbered their revolvers
+and began a fusillade.
+
+Bullets whistled all about the Motor Rangers and their companions, but
+luckily nobody was hit. Nat's chief fear though, and his apprehension
+was shared by the rest, was that one of the bullets might puncture a
+tire.
+
+"If it ever does--good night!" thought Nat as the angry, vengeful yells
+of the cheated punchers came to his ears.
+
+But to his joy they now sounded more faintly. The pursuit was dropping
+behind. Right ahead was the feeding herd. In a few minutes the car
+would be safe from further attack,--when suddenly there came an ominous
+sound.
+
+"Pop!"
+
+At the same moment the car gave a lurch.
+
+"Just what I thought," commented Nat, in a despairing voice, "they've
+winged a tire."
+
+"Shall we have to stop?" asked Cal rather apprehensively, although a
+grim look about the corners of his mouth betokened the fact that he was
+ready to fight.
+
+"Den maype I gedt idt a pigdure, aind idt?" asked Herr Muller, with
+what was almost the first free breath he had drawn since Master Bell
+slashed the rope.
+
+"Good Lord!" groaned Cal in comical despair, "my little man, if those
+fellows ever get us you'll be able to take a picture of your own
+funeral."
+
+"How would dot be bossible?" inquired Herr Muller innocently, "if I
+voss a deader I couldn't take my own pigdure, aind't idt?"
+
+But before any of them could make a reply, indignant or otherwise, a
+sudden occurrence ahead of them caused their attention to be diverted
+into a fresh channel. The cattle, terrified at the oncoming auto, had
+stopped grazing and were regarding it curiously. Suddenly, one of them
+gave an alarmed bellow. It appeared to be a signal for flight, for like
+one animal, the herd turned, and with terrified bellowings, rushed
+madly off into the pine forests on the eastern side of the valley.
+
+This was a fortunate happening for the boys, for the cowpunchers were
+now compelled finally to give up their chase of the automobile and head
+off after the stampeded cattle.
+
+"I reckon we'd better not come this way again; it wouldn't be
+healthy-like," grinned Cal, hearing their shouts and yells grow faint
+in the distance as they charged off among the trees.
+
+"There's one thing," said Nat as he brought the crippled auto to a halt
+a short distance off, "they won't worry us for some time."
+
+"No. Among them pine stumps it'll take 'em a week to round up their
+stock."
+
+And now all hands turned to Herr Muller and eagerly demanded his
+story. It was soon told. He had arrived in the valley a short time
+before they had, and, charmed by its picturesque wildness, had begun
+enthusiastically taking pictures. In doing so, he had dismounted, and
+wandered some distance from his horse. When he turned his attention to
+it again, it had disappeared. However, although at first he thought
+he had lost the animal he soon found it grazing off among a clump
+of willows by the creek. He had mounted it and was riding off when
+suddenly the cowpunchers appeared, and as soon as their eyes fell on
+the horse accused the German of stealing it.
+
+"I dell dem dot dey is mistakes making, but der use voss iss?" he went
+on. "Dey say dot dey pinch me anyhow."
+
+"Lynch you, you mean, don't you?" inquired Nat.
+
+"Vell dey pinch me too, dond dey?" asked Herr Muller indignantly.
+"Howefer, I egsplain by dem dot dey make misdage and den a leedle bull
+boy----"
+
+"Cowboy," corrected Cal with a grin.
+
+"Ach, how I can tell idt you my story if you are interrupt all der
+time," protested the German. "Well as I voss saying, der bull-boy tells
+me, 'loafer vot you iss you dake idt my bony vile I voss go hunting
+John rabbits. Yust for dot vee hang you py der neck.'"
+
+"What did you say?" asked Nat, who began to think that the
+absent-minded German might actually have taken a wrong horse by
+accident.
+
+"I say, 'Dot is my horse. I know him lige I know it mein brudder.' But
+dey say dot I iss horse bustler----"
+
+"Rustler," muttered Cal.
+
+"And dot I most be strunged oop. So I dake idt der picdures und gif dem
+my address in Chermany und den I prepare for der endt."
+
+"Weren't you scared?" demanded Cal incredulously, for the German had
+related this startling narrative without turning a hair; in fact,
+he spoke about it as he might have talked about a tea party he had
+attended.
+
+"Ach himmel, ches I voss scaredt all right. Pudt der voss no use in
+saying noddings, voss dere?"
+
+"No I guess if you put it that way there wasn't," laughed Nat, "but you
+saved your camera I see."
+
+He looked at the black box hanging round the German's neck by a strap.
+
+"Yah," grinned Herr Muller, "I say I von't pee hanged if dey don'dt led
+itdt be mit der camera my neck py."
+
+"No wonder they say, 'Heaven help the Irish, the Dutch can look after
+themselves,'" muttered Cal to himself as the entire party got out of
+the machine and a new tire was unbuckled from the spare tire rack.
+
+The operation of replacing it was a troublesome one, and occupied some
+time.
+
+So long did it take, in fact, that it was almost sundown by the time
+the shoe had been finally bolted above the inner tube, and they were
+ready to start once more. Just as they were about to be off Cal gave an
+exclamation and pointed ahead. Looking up in the direction he indicated
+the others saw coming toward them a saddled horse. But no rider
+bestrode it, and the reins were entangled in its forefeet. It whinnied
+as it saw them and came up close to the auto.
+
+"Great Scott!" exclaimed Cal, as he saw it, "those cowpunchers had you
+right after all, Mr. Dutchman; this here is the plug you bought."
+
+"Yah! yah! I know him now!" exclaimed Herr Muller enthusiastically.
+"See dere is my plankets diedt on py der saddle."
+
+"So they are," exclaimed Nat, "at least I suppose they're yours. Then
+you actually were a horse thief and didn't know it. I suppose that when
+your horse wandered off that cowpuncher came along on his pony and left
+it while he went hunting jack rabbits. Then you, all absorbed in your
+picture taking, mistook his horse for yours."
+
+"I guess dots der vay idt voss, chust a mistage," agreed Herr Muller
+with great equanimity.
+
+"Say, pod'ner," said Cal, who had just led up the beast and restored it
+to its rightful owner, "you're glad you're livin', ain't you?"
+
+The German's blue eyes opened widely as he stared at his questioner.
+
+"Sure I iss gladt I'm lifing. Vot for--vy you ask me?"
+
+"Wall, don't make any more mistakes like that," admonished Cal with
+grave emphasis, "folks out here is touchy about them."
+
+As Herr Muller was going in the same direction as themselves he
+accepted a seat in the tonneau and his angular steed was hitched on
+behind as over the rough ground the car could not go any faster than
+a horse could trot. For some time they bumped along the floor of the
+valley and at last emerged at its upper end into a rocky-walled canyon,
+not unlike the one through which they had gained the depression in the
+hills. But to their uneasiness they could discover no road, or even a
+trail. However, the bottom of the canyon was fairly smooth and so Nat
+decided, after a consultation with Cal, to keep going north. A glance
+at the compass had shown them that the canyon ultimately cut through
+the range in that direction.
+
+"We'll strike a trail or a hut or suthin' afore long," Cal assured
+them.
+
+"I hope we strike some place to make camp," grumbled Joe, "I'm hungry."
+
+This speech made them remember that in their excitement they had
+neglected to eat any lunch.
+
+"Never mind, Joe," said Nat, "we'll soon come across a spring or a
+place that isn't all strewn with rocks, and we'll camp there even if
+there isn't a road."
+
+"No, there's no use going ahead in the dark," agreed Cal, looking about
+him.
+
+It was now quite dark, and the depth of the canyon they were traversing
+made the blackness appear doubly dense. But Nat, by gazing upward at
+the sky, managed to keep the auto on a fairly straight course, although
+every now and then a terrific bump announced that they had struck a big
+boulder.
+
+"Wish that moon would hurry up and rise; then we could see something,"
+remarked Cal, as they crept along. The others agreed with him, but they
+would not have the welcome illumination till some time later. They were
+still in the canyon, however, when a dim, silvery lustre began to
+creep over the eastern sky. Gradually the light fell upon the western
+wall of the gorge and soon the surroundings were flooded with radiance.
+
+But it was a weird and startling scene that the light fell upon. Each
+occupant of the car uttered an involuntary cry of amazement as he
+gazed about him. On every side were towering trunks of what, at first
+glance, seemed trees, but which, presently, were seen to be as barren
+of vegetation as marble columns. Stumps of these naked, leafless forms
+littered the ground in every direction. In the darkness seemingly, they
+had penetrated quite a distance into this labyrinth, for all about them
+now were the bare, black trunks. Some of them reached to an immense
+height, and others were short and stumpy. All shared the peculiarity of
+possessing no branches or leaves, however.
+
+"Where on earth are we?" asked Joe, gazing about him at the desolate
+scene.
+
+"I can't make out," rejoined Nat in a troubled tone, "it's sort of
+uncanny isn't it?"
+
+The others agreed.
+
+"Ugh; it remindts me of a grafeyardt," shivered the German, as he
+looked about him at the bare stumps rising black and ghostlike in the
+pale moonlight.
+
+Suddenly Cal, who had been gazing about him, shouted an explanation of
+the mystery.
+
+"Boys, we're in a petrified forest!" he exclaimed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE MIDNIGHT ALARM.
+
+
+The boys would have been glad to explore the petrified forest that
+night had it been practicable. They had read of the mysterious stone
+relics of ancient woods, which exist in the remote Sierras, but they
+had never dreamed they would stumble upon one so opportunely. However,
+even had they been less tired, it would have been out of the question
+to examine the strange place more thoroughly that night.
+
+As there did not seem to be any limit to the place so far as they could
+see, the boys decided to camp where they were for the night. The auto
+was stopped and the horse unhitched and turned loose at the end of a
+lariat to graze, his rope being made fast round one of the more slender
+stone trunks.
+
+"Feels like hitching him to the pillar of the City Hall at home,"
+laughed Joe, as he formed a double half hitch and left the horse to
+his own devices, first, however, having watered the animal at a small
+spring which flowed from the foot of a large rock at one side of the
+mysterious stone valley.
+
+In the meantime, Cal had built a fire of sage brush roots, for there
+was no wood about, every bit of it having turned to stone long ages
+before. The pile, on being ignited, blazed up cheerfully, illuminating
+the sterile, lonely spot with a merry red blaze. The spider was taken
+out of the utensil locker, and soon bacon was hissing in it and canned
+tomatoes and corn bubbling in adjacent saucepans. A big pot of coffee
+also sent up a savory aroma. Altogether, with canned fruit for dessert,
+the Motor Rangers and their friends made a meal which quite atoned for
+the loss of their lunch. Even Ding-dong admitted that he was satisfied
+by the time Cal drew out a short and exceedingly black pipe. The
+former stage driver rammed this full of tobacco and then leisurely
+proceeded to light it. After a few puffs he looked up at the group
+around him. They were lolling about on waterproof blankets spread out
+on the rock-strewn ground, a portion of which they had cleared. In
+the background stood the dark outlines of the auto, and beyond, the
+mysterious shadows of the petrified forest, the bequest to the present
+of the long departed stone age.
+
+"I've bin a thinkin'," began Cal, as if he were delivering his mind of
+something he had been inwardly cogitating for some time, "I've bin a
+thinkin' that while we are in this part of the country we ought to keep
+a good look out at night."
+
+"You think that Morello's band may give us more trouble?" asked Nat.
+
+"I don't jes' think so," rejoined Cal earnestly, "I'm purty jes' nat'ly
+sure of it. They ain't the sort of fellers ter fergit or furgive."
+
+"I guess you're right," agreed Nat, "that man Dayton alone is capable
+of making lots of trouble for us. We'll do as you say and set a watch
+to-night."
+
+"I vind und set my votch every night," declared Herr Muller, proudly
+drawing out of his pocket an immense timepiece resembling a bulbous
+silver vegetable.
+
+"This is a different kind of watch that we're talking about," laughed
+Nat.
+
+It was ultimately arranged, after some more discussion, that Joe and
+Nat should watch for the first part of the night and Ding-dong and Cal
+Gifford should come on duty at one o'clock in the morning. It seemed
+to young Bell that he hadn't been asleep more than five minutes when
+he was roughly shaken by Nat and told to tumble out of the tonneau as
+it was time to go on watch. Already Cal, who like an old mountaineer
+preferred to sleep by the fire, was up and stirring. It took a long
+time, though, to rout Ding-dong out of his snug bed. The air at that
+altitude is keen and sharp, and being turned out of his warm nest was
+anything but pleasant to the lad.
+
+"L-l-l-let the D-d-d-d-dutchman do it," he begged, snuggling down in
+his blankets.
+
+"No," said Nat firmly, "it's your turn on duty. Come on now, roll out
+or we'll pull you out."
+
+Finally, with grumbling protestations, the stuttering youth was hauled
+forth, and, while Nat and Joe turned in, he and Cal went on duty, or
+"sentry go," as they say in the army.
+
+"Now then," said Cal crisply, as the shivering Ding-dong lingered by
+the fire with his rifle in his chilled hands, "you go off there to the
+right and patrol a hundred feet or more. I'll do the same to the left.
+We'll meet at the fire every few minutes and get warm."
+
+"A-a-all r-r-r-right," agreed Ding-dong, who stood in some awe of the
+stage driver. Consequently, without further demur, he strode off on
+his post. Having reached the end of it he marched back to the fire and
+warmed himself a second. Then he paced off again. This kept up for
+about an hour when suddenly Cal, who was at the turning point of his
+beat, heard a startling sound off to the right among the tomb-like
+forms of the stone trees.
+
+Bang!
+
+It was followed by two other shots.
+
+Bang! Bang!
+
+The reports rang sharply, amid the silence of the desolate place, and
+sent an alarmed chill even to Cal's stout heart. He bounded back toward
+the fire just in time to meet Ding-dong, who came rushing in with a
+scared white face, from the opposite direction. At the same time Nat
+and Joe awakened, and hastily slipping on some clothes, seized their
+rifles and prepared for trouble.
+
+"What's the matter?" demanded Cal, in sharp, crisp tones, of the
+frightened sentinel.
+
+"Indians!" was the gasped-out reply, "the p-p-p-place is f-f-f-full of
+them."
+
+"Indians!" exclaimed Cal, hastily kicking out the bright fire and
+leaving it a dull heap of scattered embers, "are you sure?"
+
+"S-s-s-sure. I s-s-s-saw their f-f-f-fif-feathers."
+
+"That's queer," exclaimed Cal, "I never heard of any Indians being in
+this section before. But come on, boys, it's clear the lad here has
+seen something and we'd better get ready for trouble."
+
+An improvised fort was instantly formed, by the boys crouching in
+various points of vantage in the automobile with their rifles
+menacingly pointed outward. Herr Muller snored on serenely, and they
+allowed him to slumber.
+
+They must have remained in tense poses without moving a muscle for half
+an hour or more before any one dared to speak. Then Nat whispered,
+
+"Queer we don't see or hear anything."
+
+"They may be creeping up stealthily," rejoined Cal, "don't take your
+eye off your surroundings a minute."
+
+For some time more the lads watched with increasing vigilance. At
+length even Cal grew impatient.
+
+"There's something funny about this," he declared, and then turning on
+Ding-dong he demanded:
+
+"Are you sure you saw something?"
+
+"D-d-d-didn't I s-s-s-s-shoot at it?" indignantly responded the boy.
+
+"I know, but you actually saw something move?" persisted Nat.
+
+"Of c-c-c-course I did. You didn't think I was go-go-going to
+s-s-s-shoot at a put-put-petrified tree, did you?"
+
+"We'll wait a while longer and then if nothing shows up I'm going to
+investigate," declared Cal.
+
+"I'm with you," agreed Nat.
+
+As nothing occurred for a long time the Motor Rangers finally climbed
+out of the car, and with their rifles held ready for instant action,
+crept off in the direction from which Ding-dong's fusillade had
+proceeded. Every now and then they paused to listen, hardly breathing
+for fear of interrupting the silence. But not a sound could they
+hear. However, Ding-dong stuck stoutly to his story that he had seen
+something move and had fired at it, whereupon it had vanished.
+
+"Maybe it was Morello's gang trying to give us a scare," suggested Nat.
+
+"Ef they'd ever got as close to us as this they'd hev given us worse
+than a scare," confidently declared Cal.
+
+By this time they had proceeded quite some distance, and Cal stopped
+Ding-dong with a question.
+
+"Whereabouts were you when you fired?"
+
+"I-I do-do-do-do-don't know," stuttered the lad.
+
+"You don't know?" indignantly echoed Nat, "you're a fine woodsman."
+
+"Y-y-y-y-yes I do t-t-t-too," Ding-dong hastened to amend, "I was
+here--right here."
+
+He ascended a small knoll covered with grass, at the foot of one of the
+stone trees.
+
+"Which direction did you fire in?" was Nat's next question.
+
+"Off t-t-t-that w-w-w-w-w-way," spoke Ding-dong. "Wow, there he is now!"
+
+The boy gave a yell and started to run, and the others were
+considerably startled.
+
+From the little eminence on which they stood they could see, projecting
+from behind one of the pillars, something that certainly did look like
+two feathers sticking in an Indian's head dress. As they gazed the
+feathers moved.
+
+"Shoot quick!" cried Joe, jerking his rifle up to his shoulder, but Cal
+yanked it down with a quick pull.
+
+"Hold on, youngster. Not so fast," he exclaimed, "let's look into this
+thing first."
+
+Holding his rifle all ready to fire at the least alarm, the former
+stage driver crept cautiously forward. Close at his elbow came Nat,
+with his weapon held in similar readiness.
+
+"There is something there--see!" exclaimed Nat in an awed tone.
+
+"Yes," almost shouted the guide, "and it's that Dutchman's old plug!"
+
+The next instant his words were verified. The midnight marauder at whom
+Ding-dong had fired was nothing more dangerous than the horse of Herr
+Muller. It had broken loose in the night and was browsing about when
+the amateur sentry had come upon it. In the moonlight, and when seen
+projecting from behind a pillar, its ears, which were unusually long,
+did look something like the head dress of an Indian.
+
+"Wow!" yelled Nat, "this is one on you, Ding-dong!"
+
+"Yes, here's your Indian!" shouted Joe, doubling up with laughter.
+
+"Whoa, Indian," soothed Cal, walking up to the peaceful animal, "let's
+see if he hit you."
+
+But the merriment of the lads was increased when an examination of the
+horse failed to show a scratch or mark upon it.
+
+"That's another on you, Ding-dong," laughed Nat, "you're a fine
+sentinel. Why, you can't even hit a horse."
+
+"Well, let the Dutchman try and see if he can do any better," rejoined
+Ding-dong with wounded dignity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+ALONG THE TRAIL.
+
+
+"Voss iss dot aboudt mein horse?"
+
+The group examining that noble animal turned abruptly, to find the
+quadruped's owner in their midst. Herr Muller still wore his famous
+abbreviated pajama suit, over which he had thrown a big khaki overcoat
+of military cut belonging to Nat. Below this his bare legs stuck out
+like the drum sticks of a newly plucked chicken. His yellow hair was
+rumpled and stood up as if it had been electrified. Not one of the boys
+could help laughing at the odd apparition.
+
+"Well, pod'ner," rejoined Cal, taking up the horse's broken hitching
+rope and leading it back to its original resting place, "you're purty
+lucky ter hev a horse left at all. This yar Ding-dong Bell almost 'put
+him in the well' fer fair. He drilled about ten bullets more or less
+around the critter's noble carcass."
+
+"But couldn't hit him with one of them," laughed Nat, to Ding-dong's
+intense disgust. The stuttering lad strode majestically off to the
+auto, and turned in, nor could they induce him to go on watch again
+that night.
+
+The morning dawned as fair and bright and crisp as mornings in the
+Sierras generally do. The sky was cloudless and appeared to be borne
+aloft like a blue canopy, by the steep walls of the canyon enclosing
+the petrified forest. The boys, on awakening, found Cal already up and
+about, and the fragrance of his sage brush fire scenting the clear air.
+
+"'Mornin' boys," sang out the ex-stage driver as the tousled heads
+projected from the auto and gazed sleepily about, "I tell yer this is
+ther kind of er day that makes life worth livin'."
+
+"You bet," agreed Nat, heading a procession to the little spring at the
+foot of one of the giant petrified trees.
+
+"It's c-c-c-c-cold," protested Ding-dong, but before he could utter
+further expostulations his legs were suddenly tripped from under him
+and he sprawled head first into the chilly, clear water. Joe Hartley
+was feeling good, and of course poor Ding-dong had to suffer. By the
+time the latter had recovered his feet and wiped some of the water out
+of his eyes, the others had washed and were off for the camp fire. With
+an inward resolve to avenge himself at some future time, Ding-dong soon
+joined them.
+
+If the petrified forest had been a queer-looking place by night, viewed
+by daylight it was nothing short of astonishing.
+
+"It's a vegetable cemetery," said Cal, looking about him. "Each of
+these stone trees is a monument, to my way of thinking."
+
+"Ach, you are a fullosopher," applauded Herr Muller, who had just risen
+and was gingerly climbing out of the tonneau.
+
+"And you're full o' prunes," grunted Cal to himself, vigorously slicing
+bacon, while Nat fixed the oatmeal, and Joe Hartley got some canned
+fruit ready.
+
+Presently breakfast was announced, and a merry, laughing party
+gathered about the camp fire to despatch it.
+
+"I'll bet we're the first boys that ever ate breakfast in a petrified
+forest," commented Joe.
+
+"I reckin' you're right," agreed Cal, "it makes me feel like an
+ossified man."
+
+"Dot's a feller whose headt is turned to bone?" asked Herr Muller.
+
+"Must be Ding-dong," grinned Joe, which promptly brought on a renewal
+of hostilities.
+
+"I've read that the petrification is caused by particles of iron
+pyrites, or lime, taking the place of the water in the wood," put in
+Nat.
+
+"Maybe so," agreed Cal, "but I've seen a feller petrified by too much
+forty rod liquor."
+
+"I wonder what shook so many of the stony stumps down," inquired Joe,
+gazing about him with interest.
+
+"Airthquakes, I guess," suggested Cal, "they get 'em through here once
+in a while and when they come they're terrors."
+
+"We have them in Santa Barbara, too," said Nat, "they're nasty things
+all right."
+
+"Come f-f-f-f-from the e-e-e-earth getting a t-t-t-t-tummy ache,"
+sagely announced Ding-dong Bell.
+
+While the boys got the car ready and filled the circulating water tank
+with fresh water from the spring, Herr Muller and Cal washed the tin
+dishes, and presently all was ready for a start. Herr Muller decided
+that he would ride his horse this morning and so the move was made,
+with that noble steed loping along behind the auto at the best pace his
+bony frame was capable of producing. Luckily for him, the going was
+very hard among the fallen stumps of the petrified trees, and the tall,
+column-like, standing trunks, and the car could not do much more than
+crawl.
+
+All were in jubilant spirits. The bracing air and the joyous sensation
+of taking the road in the early dawn invigorated them.
+
+"I tell you," said Cal, "there's nothing like an early start in the
+open air. I've done it a thousand times or more I guess, but it always
+makes me feel good."
+
+"Dot iss righd," put in Herr Muller, "vunce at Heidelberg I gets me
+oop by sunrise to fighd idt a doodle. I felt goot but bresently I gedt
+poked it py der nose mit mein friendt's sword. Den I nodt feel so
+goodt."
+
+While the others were still laughing at the whimsical German's
+experience he suddenly broke into yodling:
+
+    "Hi lee! Hi lo!
+     Hi lee! Hi lay!
+     Riding along by der fine summer's day;
+     Hi lee! Hi lo!
+     Hi lee! Hi lay!
+     Riding along on my----"
+
+"Ear!" burst out Joe, as the German's horse caught its foot in a gopher
+hole, and stumbled so violently that it almost pitched the caroler over
+its head.
+
+"That's ther first song I ever heard about a Chink," commented Cal,
+when Herr Muller had recovered his equilibrium.
+
+"Voss is dot Chink?" asked Herr Muller, showing his usual keen interest
+in any new word.
+
+"Gee whiz, but you Germans are benighted folks. Why, a Chink's a
+Chinaman, of course."
+
+"Budt," protested the German spurring his horse alongside the auto and
+speaking in a puzzled tone, "budt I voss not singing aboudt a Chinaman."
+
+"Wall, I'll leave it to anyone if Hi Lee and Hi Lo ain't Chink names,"
+exclaimed Cal.
+
+Whatever reply Herr Muller might have found to this indisputable
+assertion is lost forever to the world. For at that moment Nat, who was
+at the wheel, looked up to see a strange figure coming toward them,
+making its way rapidly in and out among the column-like, petrified
+trunks. His exclamation called the attention of the others to it and
+they regarded the oncoming figure with as much astonishment as did he.
+
+It was the form of a very tall and lanky man on a very short and fat
+donkey, that was approaching them. The rider's legs projected till they
+touched the ground on each side like long piston rods and moved almost
+as rapidly as he advanced. What with the burro's galloping and the
+man's rapid footwork, they raised quite a cloud of dust.
+
+"Say, is that fellow moving the burro, or is the burro moving him?"
+inquired Joe, with perfectly natural curiosity.
+
+Faster and faster moved the man's legs over the ground, as he came
+nearer to the auto.
+
+"I should think he'd walk and let the burro ride," laughed Nat.
+
+As he spoke the boy checked the auto and it came to a standstill. The
+tall rider could now be seen to be an aged man with a long, white
+beard, and a brown, sunburned face, framed oddly by his snowy whiskers.
+He glanced at the boys with a pair of keen eyes as he drew alongside,
+and stopped his long-eared steed with a loud:
+
+"Whoa!"
+
+"Howdy," said Cal.
+
+"Howdy," rejoined the stranger, "whar you from?"
+
+"South," said Cal.
+
+"Whar yer goin'?"
+
+"North," was the rejoinder.
+
+"Say, stranger, you ain't much on the conversation, be yer?"
+
+"Never am when I don't know who I be talking to," retorted Cal. The
+boys expected to see the other get angry, but instead he broke into a
+laugh.
+
+"You're a Westerner all right," he said. "I thought everybody knew me.
+I'm Jeb Scantling, the sheep herder from Alamos. I'm looking fer some
+grass country."
+
+"Bin havin' trouble with the cattlemen?" inquired Cal.
+
+"Some," was the non-committal rejoinder.
+
+"Wall, then you'd better not go through that way," enjoined Cal,
+"there's a bunch of cattle right through the forest thar."
+
+"Thar is?" was the somewhat alarmed rejoinder, "then I reckon it's no
+place fer me."
+
+"No, you'd better try back in the mountains some place," advised Cal.
+
+"I will. So long."
+
+The old man abruptly wheeled his burro, and working his legs in the
+same eccentric manner as before soon vanished the way he had come.
+
+"That's a queer character," commented Nat, as the old man disappeared
+and the party, which had watched his curious actions in spellbound
+astonishment, started on once more.
+
+"Yes," agreed Cal, "and he's had enough to make him queer, too. A
+sheepman has a tough time of it. The cattlemen don't want 'em around
+the hills 'cos they say the sheep eat off the feed so close thar ain't
+none left fer the cattle. And sometimes the sheepmen start fires to
+burn off the brush, and mebbe burn out a whole county. Then every once
+in a while a bunch of cattlemen will raid a sheep outfit and clean it
+out."
+
+"Kill the sheep?" asked Joe.
+
+"Yep, and the sheepmen, too, if they so much as open their mouths to
+holler. I tell you a sheepman has his troubles."
+
+"Was this fellow just a herder, or did he own a flock?" inquired Nat.
+
+"I've heard that he owns his bunch," rejoined Cal. "He's had lots of
+trouble with cattlemen. No wonder he scuttled off when I tole him thar
+was a bunch of punchers behind."
+
+"I'm sorry he went so quickly," said Nat, "I wanted to ask him some
+questions about the petrified forest."
+
+"Well, we're about out of it now," said Cal, looking around.
+
+Only a few solitary specimens of the strange, gaunt stone trees now
+remained dotting the floor of the canyon like lonely monuments.
+Presently they left the last even of these behind them, and before long
+emerged on a rough road which climbed the mountain side at a steep
+elevation.
+
+"No chance of your brake bustin' agin, is ther?" inquired Cal, rather
+apprehensively.
+
+"No, it's as strong as it well can be now," Nat assured him.
+
+"Glad of that. If it gave out on this grade we'd go backward to our
+funerals."
+
+"Guess that's right," agreed Joe, gazing back out of the tonneau at the
+steep pitch behind them.
+
+Despite the steepness of the grade and the rough character of the road,
+or rather trail, the powerful auto climbed steadily upward, the rattle
+of her exhausts sounding like a gatling gun in action.
+
+Before long they reached the summit and the boys burst into a shout
+of admiration at the scene spread out below them. From the elevation
+they had attained they could see, rising and falling beneath them, like
+billows at sea, the slopes and summits of miles of Sierra country. Here
+and there were forests of dense greenery, alternated with bare, scarred
+mountain sides dotted with bare trunks, among which disastrous forest
+fires had swept. It was a grand scene, impressive in its magnitude and
+sense of solitary isolation. Far beyond the peaks below them could be
+seen snow-capped summits, marking the loftiest points of the range.
+Here and there deep dark wooded canyons cut among the hills reaching
+down to unknown depths.
+
+"Looks like a good country for grizzlies or deer," commented Cal.
+
+"Grizzlies!" exclaimed Joe, "are there many of them back here?"
+
+"Looks like there might be," rejoined Cal, "this is the land of big
+bears, big deer, little matches, and big trees, and by the same token
+there's a clump of the last right ahead of us."
+
+Sure enough not a hundred yards from where they had halted, there stood
+a little group of the biggest trees the lads had ever set eyes on.
+The loftiest towered fully two hundred feet above the ground, while a
+roadway could have been cut through its trunk--as is actually the case
+with another famous specimen of the Sequoia Gigantea.
+
+The foliage was dark green and had a tufted appearance, while the
+trunks were a rich, reddish brown. The group of vegetable mammoths was
+as impressive a sight as the lads had ever gazed upon.
+
+"Them is about the oldest livin' things in ther world," said Cal gazing
+upward, "when Noah was building his ark them trees was 'most as big as
+they are now."
+
+"I tole you vot I do," suddenly announced Herr Muller, "I take it a
+photogrift from der top of one of dem trees aindt it?"
+
+"How can you climb them?" asked Nat.
+
+"Dot iss easiness," rejoined the German, "here, hold Bismark--dot iss
+vot I call der horse--und I gedt out mein climbing irons."
+
+Diving into his blanket-roll he produced a pair of iron contrivances,
+shaped somewhat like the climbing appliances which linemen on telegraph
+systems use to scale the smooth poles. These were heavier, and with
+longer and sharper steel points on them, however. Rapidly Herr Muller,
+by means of stout straps, buckled them on, explaining that he had used
+them to take pictures from treetops within the Black Forest.
+
+A few seconds later he selected the tallest of the trees and began
+rapidly to ascend it. The climbing irons and the facility they lent him
+in ascending the bare trunk delighted the boys, who determined to have
+some made for themselves at the first opportunity.
+
+"He kin climb like a Dutch squirrel," exclaimed Cal admiringly, as with
+a wave of his hand the figure of the little German grew smaller, and
+finally vanished in the mass of dark, sombre green which clothed the
+summit of the great red-wood.
+
+"He ought to get a dandy picture from way up there," said Joe.
+
+"Yes," agreed Nat, "he----"
+
+The boy stopped suddenly short. From the summit of the lofty tree there
+had come a sharp, piercing cry of terror.
+
+"Help! help! Quvick or I fall down!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+TREED!--TWO HUNDRED FEET UP.
+
+
+Mingling with the alarming yells of the German came a strange spitting,
+snarling sound.
+
+Filled with apprehensions, the boys and Cal rushed for the foot of the
+immense tree and gazed upward into the lofty gloom of its leafy summit.
+They uttered a cry of alarm as they did so. In fact the spectacle their
+eyes encountered was calculated to cause the heart of the most hardened
+woodsman to beat faster.
+
+Astride of a branch, with his shoe soles dangling two hundred feet
+above the ground, was Herr Muller, while between him and the trunk of
+the tree was crouched a snarling, spitting wild cat of unusual size. It
+seemed about to spring at the human enemy who had unwittingly surprised
+it in its aerial retreat.
+
+The boys were stricken speechless with alarm as they gazed, but Cal
+shouted encouragingly upward.
+
+"Hold on there, Dutchy. We'll help you out."
+
+"I know. Dot iss all right," came back the reply in a tremulous tone,
+"but I dink me dis branch is rodden und ef der tom cat drives me much
+furder out I down come."
+
+"Don't dare think of such a thing," called up Cal, "just you grip tight
+and don't move."
+
+"All right, I try," quavered the photographer, about whose neck still
+dangled the tool of his craft.
+
+Cal's long legs covered the space between the tree and the auto in
+about two leaps, or so it seemed to the boys. In a flash he was back
+with his well worn rifle and was aiming it upward into the tree.
+
+But as he brought the weapon to his shoulder and his finger pressed
+the trigger the formidable creature crouching along the limb, sprang
+full at the luckless Herr Muller. With a yell that stopped the breath
+of every one of the alarmed party below, the German was seen to lose
+his hold and drop, crashing through the foliage like a rock. As he
+fell a shower of small branches and twigs were snapped off and floated
+downward into space.
+
+But Herr Muller was not doomed, as the boys feared was inevitable,
+to be dashed to pieces on the ground. Instead, just as it appeared
+impossible that he could save himself from a terrible death, the German
+succeeded in seizing a projecting limb and hanging on. The branch bent
+ominously, but it held, and there he hung suspended helplessly with
+nothing under him but barren space. Truly his position now did not
+appear to be materially bettered from its critical condition of a few
+minutes before.
+
+But the boys did not know, nor Cal either, that the Germans are great
+fellows for athletics and gymnastics, and almost every German student
+has at one time or another belonged to a Turn Verein. This was the case
+with Herr Muller and his training stood him in good stead now. With a
+desperate summoning of his strength, he slowly drew himself up upon the
+bending limb, and began tortuously to make his way in toward the trunk.
+
+As he did so, the wild cat perceiving that it was once more at close
+quarters with its enemy, advanced down the trunk, but it was not
+destined this time to reach the German. Cal took careful aim and fired.
+
+Before the echo of the sharp report had died away a tawny body came
+clawing and yowling downward, out of the tree, tumbling over and over
+as it shot downward. The boys could not repress a shudder as they
+thought how close Herr Muller had come to sharing the same fate.
+
+The creature was, of course, instantly killed as it struck the ground,
+and was found to be an unusually large specimen of its kind. Its fur
+was a fine piece of peltry and Cal's skillful knife soon had it off
+the brute's carcass. A preparation of arsenic which the boys carried
+for such purposes, was then rubbed on it to preserve it till it could
+be properly cured and mounted. This done, it was placed away with the
+mountain lion skin in a big tin case in the tonneau.
+
+While all this was going on, Herr Muller recovered the possession of
+his faculties, which had almost deserted him in the terrible moment
+when he hung between life and death. Presently he began to descend the
+tree. Near the bottom of the trunk, however, his irons slipped and he
+came down with a run and a rush that scraped all the skin off the palms
+of his hands, and coated his clothes with the red stain of the bark.
+
+He was much too glad to be back on earth, however, to mind any such
+little inconveniences as that.
+
+"Boys, I tole you ven I hung dere I dink by myselfs if ever I drop, I
+drop like Lucifer----"
+
+"L-l-lucy who?" inquired Ding-dong curiously.
+
+"Lucifer--der devil you know, nefer to rise no more yet already."
+
+"I see you have studied Milton," laughed Nat, "but I can tell you, all
+joking aside, you gave us a terrible scare. I want you to promise to do
+all your photographing from safe places hereafter."
+
+"I vould suffer more dan dot for mein art," declared Herr Muller
+proudly, "Ach, vot a terrible fright dot Robert cat give me."
+
+"Yep, those bob cats,--as we call them for short,--are ugly customers
+at close quarters," put in Cal, with a grin.
+
+"Say," said Nat, suddenly pointing below them, "that little stream down
+there looks as if it ought to have some trout in it. What do you say if
+we try and get some for dinner?"
+
+"All right," agreed Cal, "you fellers go fishin' and the perfusser here
+and I will stand by the camp."
+
+"Chess. I dinks me I dondt feel much like valking aroundt," remarked
+Herr Muller, whose face was still pale from the alarming ordeal he had
+undergone.
+
+So the boys selected each a rod and set out at a rapid pace for the
+little brook Nat had indicated. The watercourse boiled brownly along
+over a rough bed of rocks, forming here and there little waterfalls and
+cascades, and then racing on again under flowering shrubs and beneath
+high, rocky ramparts. It was ideal trout water, and the boys, who were
+enthusiastic fishermen, welcomed the prospect of "wetting a line" in it.
+
+The brook was about a quarter of a mile from the camp under the big
+trees, and the approach to it was across a park-like grassy slope.
+Beyond it, however, another range shot up forbiddingly, rearing its
+rough, rugged face to the sky like an impassable rampart. Gaunt pines
+clothed its rocky slope, intermingled with clumps of chaparral and the
+glossy-leaved madrone bushes. They grew almost down to the edge of the
+stream in which the boys intended to fish.
+
+The sport, as Nat had anticipated, was excellent. So absorbed in it did
+he become in fact, that he wandered down the streamlet's course farther
+than he had intended. Killing trout, however, is fascinating sport, and
+the time passed without the boy really noticing at all how far he had
+become separated from his companions.
+
+At last, with a dozen fine speckled beauties, not one of which would
+weigh less than three-quarters of a pound, the boy found time to look
+about him. There was not a sign of Joe or Ding-dong Bell and he
+concluded that they must be farther up the stream. With the intention
+of locating them he started to retrace his footsteps.
+
+"Odd how far a fellow can come without knowing it, when he's fishing,"
+mused Nat. I wonder how many other boys have thought the same thing!
+
+As he went along he looked about him. On his right hand towered the
+rocky slopes of the range, with the dark shadows lying under the gaunt
+pine trees. On his other hand, separated from him, however, by some
+clumps of madrone and manzinita, was the grove of big trees under which
+the auto was parked, and where Cal and Herr Muller were doubtlessly
+impatiently awaiting his arrival and that of his companions.
+
+"Got to hurry," thought Nat, mending his pace once more, but to his
+dismay, as he stepped forward, his foot slipped on a sharp-edged rock,
+and with a wrench of sharp pain he realized that he had twisted his
+ankle. The sprain, judging by the pain it gave him, seemed to be a
+severe one, too.
+
+"Wow!" thought Nat, sinking back upon another rock and nursing his
+foot, "that was a twister and no mistake. Wonder if I can get back on
+foot. Guess I'll rest a minute and see if it gets any better."
+
+The boy had sat thus for perhaps five minutes when there came a
+sudden rustling in the brush before him. At first he did not pay much
+attention to it, thinking that a rabbit, or even a deer might be going
+through. Suddenly the noise ceased abruptly. Then it came again. This
+time it was louder and it sounded as if some heavy body was approaching.
+
+"Great Scott!" was the sudden thought that flashed across the boy's
+mind, "what if it's a bear!"
+
+He had good cause for alarm in such a case, for he had nothing more
+formidable with which to face it but his fishing rod. But the next
+moment the boy was destined to receive even a greater shock than the
+sudden appearance of a grizzly would have given him.
+
+The shrubs before him suddenly parted and the figure of a man in
+sombrero, rough shirt and trousers, with big boots reaching to his
+knees, stepped out.
+
+"Ed. Dayton!" gasped Nat looking up at the apparition.
+
+"Yep, Ed. Dayton," was the reply, "and this time, Master Nat, I've got
+you where I want you. Boys!"
+
+He raised his voice as he uttered the last word.
+
+In response, from the brush-wood there stepped two others whom Nat had
+no difficulty in recognizing as the redoubtable Al. Jeffries and the
+man with whom he had struggled on the stable floor the memorable night
+of the attempted raid on the auto.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+NAT'S LUCKY ESCAPE.
+
+
+If a round black bomb had come rolling down the mountain side and
+exploded at Nat's feet he could not have been more thunderstruck than
+he was at the sudden appearance of his old enemy. True, he should have
+had such a possibility in mind, but so intent had he been on his trout
+fishing, and the pain of his injury on the top of that, that he had not
+given a thought to the possibility of any of their foes being about.
+
+"Don't make a racket," warned Al. Jeffries ominously, as he flourished
+a revolver about, "I'm dreadful nervous, and if you make a noise I
+might pull the trigger by accident."
+
+Nat saw at once that this was one way of saying that he would be shot
+if he made any outcry, and he decided that there was nothing for him
+to do but to refrain from giving any shout of alarm. Had his ankle not
+been wrenched and giving him so much pain the boy would have tried to
+run for it. But as it was, he was powerless to do anything but wait.
+
+"Ain't quite so gabby now as you was in Lower California," snarled
+Dayton vindictively, as the boy sat staring at his captors.
+
+"If you mean by that that I am not doing any talking, you're right,"
+rejoined Nat.
+
+"That's a purty nice watch you've got there," remarked Al., gazing at
+Nat's gold timepiece which had been jerked out of his breast pocket
+when he fell over the rock.
+
+"Yes," agreed Nat, determined not to show them that he was alarmed by
+his predicament, "my dead father gave me that."
+
+"Well, just hand it over."
+
+"What?"
+
+Nat's face flushed angrily. His temper began to rise too.
+
+"Come on, hand it over and don't be all night about it," ordered Al.
+
+Nat jumped to his feet.
+
+His fists were clenched ready for action. It seemed clear that if they
+were going to take the watch from him while he had strength to protect
+himself that they had a tough job in front of them. But an unexpected
+interruption occurred. It came from Ed. Dayton.
+
+"See here, Al.," he growled, "don't get too previous. I reckon the
+colonel can dispose of the watch as he sees fit. All such goes to him
+first you know, so as to avoid disputes."
+
+"Don't see where you come in to run this thing," muttered Al., but
+nevertheless he subsided into silence.
+
+All this time Nat's mind had been working feverishly. But cast about as
+he would he could not hit on a plan of escape.
+
+"I guess the only thing to do is to let them make the first move, and
+then lie low and watch for a chance to get away," he thought to himself.
+
+"Wonder what they mean to do with me anyhow?"
+
+He was not left long in doubt.
+
+"Get the horses," Dayton ordered, turning to Al. Jeffries.
+
+The other, still grumbling, turned obediently away however. There
+seemed to be no doubt that Ed. Dayton was a man of some power in the
+band. Nat saw this with a sinking heart. He knew the vengeful character
+of the man too well for it not to cause him the gravest apprehension
+of what his fate might be. Not by so much as a flicker of an eyelash,
+however, did he let the ruffians see that he was alarmed. He would not
+for worlds have given them the satisfaction of seeing him weaken.
+
+Pretty soon Al. returned with three ponies. The animals must have been
+hidden in the brush on the opposite, or mountain side of the stream,
+for this was the direction in which Al. had gone to get them. They were
+a trio of wiry little steeds. On the back of each was a high-horned and
+cantled Mexican saddle, with a rifle holster and a canteen slung from
+it. The bridle of Dayton's pony was decorated with silver ornaments in
+the Western fashion.
+
+"Come on. Get up kid," said Dayton gruffly, seizing Nat by the
+shoulder, "we've got a long way to go with you."
+
+A long way to go!
+
+The words sounded ominous, and Nat, hurt as he was, decided on taking
+a desperate chance. Springing suddenly to his feet he lowered his head
+and ran full tilt at Dayton, driving his head into the pit of the
+ruffian's stomach with the force of a battering ram.
+
+"Wo-o-o-f!"
+
+With the above exclamation the rascal doubled up and pitched over.
+Before the others could recover their presence of mind Nat, despite the
+pain in his ankle, had managed to dash in among the brush where it was
+impossible to aim at him with any hope of bringing him down.
+
+Nevertheless, Dayton's companions started firing into the close-growing
+vegetation.
+
+"Fire away," thought Nat, painfully struggling through the thick
+growth, "the more bullets you waste the fewer you'll have for your
+rascally work."
+
+But Dayton had, by this time, scrambled to his feet, and the boy could
+hear him shouting angry commands. At the same instant came shouts from
+another direction.
+
+With a quick flash of joy, Nat recognized the new voices. The shouts
+were in the welcome and familiar tones of Cal Gifford and the Motor
+Rangers.
+
+"Mount, boys, and get out of here quick!"
+
+The warning shout came from behind the fleeing boy, and was in the
+voice of Dayton. The rascal evidently had heard, and interpreted
+aright, the exclamations and shouts from the meadow side of the brook.
+The next instant a clattering of hoofs announced the fact that the
+members of Col. Morello's band of outlaws were putting all the distance
+between themselves and the Motor Rangers' camp that they could.
+
+"Good riddance," muttered Nat, thinking how nearly he had come to being
+borne off with them.
+
+But the tension of the excitement over, the pain in his ankle almost
+overcame him. He sank limply down on a rock and sent out a cry for aid.
+
+"Cal! Cal! this way!"
+
+"Yip yee!" he heard the welcome answering shout, and before many
+seconds had passed Herr Muller's horse, with the Westerner astride
+of its bony back, came plunging into the brush. Behind came Joe and
+Ding-dong, wide-eyed with excitement. They had missed their comrade
+and had been searching for him when the sound of the shots came. Cal,
+who had also become anxious, and had ridden down from the camp to the
+stream side, was with them at the moment. Together the rescue party had
+hastened forward, too late however, to find Dayton and his companions.
+They naturally heard Nat's story with deep interest and attention.
+
+"Good thing them varmints didn't know that you two weren't armed," said
+Cal, turning to Joe and Ding-dong, "or they might hev stayed. In which
+case the whole bunch of us might have been cleaned out."
+
+"I think it will be a pretty good rule never to leave camp in future
+without a revolver or a rifle," said Nat, painfully rising to his feet
+and steadying himself by gripping Bismark's mane.
+
+"Right you are, my boy. We ought to have done thet in the first place.
+Howsomever, the thing to do now is to get you back ter camp. Come on,
+I'll give you a leg up."
+
+As he spoke, Cal slid off Bismark's back, and presently Nat was in his
+place. Escorted by Joe and Ding-dong, the cavalcade lost no time in
+getting back to where the auto had been left in charge of Herr Muller.
+
+"Get any pictures while we was gone?" asked Cal as they came within
+hailing distance.
+
+"Nein," rejoined the German sorrowfully.
+
+"Nine," exclaimed Cal looking about him, "where in thunder did you get
+nine subjects about here?"
+
+"He means no," said Nat, who had to laugh despite his pain, at this
+confusion of tongues.
+
+"Wall, why can't he say so?" grunted Cal, plainly despising the
+ignorance of the foreigner.
+
+Nat's ankle was found to be quite badly twisted, but Cal's knowledge of
+woodcraft stood them in good stead. After examining it and making sure
+that nothing was broken, the former stage driver searched about the
+grassy meadow for a while and finally plucked several broad leaves from
+a low-growing bush. These had a silvery tint underneath and were dark
+on the upper surface.
+
+"Silver weed," said Cal briefly, as he came back to the camp. Selecting
+a small pot, he rapidly heated some water on the fire which Herr Muller
+had kindled in his absence. This done, he placed the leaves to steep in
+it and after a while poured off the water and made a poultice with the
+leaves. This he bound upon Nat's ankle and in a wonderfully short time
+the pain was much reduced, and the boy could use his foot.
+
+In the meantime, a spiderful of beans and bacon had been cooked to go
+with the fried trout, and the inevitable coffee prepared. For dessert
+they had canned peaches, topping off the spread with crackers and
+cheese.
+
+"Tell you," remarked Cal, as he drew out his black pipe and prepared
+to enjoy his after dinner smoke, "this thing of travelling round in an
+auto is real, solid comfort. We couldn't hev had a spread like that if
+we'd bin on the trail with a packing outfit."
+
+Dinner over and Nat feeling his ankle almost as well as ever, it
+was decided to start on at once. For one thing, the outlaws might
+have marked the camping place and it was not a good enough strategic
+position to withstand an attack if one should be made.
+
+"We want to be in a snugger place than this if that outfit starts in on
+us," said Cal decisively.
+
+"Do you think they'll make us more trouble then?" inquired Joe.
+
+"I think that what they did to-day shows that they are keeping pretty
+close watch on us, my boy. It's up to us to keep our eyes open by day
+and sleep with one optic unclosed at night."
+
+Herr Muller and Ding-dong Bell, who had undertaken the dishwashing,
+soon concluded the task and the Motor Rangers once more set out. They
+felt some regret at leaving the beautiful camping spot behind them, but
+still, as Cal had pointed out, it was a bad location from which to
+repulse an enemy, supposing they should be attacked.
+
+"Vell, I'm gladt I didndt drop from dot tree," remarked Herr Muller,
+gazing back at the lofty summit of the imposing Big Tree, in which he
+had had such a narrow escape.
+
+"You take your pictures on terra firma after this," advised Joe.
+
+"Or if you do any more such stunts leave the camera with us," suggested
+Cal, who was leading the Teuton's steed.
+
+"Then we could get a g-g-g-g-good pup-p-p-picture of what England
+d-d-dreads," stuttered Ding-dong.
+
+"What's that?" inquired Nat.
+
+"The G-g-g-g-g-german p-p-p-peril," chuckled the stuttering youth.
+
+Soon after leaving the pleasant plateau of the big trees the scenery
+became rough and wild in the extreme. The Sierras are noted for their
+deep, narrow valleys, and after about an hour's progress over very
+rough trails the Motor Rangers found themselves entering one of these
+gloomy defiles. After the bright sunlight of the open country its dim
+grandeur struck a feeling of apprehension into their minds. It seemed
+chilly and oppressive somehow.
+
+"Say, perfusser," suggested Cal presently, "just sing us that Chinese
+song to cheer us up, will you?"
+
+    "Hi lee! Hi lo!
+     Hi lee! Hi lay!----"
+
+The "perfusser," as Cal insisted on calling him, had obligingly begun
+when from ahead of them and high up, as it seemed, came a peculiar
+sound.
+
+It was a crackling of brush and small bushes apparently. Instinctively
+Nat stopped the car and it was well that he did so, for the next
+instant a giant boulder came crashing down the steep mountainside above
+them.
+
+[Illustration: Instinctively Nat stopped the car, and it was well that
+he did so, for the next instant a giant boulder came crashing down.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE VOLLEY IN THE CANYON.
+
+
+Nat had stopped in the nick of time. As the auto came to an abrupt
+halt, almost jolting those in the tonneau out of their seats, there was
+a roar like the voice of an avalanche. From far up the hillside a cloud
+of dust grew closer, and thundered past like an express train. In the
+midst of the cloud was the huge, dislodged rock, weighing perhaps half
+a ton or more.
+
+So close did it whiz by, in fact, just ahead of the car, that Nat could
+almost have sworn that it grazed the engine bonnet. The ground shook
+and trembled as if an earthquake was in progress, during the passage of
+the huge rock.
+
+"Whew! Well, what do you think of that!" gasped Joe.
+
+"I thought the whole mountainside was coming away," exclaimed
+Ding-dong, startled into plain speech by his alarm.
+
+Of course the first thing to be done was to clamber out of the car and
+examine the monster rock, which had come to rest some distance up the
+side of the opposite cliff to that from which it had fallen, such had
+been its velocity. Nat could not help shuddering as he realized that
+if the great stone had ever struck the auto it would have been, in the
+language of Cal, "Good-night" for the occupants of that vehicle.
+
+"Ach, vee vould haf been more flat as a pretzel alretty yet," exclaimed
+Herr Muller, unslinging his ever ready camera, and preparing to take a
+photo of the peril which had so narrowly missed them.
+
+"This must be our lucky day," put in Joe, "three narrow escapes, one
+after the other. I wonder if there'll be a fourth."
+
+"Better not talk about it, Joe," urged Cal, "the next time we might not
+be so fortunate."
+
+"Guess that's right," said Nat, who was examining the boulder with some
+care.
+
+Apparently it had been one of those monster rocks which glacial action
+in the bygone ages has left stranded, delicately balanced on a
+mountainside. Some rocks of this character it takes but a light shove
+to dislodge. So perfectly are other great masses poised that it takes
+powerful leverage to overcome their inertia--to use a term in physics.
+
+But the scientific aspect of the rock was not what interested Nat. What
+he wanted to find out was just how such a big stone could have become
+unseated from the mountainside and at a time when its downfall would,
+but for their alertness, have meant disaster and perhaps death, to the
+Motor Rangers. Nat had an idea, but he did not wish to announce it till
+he was sure.
+
+Suddenly he straightened up with a flushed face. His countenance bore
+an angry look.
+
+"Come here, fellows," he said, "and tell me what you make of this mark
+at the side of the rock."
+
+He indicated a queer abrasion on one side of the stone. The living
+stone showed whitely where the lichen and moss had been scraped aside.
+
+"Looks like some cuss had put a lever under it," pronounced Cal, after
+a careful inspection.
+
+"That's what. Fellows, this rock was deliberately tilted so that it
+would come down on us and crush us. Now there's only one bunch of men
+that we know of mean enough to do such a thing and that's----"
+
+_Phut-t-t!_
+
+Something whistled past Nat's ear with a noise somewhat like the
+humming of a drowsy bee, only the sound lasted but for a fraction of a
+second.
+
+Nat knew it instantly for what it was.
+
+A bullet!
+
+It struck the rock behind him, and not half an inch from a direct line
+with his head, with a dull spatter.
+
+The boy could not help turning a trifle pale as he realized what an
+exceedingly narrow escape he had had. Cal's countenance blazed with
+fury.
+
+"The--the dern--skunks!" he burst out, unlimbering his well polished
+old revolver.
+
+"Reckon two kin play at that game."
+
+But Nat pulled the other's arm down.
+
+"No good, Cal," he said, "the best thing we can do is to get out of
+here as quickly as possible. One man up there behind those rocks could
+wipe out an army down in here."
+
+Cal nodded grimly, as he recognized the truth of the lad's words. Truly
+they were in no position to do anything but, as Nat had suggested, get
+out as quickly as possible.
+
+As they reached this determination another bullet whizzed by and struck
+a rock behind them, doubly convincing them of the wisdom of this
+course. Fortunately, as has been said, the boulder had rolled clear
+across the floor of the narrow canyon, such had been its velocity. This
+was lucky for the lads, for if it had obstructed the way they would
+have been in a nasty trap. With no room to turn round and no chance of
+going ahead their invisible enemies would have had them at their mercy.
+
+But if they could not see the shooters on the hillside, those marksmen
+appeared to have their range pretty accurately. Bullets came pattering
+about them now in pretty lively fashion. Suddenly Herr Muller gave an
+exclamation and a cry of mingled pain and alarm. A red streak appeared
+at the same instant on the back of his hand where the bullet had nicked
+him. But this was not the cause of his outcry. The missile had ended
+its career in the case in which he carried his photographic plates.
+
+Nat heard the exclamation and turned about as the car began to move
+forward.
+
+"Where are you hurt?" he asked anxiously, fearing some severe injury
+might have been inflicted on their Teutonic comrade.
+
+"In der plate box," was the astonishing reply.
+
+"Good heavens, you are shot in the stomach?" cried Joe.
+
+"No, but seferal of my plates have been smashed, Ach Himmel voss
+misfordune."
+
+"I suppose you thought that plate box meant about the same thing as
+bread basket," grinned Nat, turning to Joe, as they sped forward. A
+ragged fire followed them, but no further damage to car or occupants
+resulted. Herr Muller's horse, in the emergency, behaved like a
+veteran. It trotted obediently behind the car without flinching.
+
+"Bismark, I am proudt off you," smiled his owner, after the damage to
+the plate box had been investigated and found to be not so serious as
+its owner had feared.
+
+"We must have drawn out of range," said Cal, as after a few more
+desultory reports the firing ceased altogether.
+
+"I hope so, I'm sure," responded Nat, "I tell you it's a pretty mean
+feeling, this thing of being shot at by a chap you can't see at all."
+
+"Yep, he jes' naturally has a drop on you," agreed Cal. "Wonder how
+them fellers trailed us?"
+
+"Simple enough," rejoined Nat, "at least, it is so to my way of
+thinking. They didn't _trail_ us at all. They just got ahead of us."
+
+"How do you mean?" asked Cal, even his keen wits rather puzzled.
+
+"Why they figured out, I guess, that we weren't going to be such
+cowards as to let their attempts to scare us turn us back. That being
+the case, the only way for us to proceed forward from the Big Trees
+was to drive through this canyon. I reckon therefore that they just
+vamoosed ahead a bit and were ready with that big rock when we came
+along."
+
+"The blamed varmints," ground out the ex-stage driver, "I wonder if
+they meant to crush us?"
+
+"Quite likely," rejoined Nat, "and if this car hadn't been able to stop
+in double-quick jig-time, they'd have done it, too. Of course they may
+have only intended to block the road so that they could go through us
+at their leisure. But in that case I should think that they would have
+had the rock already there before we came along."
+
+"Just my idea, lad," agreed the Westerner heartily, "them pestiferous
+coyotes wouldn't stop at a little thing like wiping us out, if it was
+in their minds ter do it. But I've got an idea that we must be getting
+near their den. I've heard it is back this way somewhere."
+
+"If that is so," commented Nat, "it would account for their anxiety to
+turn us back. But," and here the boy set his lips grimly, "that's one
+reason why I'm determined to go on."
+
+"And you can bet that I'm with you every step of the way," was Cal's
+hearty assurance. He laid a brown paw on Nat's hands as they gripped
+the steering wheel. I can tell you, that in the midst of the perils
+into which Nat could not help feeling they were now approaching, it
+felt good to have a stalwart, resourceful chap like Cal along.
+
+"Thanks, Cal. I know you'll stick," rejoined Nat simply, and that was
+all.
+
+The canyon--or more properly, pass--which they had been traversing soon
+came to an end, the spurs of the mountains which formed it sloping
+down, and "melting" off into adjoining ranges. This formed a pleasant
+little valley between their slopes. The depression, which was perhaps
+four miles in circumference, was carpeted with vivid green bunch grass.
+Clumps of flowering shrubs stood in the centre where a small lake,
+crystal clear, was formed by the conjunction of two little streams.
+The water was the clear, cold liquid of the mountains, sharp with the
+chill of the high altitudes.
+
+After the boys had selected a camping place on a little knoll
+commanding all parts of the valley, their first task was to bring up
+buckets of water and clean off the auto which, by this time, as you
+may imagine, was pretty grimy and dusty. Several marks on the tonneau,
+too, showed where bullets had struck during the brush in the canyon.
+Altogether, the car looked "like business," that is to say, as if
+it had gone through other ups and downs than those of the mountains
+themselves.
+
+An inspection of the big gasolene tank showed that the emergency
+container was almost exhausted, and before they proceeded to anything
+else, Nat ordered the tanks filled from the stock they carried in the
+big "store-room," suspended under the floor of the car.
+
+"We might have to get out of here in a hurry, when there would be no
+time to fill up the tanks," he said. "It's best to have everything
+ready in case of accidents."
+
+"That's right," agreed Cal, "nothing like havin' things ready. I
+recollect one time when I was back home in Iowy that they----"
+
+But whatever had occurred--and it was doubtless interesting--back at
+Cal's home in Iowa, the boys were destined never to know; for at that
+moment their attention was attracted to the horse of Herr Muller, which
+had been tethered near a clump of madrone shrubs not far from the lake.
+
+"He's gone crazy!" shouted Joe.
+
+"M-m-m-mad as a h-h-h-atter in Mum-m-march," sputtered Ding-dong.
+
+No wonder the boys came to such a conclusion. For a respectable equine,
+such as Herr Muller's steed had always shown himself to be, Bismark
+certainly was acting in an extraordinary manner.
+
+At one moment he flung his heels high into the air, and almost at the
+same instant up would come his forelegs. Then, casting himself on the
+ground, he would roll over and over, sending up little showers of turf
+and stones with his furiously beating hoofs. All the time he kept up a
+shrill whinnying and neighing that greatly added to the oddity of his
+performance.
+
+"Ach Himmel! Bismark is a loonitacker!" yelled Herr Muller, rushing
+toward his quadruped, of which he had become very fond.
+
+But alas! for the confidence of the Teuton. As he neared Bismark, the
+"loonitacker" horse up with his hind legs and smiting Herr Muller
+in the chest, propelled him with speed and violence backward toward
+the lake. In vain Herr Muller tried to stop his backward impetus by
+clutching at the brush. It gave way in his hands like so much flax.
+Another second and he was soused head over heels in the icy mountain
+water.
+
+"What in the name of Ben Butler has got inter the critter?" gasped Cal
+amazedly. The others opened their eyes wide in wonder. All of them had
+had something to do with horses at different stages of their careers,
+but never in their united experiences had a horse been seen to act like
+Bismark, the "loonitacker."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+A "LOONITACKER" HORSE.
+
+
+"I have it!" cried Nat suddenly.
+
+"What, the same thing as Bismark?" shouted Joe, "here somebody, hold
+him down."
+
+"No, I know what's the matter with him--loco weed!"
+
+He stooped down and picked up a small, bright green trefoil leaf. Cal
+slapped his leg with an exclamation as he looked at it.
+
+"That's right, boy. That's loco weed, sure. It's growing all around
+here, and we was too busy to notice it. That old plug has filled his
+ornery carcass up on it."
+
+By this time the German had crawled out of the water, and was poking a
+dripping face, with a comical expression of dismay on it, through the
+bushes about the lake. Not seeing Bismark near, he ventured out a few
+paces, but the horse suddenly spying him made a mad dash for him. Herr
+Muller beat a hasty retreat. Even Bismark could not penetrate into the
+thick brush after him.
+
+"Vos is los mit Bismark?" yelled the German from his retreat at the
+boys and Cal, who were almost convulsed with laughter at the creature's
+comical antics.
+
+"I guess his brains is loose," hailed back Cal, whose knowledge of the
+German language was limited.
+
+"He's mad!" shouted Joe by way of imparting some useful information.
+
+"Mad? Voss iss he madt about?"
+
+"Oh, what's the use?" sighed Joe. Then placing his hands funnelwise to
+his mouth he bawled out:--
+
+"He's locoed!"
+
+"Low toed?" exclaimed the amazed German. "Then I take him mit der
+blacksmith."
+
+"Say, you simian-faced subject of Hoch the Kaiser, can't you understand
+English?" howled Cal, in a voice that might have dislodged a mountain.
+"Bismark is crazy, locoed, mad, off his trolley, got rats in his
+garret, bats in his belfry, bug-house, screw-loose, daft, looney--now
+do you understand?"
+
+"Yah!" came the response, "now I know. Bismark is aufergerspeil."
+
+"All right, call it that if you want to," muttered Cal. Then, as
+Bismark, with a final flourish of his heels and a loud shrill whinny,
+galloped off, the Westerner turned to the boys.
+
+"Well, we've seen the last of him for a while."
+
+"Aren't you going to try to catch him?" asked Nat, as he watched the
+horse dash across the meadow-like hollow, and then vanish in the belt
+of dark wood on the hillside beyond.
+
+"No good," said Cal decisively, "wouldn't be able to do a thing with
+him for days. That loco weed is bad stuff. If I'd ever noticed it
+growing around here you can bet that Bismuth, or whatever that Dutchman
+calls him, wouldn't have left the camp."
+
+Herr Muller, rubbing a grievous bump he had received when the
+ungrateful equine turned upon the hand that fed him, now came up and
+joined the party. He made such a grievous moan over the loss of his
+horse that Nat's heart was melted. He promised finally that they would
+stay in the vicinity the next day, and if Bismark had not appeared that
+they would make a short search in the mountains for him.
+
+This was strongly against Cal's advice, but he, too, finally gave in.
+The Westerner knew better even than the boys with what a desperate gang
+they were at odds, and he did not favor anything that delayed their
+getting out of that part of the country as quick as possible.
+
+"My mine is only a day or so's run from here," he said to Nat, "and if
+once we reached there we could stand these fellows off till help might
+be summoned from some place below, and we could have Morello's gang all
+arrested."
+
+"That would be a great idea," agreed Nat, "do you think it could be
+done?"
+
+"Don't see why not," rejoined Cal, "but you'll see better when you get
+a look at the place. It's a regular natural fortress, that's what it
+is. My plan would be to hold 'em there while one of us rides off to
+Laredo or Big Oak Flat for the sheriff and his men."
+
+"We'll talk some more about that," agreed Nat, to whom the idea
+appealed immensely. In fact, he felt that there was little chance
+of their really enjoying their trip till they were sure that Col.
+Morello's gang was disposed of. Somehow Nat had a feeling that they
+were not through with the rascals yet. In which surmise, as we shall
+see, he was right.
+
+Supper that night was a merry meal, and after it had been disposed of,
+the waterproof tent which the boys had brought along was set up for the
+first time. With its sod cloth and spotless greenish-gray coloring, it
+made an inviting looking little habitation, more especially when the
+folding cots were erected within. But Herr Muller was in a despondent
+mood. He ate his supper in silence and sat melancholy and moody
+afterward about the roaring camp fire.
+
+"Ach dot poor horse. Maypee der wolves get der poor crazy loonitacker,"
+he moaned.
+
+"Wall," commented Cal judicially, "ef he kin handle wolves as well as
+he kin Dutchmen he's no more reason to be scared of 'em than he is of
+jack-rabbits."
+
+Of course watches were posted that night, and extra careful vigilance
+exercised. The events of the day had not added to the boys' confidence
+in their safety, by any means. There was every danger, in fact, of a
+night attack being attempted by their enemies.
+
+But the night passed without any alarming interruption. And the morning
+dawned as bright and clear as the day that had preceded it. Breakfast
+was quickly disposed of, and then plans were laid for the pursuit of
+the errant Bismark.
+
+Cal was of the opinion, that if the effect of the loco weed had worn
+off, that the horse might be found not far from the camp. There was
+a chance, of course, that he might have trotted back home. But Cal's
+experience had shown him that in the lonely hills, horses generally
+prefer the company of human kind to the solitudes and that if the
+influence of the crazy-weed was not still upon him the quadruped would
+be found not very far off.
+
+This was cheering news to the photographing Teuton, who could hardly
+eat any breakfast so impatient was he to be off. Cal was to stay and
+guard the camp with Ding-dong for a companion. The searching party was
+to consist of Nat, in command, with Joe and Herr Muller as assistants.
+
+All, of course, carried weapons, and it was agreed that the signal in
+case of accident or attack, would be two shots in quick succession,
+followed by a third. Two shots alone would announce that the horse was
+found; while one would signify failure and an order to turn homeward.
+
+These details being arranged, and Herr Muller thoroughly drilled in
+them, the searchers set forth. The little meadow was soon traversed,
+and at the edge of the woods, which clothed the slope at this side of
+the valley, they separated. Nat took the centre, striking straight
+ahead on Bismark's trail, while the other two converged at different
+radii.
+
+The hill-side was not steep, and walking under the piñons and madrones
+not difficult. Occasionally a clump of dense chaparral intervened, so
+thick that it had to be walked around. It would have been waste of time
+to attempt to penetrate it.
+
+All three of the searchers, as may be imagined, kept a sharp look-out,
+not only for trace of Bismark but also for any sign of danger. But they
+tramped on, while the sun rose higher, without anything alarming making
+itself manifest.
+
+But of Bismark not a trace was to be found. He had, apparently,
+vanished completely. The ground was dry and rocky, too, which was bad,
+so far as trailing was concerned. Nat, although he now and then tumbled
+on a hoof mark or found a spot where Bismark had stopped to graze, saw
+nothing further of the horse.
+
+At last he looked at his watch. He gave an exclamation of astonishment
+as he did so. It was almost noon.
+
+"Got to be starting back," he thought, and drawing his revolver, he
+fired one shot, the signal agreed upon for the return.
+
+This done, he set off walking at a brisk pace toward what he believed
+was the valley. But Nat, like many a more experienced mountaineer, had
+become hopelessly turned around during his wanderings. While it seemed
+to him he was striking in an easterly direction, he was, as a matter of
+fact, proceeding almost the opposite way.
+
+After tramping for an hour or more the boy began to look about him.
+
+"That's odd," he thought as he took in the surroundings, "I don't
+remember seeing anything like this around the valley."
+
+It was, in fact, a very different scene from that surrounding the
+camp that now lay about him. Instead of a soft, grass-covered valley,
+all that could be seen from the bare eminence on which he had now
+climbed, was a rift in some bare, rocky hills. The surroundings were
+inexpressibly wild and desolate looking. Tall rocks, like the minarets
+of Eastern castles, shot upward, and the cliffs were split and riven
+as if by some immense convulsion of nature.
+
+High above the wild scene there circled a big eagle. From time to time
+it gave a harsh scream, adding a dismal note to the dreary environment.
+
+For a flash Nat felt like giving way to the wild, unreasoning panic
+that sometimes overwhelms those who suddenly discover they are
+hopelessly lost. His impulse was to dash into the wood and set off
+running in what he thought must be the right direction. But he checked
+himself by an effort of will, and forced his mind to accept the
+situation as calmly as possible.
+
+"How foolish I was not to mark the trees as I came along!" he thought.
+
+If only he had done that it would have been a simple matter to find
+his way back. A sudden idea flashed into his mind, and drawing out his
+watch the boy pointed the hour hand at the sun, which was, luckily, in
+full sight. He knew that a point between the hour hand thus directed,
+and noon, would indicate the north and south line.
+
+As Nat had begun to think, this test showed him that he had been
+almost completely turned about, and had probably come miles in the
+wrong direction.
+
+The east lay off to his right. Nat faced about, and was starting
+pluckily off in that direction when a sudden commotion in a clump of
+chaparral below attracted his attention. A flock of blue jays flew up,
+screaming and scolding hoarsely in their harsh notes.
+
+Nat was woodsman enough to know that the blue jay is the watch-dog
+of the forests. Their harsh cries betoken the coming of anything for
+half a mile or more. Sometimes, however, they do not scream out their
+warning till whatever alarms them is quite close.
+
+As the birds, uttering their grating notes, flew upward from the clump
+in the chaparral, Nat paused. So still did he keep that he could
+distinctly hear the pounding of his heart in the silence. But presently
+another sound became audible.
+
+The trampling of horses coming in his direction!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE MOTOR RANGER'S PERIL.
+
+
+"Reckon Nat must have forgotten to fire the signal," thought Joe,
+sinking down on a rock, some little time before the former had halted
+to listen intently to the approaching noise.
+
+Suddenly, however, the distant report came, borne clearly to his ears.
+
+"There it goes," thought Joe. "One shot. I guess that means good-bye to
+the Dutchman's horse."
+
+Knowing that it would be no use looking about for Nat, for evidently
+from the faint noise of the shot it had been fired at some distance,
+Joe faced about and started back for the camp. When he reached it, he
+found to his surprise, that Herr Muller had returned some time before.
+As a matter of fact, Joe formed a shrewd suspicion from the rapid time
+he must have made on his return, that Herr Muller had sought a snug
+spot and dozed away the interval before Nat's shot was heard.
+
+As it so happened he was not very far from the truth. The German,
+having tramped quite a distance into the woods, had argued to himself
+that he stood about as good a chance of recovering his horse by
+remaining still as by proceeding. So he had seated himself with a big
+china-bowled pipe, to await the recall signal. He had started on the
+hunt with much enthusiasm, but tramping over rough, stony ground, under
+a hot sun, is one of the greatest solvents of enthusiasm known. And so
+it had proved in the German's case.
+
+He had, however, a fine tale to tell of his tramp, and to listen to
+him one would have thought that he was the most industrious of the
+searchers.
+
+"Guess we'd better start dinner without Nat," said Cal, after they had
+hung around, doing nothing but watching the pots simmer over the camp
+fire, for an hour or two.
+
+"That's a gug-g-g-good idea," agreed Ding-dong.
+
+Joe demurred a bit at the idea of not waiting for their young leader,
+but finally he, too, agreed to proceed with the meal. As will be seen
+by this, not much anxiety was yet felt in the camp over Nat's absence.
+He was stronger and much more wiry than the other two searchers, and
+it was altogether probable that he had proceeded much farther than had
+they.
+
+But, as the afternoon wore on and no Nat put in an appearance,
+conversation seemed to languish. Anxious eyes now sought the rim of
+the woods on the opposite side of the clearing. Nobody dared to voice
+the fears that lay at their hearts, however. Cal, perhaps, alone among
+them, realized the extent of the peril in which Nat stood, if he were
+lost in the mountains. It was for this reason that he did not speak
+until it became impossible to hold out hope any longer.
+
+This was when the shadows began to lengthen and the western sky burned
+dull-red, as the sun sank behind the pine-fringed mountain tops. Then,
+and not till then, Cal spoke what was on his mind.
+
+His comrades received the news of Cal's conviction that Nat was
+lost without the dismay and outward excitement that might have been
+expected. As a matter of fact, the dread that something had happened to
+the lad had been in the minds of all of them for some hours, although
+each tried to appear chipper and cheerful. There was no evading the
+facts as they stood, any longer, however.
+
+Very soon night would fall, with its customary suddenness in these
+regions. Unless Nat returned before that time--which was so improbable
+as to hardly be worth considering--there remained only one conclusion
+to be drawn.
+
+"Whatever can we do?" demanded Joe, in a rather shaky voice, as he
+thought of his comrade out on the desolate mountain side, hungry and
+perhaps thirsty, looking in vain for a trace of a trail back to camp.
+
+"Not much of anything," was Cal's disquieting reply, "except to stay
+put."
+
+"You mean stay right where we are?"
+
+"That's right, boy. There's a chance that Nat may be back before long.
+Only a chance, mind you, but in that case we want ter be right here."
+
+"Suppose he is h-h-h-h-hurt?" quavered out Ding-dong, voicing a fear
+they had all felt, but had not, so far, dared to speak of.
+
+Cal waved his hand in an inclusive way at the range opposite.
+
+"That will mean a search for him," he said, "and he may be any place in
+those hills within a ten-mile radius. Talk about lookin' fer a needle
+in a haystack. It 'ud be child's play, to finding him in time to do
+anything."
+
+They could not but feel the truth of his words.
+
+"Besides," went on Cal, "there's another thing. We know that that
+ornery bunch of skunks and coyotes of Morello's is sky-hootin' round
+here some place. If we leave the camp they might swoop down on it and
+clean it out, and then we'd be in a worse fix than ever."
+
+"That's right," admitted Joe, "but it seems dreadfully tough to have to
+sit here with folded hands and doing nothing; while Nat----"
+
+His voice broke, and he looked off toward the mountains, now dim and
+dun-colored in the fast gathering night.
+
+"No use giving way," said Cal briskly, "and as fer sitting with folded
+hands, it's the worst thing you could do. Here you," to Herr Muller,
+"hustle around and git all ther wood you can. A big pile of it. We'll
+keep up a monstrous fire all night in case the lad might happen to see
+it."
+
+"It will give us something to think about anyhow," said Joe, catching
+the infection of Cal's brisk manner; "come on, Herr Muller, I'll help
+you."
+
+They started off to collect wood, while Ding-dong Bell and Cal busied
+themselves with the supper dishes and then cleaned up a variety of
+small jobs around the camp.
+
+"Jes' stick this bit of advice in your craw, son," advised Cal as he
+went briskly about his tasks, "work's the thing that trouble's most
+scart of, so if ever you want to shake your woes pitch in an' tackle
+something."
+
+While Nat's comrades are thus employed, let us see for ourselves
+what has become of the lad. We left him listening intently to some
+approaching horsemen. He remained in this attentive attitude only long
+enough to assure himself that they were indeed coming toward him, and
+then, like a flash, his mind was made up.
+
+It was clear to the boy that travellers in such a remote part of the
+Sierras were not common. It also came into his mind that Col. Morello's
+band was reputed to have their hiding place somewhere in the vicinity.
+The brief glance about him that Nat had obtained had shown him that it
+was just the sort of place that men anxious to hide themselves from the
+law would select. In the first place, it was so rugged and wild as to
+be inaccessible to any but men on foot or horseback, and even then it
+would have been a rough trip.
+
+The valley, or rather "cut," in the hills, up which the sound of hoofs
+was coming, was, as has been said, narrow and deep in the extreme.
+From the summits of its cliffs a defence of the trail that lay beneath
+would be easy. Stationed on those pinnacled, natural turrets, two
+might, if well supplied with ammunition, have withstood an army. All
+these thoughts had occurred to Nat before he made his resolution--and
+turning, started to run.
+
+But as he sped along a fresh difficulty presented itself. The hillside
+at this point seemed to be alive with blue-jays. They flew screaming
+up, as he made his way along, and Nat knew that if they had acted as
+a warning to him of approaching danger the vociferous birds would be
+equally probable to arouse the suspicions of whoever was coming his way.
+
+He paused to listen for a second, and was glad he had done so. The
+horsemen, to judge from their voices, had already reached the spot upon
+which he had been standing when he first heard them. What wind there
+was blew toward him and he could hear their words distinctly.
+
+"Those jays are acting strangely, Manuello. I wonder if there is
+anybody here."
+
+"I do not know, colonel," was the reply from the other unseen speaker,
+"if there is it will be to our advantage to find him. We don't want
+spies near the Wolf's Mouth."
+
+"Wolf's Mouth," thought Nat, "If that's the name of that abyss it's
+well called."
+
+"You are right, Manuello," went on the first speaker, "after what
+Dayton told us about those boys I don't feel easy in my mind as long
+as they are in our neighborhood. If Dayton and the others had not
+miscalculated yesterday we shouldn't have been bothered with them any
+longer."
+
+"No," was the rejoinder, "it's a pity that boulder didn't hit them and
+pound them into oblivion. Just because they happen to be boys doesn't
+make them any the less dangerous to us."
+
+At this unlucky moment, while Nat was straining his ears to catch every
+word of the conversation a stone against which he had braced one of his
+feet gave way. Ordinarily he would have hardly noticed the sound it
+made as it went bounding and rolling down the hillside, but situated as
+he was, the noise seemed to be as startling and loud as the discharge
+of a big gun.
+
+"What was that?" asked the man who had been addressed as "colonel."
+
+"A dislodged stone," was the reply, "someone is in there; the blue-jays
+didn't fly up for nothing."
+
+"So it would seem. We had better investigate before going farther."
+
+"Still, it is important that we find where those boys are camped."
+
+"That is true, but it is more important that we find out who is in that
+brush."
+
+Without any more delay, the two horses were turned into the hillside
+growth. Nat could hear their feet slipping and sliding among the loose
+rocks on the mountain as they came toward him. He did not dare to run
+for fear of revealing his whereabouts.
+
+Close at hand was a piñon tree, which spread out low-growing branches
+all about. Nat, as he spied it, decided that if he could get within
+its leafy screen unobserved he would, if luck favored him, escape the
+observation of the two men--one of whom he was certain now, must be
+the famous, or infamous, Col. Morello himself.
+
+Without any repetition of the unlucky accident of the minute before, he
+crept to the trunk of the tree and hoisted himself noiselessly up. As
+he had surmised, the upper branches made a comfortable resting place
+impervious to the view from below.
+
+Hardly had he made himself secure, before the horses of the two outlaws
+approached the tree and, rather to Nat's consternation, halted almost
+immediately beneath it.
+
+Could the keen-eyed leader of the outlaw band have discovered his
+hiding place? It was the most anxious moment of the boy's life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE HORNS OF A DILEMMA.
+
+
+Few men, and still fewer boys, have ever been called upon to face the
+agonizing suspense which Nat underwent in the next few seconds. So
+close were the men to his hiding place that his nostrils could scent
+the sharp, acrid odor of their cigarettes. He was still enough as he
+crouched breathless upon the limb to have been carved out of wood, like
+the branch upon which he rested. He did not even dare to wink his eyes
+for fear of alarming the already aroused suspicions of the two men
+below him.
+
+"Guess those jays got scared at a lion or something," presently decided
+the man who had been addressed as "colonel."
+
+Nat, peering through his leafy screen, could see him as he sat upright
+on his heavy saddle of carved leather and looked about him with a pair
+of hawk-like eyes.
+
+Colonel Morello, for Nat had guessed correctly when he concluded that
+the man was the famous leader, was a man of about fifty years, with a
+weather-beaten face, seamed and lined by years of exposure and hard
+living. But his eye, as has been said, was as keen and restless as an
+eagle's. A big scar made a livid mark across his cheek indicating the
+course of a bullet, fired years before when Morello had been at the
+head of a band of Mexican revolutionists. In that capacity, indeed, he
+had earned his brevet rank of "colonel."
+
+A broad-brim gray sombrero, with a silver embossed band of leather
+about it, crowned the outlaw chief's head of glossy black hair, worn
+rather long and streaked with gray. Across his saddle horn rested
+a long-barrelled automatic rifle, of latest make and pattern. For
+the rest his clothes were those of an everyday mountaineer with the
+exception of a wide red sash. His horse was a fine buckskin animal, and
+was almost as famous in Sierran legend as its redoubtable master.
+
+His companion was a squat, evil-visaged Mexican, with none of the
+latent nobility visible under the cruelty and rapaciousness which
+marred what might have once been the prepossessing countenance of
+Morello. His black hair hung in dank, streaky locks down to the greasy
+shoulders of his well-worn buckskin coat, and framed a wrinkled face
+as dark as a bit of smoked mahogany, in which glittered, like two live
+coals, a pair of shifty black eyes. He was evidently an inferior to the
+other in every way--except possibly in viciousness.
+
+Such were the two men who had paused below the tree in which was
+concealed, none too securely, the leader of the young Motor Rangers. As
+to what his fate might be if he fell into their hands Nat could hazard
+a guess.
+
+All at once the lad noticed that the branch of the tree upon which he
+was lying was in motion. His first thought was that one of the men
+might be shaking it in some way. But no--neither of them had moved.
+They were seemingly following the remark of the colonel regarding the
+blue-jays, and taking a last look about before leaving. In another
+moment Nat would have been safe, but as he moved his eyes to try and
+see what had shaken the bough he suddenly became aware of an alarming
+thing.
+
+From the branch of another tree which intertwined with the one in which
+he was hidden, there was creeping toward him a large animal. The boy
+gave a horrified gasp as he saw its greenish eyes fixed steadily on him
+with a purposeful glare.
+
+Step by step, and not making as much noise as a stalking cat, the
+creature drew closer. To Nat's terrified imagination it almost seemed
+as if it had already given a death spring, and that he was in its
+clutches.
+
+Truly his predicament was a terrible one. If he remained as he was the
+brute was almost certain to spring upon him. On the other hand to make
+a move to escape would be to draw the attention of the outlaws to his
+hiding place.
+
+"Phew," thought Nat, "talk about being between two fires!"
+
+Instinctively he drew his revolver. He felt that at least he stood more
+of a chance with his human foes than he did with this tawny-coated
+monster of the Sierran slopes.
+
+If the worst came to the worst he would fire at the creature and trust
+to luck to escaping from the opposite horn of his dilemma. But in
+this Nat had reckoned without his host--or rather, his four-footed
+enemy--for without the slightest warning the big creature launched
+its lithe body through the air. With a cry of alarm Nat dropped, and
+it landed right on the spot where a second before he had been. At the
+same instant the colonel and his companion wheeled their horses with
+a startled exclamation. The horses themselves, no less alarmed, were
+pawing the ground and leaping about excitedly.
+
+The boy's fall, and the howl of rage from the disappointed animal,
+combined to make a sufficiently jarring interruption to the calm and
+quiet of the mountain side.
+
+"Caramba! what was that?" the colonel's voice rang out sharply.
+
+"It's a boy!" cried his companion, pointing to Nat's recumbent form.
+To the lad's dismay, in his fall his revolver had flown out of its
+holster and rolled some distance down the hillside. He lay there
+powerless, and too stunned and bruised by the shock of his fall to move.
+
+But the great cat above him was not inactive. Foiled in its first
+spring it gathered itself for a second pounce but the colonel's sharp
+eye spied the tawny outline among the green boughs. Raising his rifle
+he fired twice. At the first shot there came a howl of pain and rage.
+At the second a crashing and clawing as the monster rolled out of the
+tree and fell in a still, motionless heap not far from Nat.
+
+"Even the mountain lions seem to work for us," exclaimed the colonel
+triumphantly, as he dismounted and walked to Nat's side.
+
+"Yes, señor, and if I make no mistake this lad here is one of the very
+boys we are in search of."
+
+"You are right. These Americans are devils. I make no doubt but this
+one was on his way to spy into our manner of living at our fort. Eh
+boy, isn't that true?"
+
+"No," replied Nat, whose face was pale but resolute. He scrambled
+painfully to his feet. Covered with dust, scratched in a dozen places
+by his fall through the branches, and streaming with perspiration,
+he was not an imposing looking youth right then; but whatever his
+appearance might have been, his spirit was dauntless.
+
+"No," he repeated, "I came up here to look for a horse that one of us
+had lost."
+
+"That's a very likely story," was the colonel's brief comment, in a
+dry, harsh tone. His eyes grew hard as he spoke. Evidently he had made
+up his mind that Nat was a spy.
+
+"It is true," declared Nat, "I had no idea of spying into your affairs."
+
+"Oh no," sneered the colonel vindictively, "I suppose you will tell us
+next that you did not know where our fort is; that you were not aware
+that it is up that gorge there?"
+
+"This is the first I've heard of it," declared Nat truthfully.
+
+"I hold a different opinion," was the rejoinder, "if you had not
+been up here on some mischievous errand you would not have concealed
+yourself in that tree. Eh, what have you to say to that?"
+
+"Simply that from all I had heard of you and your band. I was afraid
+to encounter you on uneven terms, and when I heard you coming, I hid,"
+replied Nat.
+
+"That is it, is it? Well, I have the honor to inform you that I don't
+believe a word of your story. Do you know what we did with spies when I
+was fighting on the border?"
+
+Nat shook his head. The colonel's eyelids narrowed into two little
+slits through which his dark orbs glinted flintily.
+
+"We shot them," he whipped out.
+
+For a moment Nat thought he was about to share the same fate. The
+colonel raised his rifle menacingly and glanced along the sights. But
+he lowered it the next minute and spoke again.
+
+"Since you are so anxious to see our fort I shall gratify your wishes,"
+he said. "Manuello, just take a turn or two about that boy and we'll
+take him home with us; he'll be better game than that lion yonder."
+
+Manuello nimbly tumbled off his horse, and in a trice had Nat bound
+with his rawhide lariat. The boy was so securely bundled in it that
+only his legs could move.
+
+"Good!" approvingly said the colonel as he gazed at the tightly tied
+captive, "it would be folly to take chances with these slippery
+Americanos."
+
+Manuello now remounted, and taking a half-hitch with the loose end of
+his lariat about the saddle horn, he dug his spurs into his pony. The
+little animal leaped forward, almost jerking Nat from his feet. He only
+remained upright with an effort.
+
+"Be careful, Manuello," warned the colonel, "he is too valuable a prize
+to damage."
+
+Every step was painful to Nat, bruised as he was, and weak from hunger
+and thirst as well, but he pluckily gave no sign. He had deduced from
+the fresh condition of his captors' ponies that they could not have
+been ridden far. This argued that it would not be long before they
+reached the outlaws' fortress.
+
+In this surmise he was correct. The trail, after winding among
+chaparral and madrone, plunged abruptly down and entered the gloomy
+defile he had noticed when he first made up his mind that he was lost.
+Viewed closely the place was even more sinister than it had seemed
+at a distance. Hardly a tree grew on its rugged sides, which were of
+a reddish brown rock. It seemed as if they had been, at some remote
+period, seared with tremendous fires.
+
+The trail itself presently evolved into a sort of gallery, hewn out
+of the sheer cliff face. The precipice overhung it above, while below
+was a dark rift that yawned upon unknown depths. So narrow was the
+pass that a step even an inch or two out of the way would have plunged
+the one making it over into the profundities of the chasm. A sort of
+twilight reigned in the narrow gorge, making the surroundings appear
+even more wild and gloomy. A chill came over Nat as he gazed about him.
+Do what he would to keep up his spirits they sank to the lowest ebb as
+he realized that he was being conducted into a place from which escape
+seemed impossible. Without wings, no living creature could have escaped
+from that gorge against the will of its lawless inhabitants.
+
+Suddenly, the trail took an abrupt turn, and Nat saw before him the
+outlaws' fort itself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+IN COLONEL MORELLO'S FORTRESS.
+
+
+Directly ahead of them the gorge terminated abruptly in a blank wall
+of rock, in precisely the same manner that a blind alley in a city
+comes to a full stop. But "blank" in this case is a misnomer. The
+rocky rampart, which towered fully a hundred feet above the trail, was
+pierced with several small openings, which appeared to be windows. A
+larger opening was approached by a flight of steps, hewn out of the
+rock. Although Nat did not know it, the spot had once been a habitation
+of the mysterious aborigines of the Sierras. The colonel, stumbling
+upon it some years before, had at once recognized its possibilities
+as a fortress and a gathering place for his band, and had hastened to
+"move in." Stabling for the horses was found in a rocky chamber opening
+directly off the trail.
+
+But Nat's wonderment was excited by another circumstance besides the
+sudden appearance of the rock fort. This was the strange manner in
+which the abyss terminated at the pierced cliff. As they came along,
+the boy had heard the sound of roaring waters at the bottom of the
+rift, and coupling this with the fact that the gorge emerged into the
+cliff at this point, he concluded that a subterranean river must wind
+its way beneath the colonel's unique dwelling place.
+
+Small time, however, did he have for looking about him. About a hundred
+yards along the trail from the pierced cliff there was a strange
+contrivance extending outward from the face of the precipice along
+which the trail was cut. This was a sort of platform of pine trunks
+of great weight and thickness, on the top of which were piled several
+large boulders to add to the weight. This affair was suspended by
+chains and was an additional safeguard to the outlaws' hiding place.
+In the event of a sudden attack the chains were so arranged that they
+could be instantly cast loose. This allowed the platform to crash
+down, crushing whatever happened to be beneath it, as well as blocking
+the trail.
+
+The colonel paused before they reached this, and whistled three times.
+
+"Who is it?" came a voice, apparently issuing from a hole pierced in
+the rock at their left hand.
+
+"Two Eagles of the Pass," came the reply from the colonel as he gave
+utterance to what was evidently a password.
+
+"Go ahead, two Eagles of the Pass," came from the invisible rock
+aperture, and the party proceeded.
+
+A few paces brought them from under the shadow of the weighted platform
+and to the foot of the flight of stone steps. A shaggy-headed man
+emerged from the stable door as they rode up, and took the horses
+of the new arrivals. He gazed curiously at Nat, but said nothing.
+Evidently, thought the lad, the colonel is a strict disciplinarian.
+
+This was indeed the case. Col. Morello exacted implicit obedience
+from his band, which at this time numbered some twenty men of various
+nationalities. On more than one occasion prompt death had been the
+result of even a suspicion of a mutinous spirit.
+
+With Manuello still leading him along, as if he were a calf or a sheep,
+Nat was conducted up the stone staircase and into the rock dwelling
+itself. The contrast inside the place with the heated air outside was
+extraordinary. It was like entering a cool cellar on a hot summer's day.
+
+The passage which opened from the door in the cliff was in much the
+same condition as it had been when the vanished race occupied the
+place. In the floor were numerous holes where spears had been sharpened
+or corn ground. Rude carvings of men on horseback, or warring with
+strange beasts covered the walls. Light filtered in from a hole in the
+rock ceiling, fully twenty feet above the floor of the place. Several
+small doors opened off the main passage, and into one of these the
+colonel, who was in the lead, presently turned, followed by Manuello
+leading the captive lad.
+
+Nat found himself in a chamber which, if it had not been for the rough
+walls of the same flame-tinted rock as the abyss, might have been the
+living room of any well-to-do rancher. Skins and heads of various
+wild beasts ornamented the walls. On the floor bright rugs of sharply
+contrasting hues were laid. In a polished oak gun-case in one corner
+were several firearms of the very latest pattern and design. A rough
+bookshelf held some volumes which showed evidences of having been
+well thumbed. From the ceiling hung a shaded silver lamp, of course
+unlighted, as plenty of light streamed into the place from the window
+in the cliff face.
+
+The three chairs and the massive table which occupied the centre of the
+place were of rough-hewn wood, showing the marks of the axe, but of
+skilled and substantial workmanship, nevertheless. The upholstery was
+of deerskin, carefully affixed with brass-headed nails.
+
+The colonel threw himself into one of the chairs and rolled a fresh
+cigarette, before he spoke a word. When he did, Nat was astonished, but
+not so much as to be startled out of his composure.
+
+"I've heard about you from Hale Bradford," said the outlaw, "and I have
+always been curious to see you."
+
+"Hale Bradford! Could it be possible," thought Nat, "that the rascally
+millionaire who had appropriated his father's mine was also associated
+with Col. Morello, the Mexican outlaw?"
+
+Nat suddenly recalled, however, that it was entirely likely that
+Bradford, in his early days on the peninsula, had met Morello, who, at
+that time, was a border marauder in that part of the country. Perhaps
+they had met since Bradford's abrupt departure from Lower California.
+Or perhaps, as was more probable, it was Dayton who had told the
+colonel all about the Motor Rangers, and this reference to Bradford was
+simply a bluff.
+
+"Yes, I knew Hale Bradford," was all that Nat felt called upon to say.
+
+"Hum," observed the colonel, carefully regarding his yellow paper roll,
+"and he had good reason to know you, too."
+
+"I hope so," replied Nat, "if you mean by that, that we drove the
+unprincipled rascal out of Lower California."
+
+"That does not interest me," retorted Morello, "what directly concerns
+you is this: one of my men, an old acquaintance of mine, who has
+recently joined me, was done a great injury by you down there. He wants
+revenge."
+
+"And this is the way he takes it," said Nat bitterly, gazing about him.
+
+"I don't know how he means to take it," was the quiet reply. "That must
+be left to him. Where is Dayton?" he asked, turning to Manuello.
+
+"Off hunting. The camp is out of meat," was the reply.
+
+"Well, I expect Mr. Trevor will stay here till he returns," remarked
+the colonel with grim irony, "take him to the west cell, Manuello. See
+that he has food and water, and when Dayton gets back we will see what
+shall be done with him."
+
+He turned away and picked up a book, with a gesture signifying that he
+had finished.
+
+Nat's lips moved. He was about to speak, but in the extremity of his
+peril his tongue fairly clove to the roof of his mouth. To be left to
+the tender mercies of Dayton! That was indeed a fate that might have
+made a more experienced adventurer than Nat tremble. The boy quickly
+overcame his passing alarm, however, and the next moment Manuello was
+conducting him down the passage toward what Nat supposed must be the
+west cell.
+
+Before a stout oaken door, studded with iron bolts, the evil-visaged
+Mexican paused, and diving into his pocket produced a key. Inserting
+this in a well-oiled lock, he swung back the portal and disclosed a
+rock-walled room about twelve feet square. This, then, was the west
+cell. Any hope that Nat might have cherished of escaping, vanished as
+he saw the place. It was, apparently, cut out of solid rock. It would
+have taken a gang of men armed with dynamite and tools many years to
+have worked their way out. The door, too, now that it was open, was
+seen to be a massive affair, formed of several layers of oak bolted
+together till it was a foot thick. Great steel hinges, driven firmly
+into the wall, held it in place and on the outside, as an additional
+security to the lock, was a heavy sliding bolt of steel.
+
+Manuello gave Nat a shove and the boy half stumbled forward into the
+place.
+
+The next minute the door closed with a harsh clamor, and he was alone.
+So utterly stunned was he by his fate that for some minutes Nat simply
+stood still in the centre of the place, not moving an inch. But
+presently he collected his faculties, and his first care was to cast
+himself loose from the rawhide rope the Mexican had enveloped him in.
+This done, he felt easier, and was about to begin an inspection of the
+place when a small wicket, not more than six inches square, in the
+upper part of the door opened, and a hand holding a tin jug of water
+was poked through. Nat seized the receptacle eagerly, and while he was
+draining it the same hand once more appeared, this time with a loaf of
+bread and a hunk of dried deer meat.
+
+Nat's hunger was as keen as his thirst, and wisely deciding that
+better thinking can be done on a full stomach than on an empty one, he
+speedily demolished the provender. So utterly hopeless did the outlook
+seem that many a boy in Nat's position would have thrown himself on
+the cell floor and awaited the coming of his fate. Not so with Nat. He
+had taken for his motto, "While there is life there is hope," although
+it must be confessed that even he felt a sinking of the heart as he
+thought over his position. Guided by the light that came into the cell
+through the small wicket, the boy began groping about him and beating
+on the wall. For an hour or more he kept this up, till his hands were
+raw and bleeding from his exertions. It appeared to him that he had
+pounded every foot of rock in the place, in the hope of finding some
+hollow spot, but to no avail. The place was as solid as a safety vault.
+
+Giving way to real despair at last, even the gritty boy owned himself
+beaten. Sinking his face in his hands he collapsed upon the cell floor.
+As he did so voices sounded in the corridor. One of them Nat recognized
+with a thrill of apprehension, as Dayton's.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+A RIDE FOR LIFE.
+
+
+The next moment the door was flung open, but not before Nat had jumped
+to his feet. He did not want his enemies, least of all Dayton, to find
+him crouching in a despondent attitude. To have brought despair to
+Nat's heart was the one thing above all others, the lad realized, which
+would delight Ed. Dayton highly.
+
+Dayton was accompanied by Manuello and Al. Jeffries. The latter seemed
+highly amused at the turn things had taken.
+
+"Well! well! well! What have we here!" he cried ironically, tugging
+his long black mustaches as the light from the passage streamed in
+upon Nat, "a young automobiling rooster who's about to get a lesson in
+manners and minding his own business. Oh say, Ed., this is luck. Here
+is where you get even for the other day."
+
+"Oh, dry up," admonished Dayton sullenly, "I know my own business best."
+
+He advanced toward Nat with a sinister smile on his pale face. Dayton
+had, as Manuello had informed Colonel Morello, been off hunting. His
+clothes were dust covered, from the tip of his riding boots--high
+heeled and jingle spurred in the Mexican fashion--to the rim of his
+broad sombrero. He had evidently lost no time in proceeding to the cell
+as soon as he learned that Nat was a captive.
+
+"Looks as if we had you bottled up at last, my elusive young friend,"
+he grated out, "this is the time that you stay where we want you."
+
+"What are you going to do, Dayton?" asked Nat, his face pale but
+resolute, though his heart was beating wildly. Knowing the man before
+him as he did, he had no reason to expect any compassion, nor did he
+get any.
+
+"You'll see directly," rejoined Dayton, "come with me. I'm going to let
+the colonel boss this thing."
+
+Nat didn't say a word. In fact, there was not anything to be said.
+Dayton, as well as Manuello and Al. Jeffries, was armed, and all had
+their weapons ready for instant action. It would have been worse than
+madness to attempt any resistance right then.
+
+With Dayton ahead of him and Manuello and Jeffries behind, Nat stepped
+out of the cell and into the dimly lit passage. Never had daylight
+looked sweeter or more desirable to him than it did now, showing in a
+bright, oblong patch at the end of the passage.
+
+But Nat, much as he longed to make a dash for it then and there, saw no
+opportunity to do so and in silence the little procession passed along
+the passageway and entered the colonel's room. Colonel Morello looked
+up as they entered, but did not seem much surprised. Doubtless he had
+had a chat with Dayton on the latter's return from hunting and was
+aware that Nat would be ushered before him.
+
+"Here he is, colonel," began Dayton advancing to the table, while
+Manuello, ever on the outlook for a cigarette, also stepped a pace to
+the front, to help himself from a package of tobacco and some rice
+papers that lay upon the table. This left only Al. Jeffries standing in
+the door-way.
+
+Swift as the snap of an instantaneous camera shutter Nat's mind was
+made up. Crouching low, as he was used to do in football tactics, he
+made a rush at Al. Jeffries, striking him between the legs like a
+miniature thunderbolt. As he made his dash he uttered an ear-splitting
+screech:--
+
+"Yee-ow!"
+
+He shrewdly calculated that the sudden cry would further demoralize the
+astonished outlaws. Jeffries was literally carried off his feet by the
+unexpected rush. He was forcibly lifted as Nat dashed beneath him and
+then he fell in a heap, his head striking a rock as he did so, knocking
+him senseless.
+
+Like an arrow from a bow Nat sped straight for the end of the passage
+through which he had spied, a minute before, two horses standing still
+saddled and bridled. They were the steeds upon which Dayton and
+Jeffries had just ridden in. Such had been Dayton's haste to taunt Nat,
+however, that he and his companion deferred putting up their ponies
+till later. Nat, on his journey down the passage, had spied the animals
+and his alert mind had instantly worked out a plan of escape; as
+desperate a one, as we shall see, as could well be imagined.
+
+As Al. toppled over in a heap, another outlaw, who was just entering
+the passage, opposed himself to Nat. He shared the black-mustached
+one's fate, only he came down a little harder. Neither he nor Al. moved
+for some time in fact. In the meantime, Morello, Dayton and Manuello,
+dashing pellmell after the fleeing lad, stumbled unawares over the
+prostrate Al., and all came down in a swearing, fighting heap.
+
+This gave Nat the few seconds he needed. In two flying leaps he was
+down the steps and had flung himself into the saddle of one of the
+horses, before the stableman knew what was happening. When the latter
+finally woke up and heard the bandits' yells and shouts coming from the
+passage-way, it was too late. With a rattle of hoofs, and in a cloud
+of dust, Nat was off. Off along the trail to freedom!
+
+"Yee-ow!"
+
+The boy yelled as he banged his heels into the pony's sides and the
+spirited little animal leaped forward.
+
+Bang!
+
+Nat's sombrero was lifted from his head and he could feel the bullets
+fairly fan his hair as he rode on.
+
+"Stop him! Stop him!" came cries from behind. And then a sudden order:--
+
+"Let go the man-trap!"
+
+If Nat had realized what this meant he would have been tempted to give
+up his dash for freedom then and there. But he had hardly given a
+thought to the big suspended platform of pine trunks and rocks while
+on his way to the outlaws' fort, nor even if he had noticed it more
+minutely, would he have guessed its purpose.
+
+But as the order to release the crushing weight and send it crashing
+down upon the trail was roared out by the colonel, a clatter of hoofs
+came close behind. It was Dayton, who had hastily thrown himself
+upon the other horse and was now close upon Nat. Drawing a revolver
+he fired, but the bullet whistled harmlessly by Nat's head. At the
+terrific pace they were making an accurate shot was, fortunately for
+our hero, impossible.
+
+And now Nat was in the very shadow of the great platform.
+
+At that instant he heard a sudden creaking overhead, and looked up just
+in time to realize that the ponderous mass was sagging. In one flash
+of insight he realized the meaning of this. The great mass had been
+released and was about to descend.
+
+Crack!
+
+"Ye-oo-ow!"
+
+The heavy quirt, which Nat had found fastened to the saddle horn, was
+laid over the startled pony's flanks. It gave an enraged squeal and
+flung itself forward like a jack-rabbit.
+
+At the same instant came a shout from behind.
+
+"Stop, Dayton. Stop!--The man-trap!"
+
+[Illustration: Nat, as the pony leaped forward, instinctively bent low
+in the saddle.]
+
+Nat, as the pony leaped forward, instinctively bent low in the saddle.
+As they flashed forward a mighty roar sounded in his ears. Behind him,
+with a sound like the sudden release of an avalanche, the man-trap had
+fallen. It had been sprung by the colonel's own hand.
+
+So close to Nat did the immense weight crash down that it grazed his
+pony's flanks, but--Nat was safe.
+
+Behind him, he heard a shrill scream of pain and realized that Dayton
+had not been so fortunate.
+
+"Has he been killed?" thought Nat as his pony, terrified beyond all
+control by the uproar behind it, tore up the trail in a series of long
+bounds.
+
+"Safe!" thought the lad as he dashed onward. But in this he was wrong.
+Nat was far from being safe yet.
+
+Even as he murmured the word to himself there came a chorus of shouts
+from behind. Turning in his saddle, the boy could see pursuing him
+six or seven men, mounted on wiry ponies, racing toward the wreckage of
+the ponderous man-trap. With quirt and spur they urged their frightened
+animals over the obstruction. From the midst of the débris Nat could
+see Dayton crawling. The man was evidently hurt, but the others paid no
+attention to him.
+
+"A thousand dollars to the one who brings that boy down!"
+
+The cry came in the voice of Col. Morello.
+
+Nat laid his quirt on furiously. But the pony he bestrode had been used
+for hunting over the rugged mountains most of that day and soon it
+began to flag.
+
+"They're gaining on me," gasped Nat, glancing behind.
+
+At the same instant half a dozen bullets rattled on the rocks about
+him, or went singing by his ears. As the fusillade pelted around him,
+Nat saw, not more than a hundred yards ahead, the end of the trail. The
+point, that is, where it lost itself in the wilderness of chaparral
+and piñon trees, among which he had met the adventure which ended in
+his capture. If he could only gain that shelter, he would be safe. But
+on his tired, fagged pony, already almost collapsing beneath him, could
+he do it?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+OUTWITTING HIS ENEMIES.
+
+
+There was a feeling of pity in Nat's heart for the unfortunate pony
+he bestrode. The lad was fond of all animals, and it galled him to be
+compelled to drive the exhausted beast so unmercifully, but it had to
+be done if his life were to be saved.
+
+Crack! crack! came the cruel quirt once more, and the cayuse gamely
+struggled onward. Its nostrils were distended and its eyes starting out
+of its head with exhaustion. Its sunken flanks heaved convulsively. Nat
+recognized the symptoms. A few paces more and the pony would be done
+for.
+
+"Come on, old bronco!" he urged, "just a little way farther."
+
+With a heart-breaking gasp the little animal responded, and in a couple
+of jumps it was within the friendly shelter of the leafy cover. A yell
+of rage and baffled fury came from his pursuers as Nat vanished. The
+boy chuckled to himself.
+
+"I guess I take the first trick," he thought, but his self-gratulation
+was a little premature. As he plunged on amid the friendly shelter
+he could still hear behind him the shouts of pursuit. The men were
+scattering and moving forward through the wood. There seemed but little
+chance in view of these maneuvers, that Nat, with only his exhausted
+pony under him, could get clear away. As the shouts resounded closer
+his former fear rushed back with redoubled force.
+
+Suddenly his heart almost stopped beating.
+
+In the wood in front of him he could hear the hoof-tramplings of
+another horse.
+
+They were coming in his direction. Who could it be? Nat realized that
+it was not likely to prove anybody who was friendly to him. He was
+desperately casting about for some way out of this new and utterly
+unexpected situation, when, with a snort, the approaching animal
+plunged through the brush separating it from Nat. As it came into view
+the boy gave a sharp exclamation of surprise.
+
+The new arrival was Herr Muller's locoed horse, now, seemingly, quite
+recovered from its "late indisposition." It whinnied in a low tone as
+it spied Nat's pony, and coming alongside, nuzzled up against it.
+
+To Nat's joy, Bismark showed no signs of being scared of him, and
+allowed the boy to handle him. But in the few, brief seconds that had
+elapsed while this was taking place, Col. Morello's gang had drawn
+perilously near. The trampling and crashing as they rode through the
+woods was quite distinct now.
+
+"After him, boys," Nat could hear the colonel saying, "that boy knows
+our hiding place. We've got to get him or get out of the country."
+
+"We'll get him all right, colonel," Nat heard Manuello answer
+confidently.
+
+"Yep. He won't go far on that foundered pony," came another voice.
+
+In those few, tense moments of breathing space Nat rapidly thought out
+a plan of escape. Deftly he slipped the saddle and bridle off the
+outlaw's pony, and transferred them to Bismark's back.
+
+Then, as the chase drew closer, he gave the trembling pony a final
+whack on the rump with the quirt. The little animal sprang forward, its
+hoofs making a tremendous noise among the loose rocks on the hillside.
+
+Half frantic with fear, its alarm overcame its spent vitality, and it
+clattered off.
+
+"Wow! There he goes!"
+
+"Yip-ee-ee! After him, boys!"
+
+"Now we've got him!"
+
+These and a score of other triumphant cries came from the outlaws'
+throats as they heard the pony making off as fast as it could among
+the trees, and naturally assumed that Nat was on its back. With yells
+and shrieks of satisfaction they gave chase, firing volleys of bullets
+after it. The fusillade and the shouts, of course, only added to the
+pony's fear, and made it proceed with more expedition.
+
+As the cries of the chase grew faint in the distance, Nat listened
+intently, and then, satisfied that the outlaws had swept far from his
+vicinity, urged Bismark cautiously forward. This time he travelled in
+the right direction, profiting by his experiment with his watch. But
+urge Bismark on as he would, darkness fell before he was out of the
+wilderness. But still he pressed on. In his position he knew that it
+was important that he reach the camp as soon as possible. Not only on
+his own account, but in order that he might give warning of the attack
+that Col. Morello would almost certainly make as soon as he realized
+that his prisoner had got clear away. If they had been interested in
+the Motor Rangers' capture before, the outlaws must by now be doubly
+anxious to secure them, Nat argued. The reason for this had been voiced
+by Col. Morello himself while he was conducting the chase in the wood:
+
+"That boy knows our hiding place."
+
+"You bet I do," thought Nat to himself, "and if I don't see to it that
+the whole bunch is smoked out of there before long it won't be my
+fault."
+
+Tethering Bismark to a tree the boy clambered up the trunk. His object
+in so doing was to get some idea of his whereabouts.
+
+But it was dark, I hear some reader remark.
+
+True, but even in the darkness there is one unfailing guide to the
+woodsman, providing the skies be clear, as they were on this night. The
+north star was what Nat was after. By it he would gauge his direction.
+Getting a line on it from the outer star of "the dipper" bowl, Nat soon
+made certain that he had not, as he had for a time feared, wandered
+from his course.
+
+Descending the tree once more, he looked at his watch. It was almost
+midnight, yet in the excitement of his flight he felt no exhaustion
+or even hunger. He was terribly thirsty though, and would have given
+a lot for a drink of water. However, the young Motor Ranger had faced
+hardships enough not to waste time wishing for the unattainable. So,
+remounting Bismark, he pressed on toward the east, knowing that if he
+rode long enough he must strike the valley which would bring him to his
+friends.
+
+All at once, a short distance ahead, he heard a tiny tinkle coming
+through the darkness. It was like the murmuring of a little bell. Nat
+knew, though, that it was the voice of a little stream, and a more
+welcome sound, except the voices of his comrades, he could not have
+heard at that moment.
+
+"Here's where we get a drink, Bismark, you old prodigal son," he said
+in a low tone.
+
+A few paces more brought them into a little dip in the hillside down
+which the tiny watercourse ran. Tumbling off his horse Nat stretched
+himself out flat and fairly wallowed in the water. When he had
+refreshed his thirst, Bismark drinking just below him, the boy laved
+his face and neck, and this done felt immensely better.
+
+He was just rising from this al-fresco bath when, from almost in front
+of his face as it seemed, came a sound somewhat like the dry rattle
+of peas in a bladder. It was harsh and unmusical, and to Nat, most
+startling, for it meant that he had poked his countenance almost into
+the evil wedge-shaped head of a big mountain rattler.
+
+"Wow!" yelled the boy tumbling backward like an acrobat.
+
+At the same instant a dark, lithe thing that glittered dully in the
+starlight, was launched by his cheek. So close did it come that it
+almost touched him. But Nat was not destined to be bitten that night
+at least. As the long body encountered the ground after striking, and
+Bismark jumped back snorting alarmedly, Nat picked up a big rock and
+terminated Mr. Rattler's existence on the spot.
+
+Sure of his direction now, the boy remounted, and crossing the stream,
+arrived in due course near to the camp. The first thing he almost
+stumbled across was the prostrate form of Herr Muller, sound asleep
+just outside the flickering circle of light cast by the fire.
+
+"Now for some fun," thought Nat, and slipping off his horse he crouched
+behind the sleeping Teuton, and with a long blade of grass, began
+tickling his ear. At first Herr Muller simply stirred uneasily, and
+kicked about a bit. Then finally he sat up erect and wide awake. The
+first thing he saw was a tall, dark form bent over him.
+
+With a wild succession of whoops and frantic yells he set off for the
+camp in an astonishing series of leaps and bounds, causing Nat to
+exclaim as he watched the performance:--
+
+"That Dutchman could certainly carry off a medal for broad jumping."
+
+A few of the leaps brought Herr Muller fairly into the camp-fire,
+scattering the embers right and left and thoroughly alarming the
+awakened adventurers.
+
+As they started up and seized their arms, Nat caused an abrupt
+cessation of the threatened hostilities by a loud hail:--
+
+"Hullo, fellows!"
+
+"It's Nat--whoop hurroo!" came in a joyous chorus, and as description
+is lamentably inadequate to set forth some scenes, I will leave each of
+my readers to imagine for himself how many times Nat's hand was wrung
+pump-handle fashion, and how many times he was asked:--
+
+"How did it happen?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+HERR MULLER GETS A CHILLY BATH.
+
+
+"Shake a le-e-eg!"
+
+Rather later than usual the following morning the lengthy form of Cal
+reared itself upright in its blankets and uttered the waking cry. From
+the boys there came only a sleepy response in rejoinder. They were all
+pretty well tired out with the adventures and strains of the day before
+and had no inclination to arise from their slumbers. Even Nat, usually
+the first to "tumble up," didn't seem in any hurry to crawl out of his
+warm nest.
+
+Winking to himself, Cal picked up two buckets and started for the
+little lake. He soon filled them with the clear, cold snow-water, and
+started back with long strides across the little meadow.
+
+"Here's where it rains for forty days and forty nights," he grinned, as
+poising a bucket for a moment he let fly its contents.
+
+S-l-o-u-s-h!
+
+What a torrent of icy fluid dashed over the recumbent form of Herr
+Von Schiller Muller! The Teuton leaped up as if a tarantula had been
+concealed in his bed clothes, but before he could utter the yell that
+his fat face was framing Cal was on him in one flying leap and had
+clapped a big brown hand over his mouth.
+
+"Shut up," he warned, "if you want to have some fun with the others."
+
+He pointed to the pail which was still half full. Herr Muller instantly
+comprehended. Dashing the water out of his eyes he prepared to watch
+the others get their dose, on the principle, I suppose, that misery
+loves company.
+
+S-l-o-u-s-h!
+
+This time Ding-dong and Joe got the icy shower bath, and sputtering
+and protesting hugely, they leaped erect. But the water in their eyes
+blinded them and although they struck out savagely, their blows only
+punctured the surrounding atmosphere.
+
+"Here, hold this bucket!" ordered Cal, handing the empty pail to the
+convulsed Dutchman.
+
+"Oh-ho-ho-ho dees iss too much!" gasped Herr Muller, doubling himself
+up with merriment, "I must mage me a picdgure of him."
+
+In the meantime Cal had dashed the contents of the other bucket over
+Nat, who also sprang up full of wrath at the unexpected immersion.
+
+"Take this, too," ordered Cal, handing the other empty bucket to Herr
+Muller. Tears were rolling down the German's fat cheeks. He was bent
+double with vociferous mirth as he shook.
+
+"Dees iss der best choke I haf seen since I hadt der measles!" he
+chuckled.
+
+Shouts of anger rang from the boys' throats as they rushed about,
+shaking off water like so many dogs after a swim. Suddenly their eyes
+fell on Herr Muller doubled with laughter and holding the two buckets.
+From time to time, in the excess of his merriment he flourished them
+about.
+
+"Oh-ho-ho-ho, I dink me I die ef I dodn't laughing stop it."
+
+"Hey, fellows!" hailed Nat, taking in the scene, "there's the chap that
+did it."
+
+"That Dutchman?--Wow!"
+
+With a whoop the three descended on the laughter-stricken Teuton, and
+before he could utter a word of expostulation, they had seized him
+up and were off to the little lake at lightning speed, bearing his
+struggling form.
+
+"Help! Murder! Poys, I don't do idt. It voss dot Cal vot vatered you!"
+
+The cries came from the German's lips in an agonizing stream of
+entreaty and expostulation. But the boys, wet and irritated, were in no
+mood for mercy. To use an expressive term, though a slangy one, they
+had caught Herr Muller "with the goods on."
+
+Through the alders they dashed, and then----
+
+Splash!
+
+Head over heels Herr Muller floundered in the icy water, choking and
+sputtering, as he came to the surface, like a grampus--or, at least
+in the manner, we are led to believe, grampuses or grampi conduct
+themselves.
+
+As his pudgy form struck out for the shore the boys' anger gave way
+to yells of merriment at the comical sight he presented, his scanty
+pajamas clinging tightly about his rotund form.
+
+"Say, fellows, here comes Venus from the bath!" shouted Nat.
+
+"First time I heard of a Dutch Venus!" chortled Joe.
+
+"Poys, you haf made it a misdake," expostulated Herr Muller, standing,
+with what dignity he could command, on the brink of the little lake.
+His teeth were chattering as if they were executing a clog dance.
+
+"D-dod-d-dot C-c-c-c-al he do-done idt. If you don'd pelieve me,--Loog!"
+
+He pointed back to the camp and there was Cal rolling about on the
+grass and indulging in other antics of amusement.
+
+"Wow!" yelled Nat, "we'll duck him, too."
+
+At full speed they set off for the camp once more, Cal rising to his
+feet as they grew near. He looked unusually large and muscular somehow.
+
+"W-w-w-w-w-where w-w-w-w-will we t-t-t-t-tackle him?" inquired
+Ding-dong, who seemed quite willing to yield his foremost place in the
+parade of punishment.
+
+"I guess," said Nat slowly and judiciously, "I guess we'll--leave Cal's
+punishment to some other time."
+
+Breakfast that morning was a merry meal, and old Bismark, who had
+naturally been tethered in a post perfectly free from loco weed, came
+in for several lumps of sugar as reward for his signal service of the
+day before. All were agreed that if the old horse had not wandered
+along so opportunely that Nat might have been in a bad fix.
+
+"I wonder if they'd have dared to kill me?" said Nat, drawing Cal aside
+while the others were busy striking camp and washing dishes.
+
+"Wall," drawled Cal, "I may be wrong, but I don't think somehow that
+you'd hev had much appetite fer breakfast this mornin'."
+
+"I'm inclined to agree with you," said Nat, repressing a shudder as he
+recalled the tones of the colonel's voice.
+
+"And that reminds me," said Cal, "that our best plan is to get on ter
+my mine as quick as we can. It ain't much of a place. You know there's
+mighty little mining down here nowadays but what is done by the big
+companies with stamp mills and hundreds of thousands invested. But I
+reckon we kin be safe there while we think up some plan to get these
+fellows in a prison where they belong."
+
+"That's my idea exactly," said Nat, "I'm pretty sure that now they are
+aware that we know the location of their fort that they'll try to get
+after us in every way they can."
+
+"Right you are, boy. Their very existence in these mountains depends on
+their checkmating us some way. I think the sooner we get out of here
+the better."
+
+"How soon can we get to the mine?" asked Nat.
+
+"Got your map?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Let's see it."
+
+Nat dipped down into his pocket and drew out his folder map of the
+Sierra region. It was necessarily imperfect, but Cal, after much
+cogitation, darted down his thumb on a point some distance to the
+northwest of where they were camped.
+
+"It's about thar," he declared, "right in that thar canyon."
+
+"How soon can we get there?"
+
+"With luck, in two days, I should say. We can camp there while one of
+us rides off and gets the sheriff and a posse. I tell you it'll be a
+big feather in our caps to land those fellows where they belong. The
+scallywags have made themselves the terror of this region for a long
+time."
+
+"Well, don't let's holler till we're out of the wood," advised Nat.
+
+By this time the auto was ready and the others awaited their coming
+with some impatience.
+
+"Are we all right?" asked Nat looking back at the tonneau and then
+casting a comprehensive eye about. Bismark, hitched behind as usual,
+was snorting impatiently and pawing the ground in quite a fiery manner.
+
+"Let 'er go," cried Cal.
+
+Chug-chu-g-chug!
+
+Nat threw on the power and off moved the auto, soon leaving behind the
+camp on the knoll which had been the scene of so many anxieties and
+amusing incidents.
+
+As they rode along Nat explained to the others the plan of campaign. It
+was hailed with much joy and Joe and Ding-dong immediately began asking
+questions. Cal explained that his mine was located in a canyon which
+had once been the scene of much mining activity, but like many camps in
+the Sierras, those who once worked it--the argonauts--had long since
+departed. Only a little graveyard with wooden head-boards on the hill
+above the camp remained to tell of them. Cal had taken up a claim there
+in the heyday of the gold workings and from time to time used to visit
+it and work about the claim a little. He had never gotten much gold out
+of it, but it yielded him a living, he said.
+
+"Anybody else up there?" asked Nat.
+
+"Only a few Chinks," rejoined Cal.
+
+"I don't like 'em," said Joe briefly, "yellow-skinned, mysterious
+cusses."
+
+"M-m-m-my mother had a C-c-c-c-chinese c-c-c-c-cook--phwit!--once," put
+in Ding-dong, "but we had to fire him."
+
+"Why?" inquired Cal with some show of interest.
+
+"We could never tell whether he was sus-s-s-singing over his work or
+moaning in agony," rejoined Ding-dong.
+
+"Say, is that meant for a joke?" asked Nat amid a deadly silence.
+
+"N-n-no, it's a f-f-fact," solemnly rejoined Ding-dong.
+
+"That feller must hev bin a cousin to the short-haired Chinaman who
+couldn't be an actor," grinned Cal.
+
+"What is this, a catch?" asked Joe suspiciously.
+
+"No," Cal assured him.
+
+"Oh, all right, I'll bite," said Nat with a laugh, "why couldn't the
+short-haired Chinaman be an actor?"
+
+"Pecoss he voss a voshman, I subbose," suggested Herr Muller.
+
+"Oh, no," said Cal, "because he'd always miss his queue."
+
+"Reminds me of the fellow who thought he was of royal blood every time
+he watered his wife's rubber plant which grew in a porcelain pot,"
+grinned Nat.
+
+"I'll bite this time," volunteered Joe, "How was that, Mister Bones?"
+
+"Well, he said that when he irrigated it, he rained over china,"
+grinned Nat, speeding the car up a little grade.
+
+"If this rare and refined vein of humor is about exhausted," said Joe
+with some dignity after the laugh this caused had subsided, "I would
+like to draw the attention of the company to that smoke right ahead of
+us."
+
+"Is that smoke? I thought it was dust," said Nat, squinting along the
+track ahead of them.
+
+The column of bluish, brownish vapor to which Joe had drawn attention
+could now be seen quite distinctly, pouring steadily upward above
+the crest of a ridge of mountains beyond them. Although they were
+travelling at a considerable height they could not make out what was
+causing it, but Cal's face grew grave. He said nothing, however, but
+if the others had noticed him they would have seen that his keen eyes
+never left the column which, as they neared it, appeared to grow larger
+in size until it towered above its surroundings like a vaporous giant
+or the funnel of a whirlwind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+THE FIRE IN THE FOREST.
+
+
+"Why, that smoke's coming up from those trees!" declared Nat as they
+topped the rise, and saw below them the familiar panorama of undulating
+mountain tops, spreading to the sky line in seeming unending billows.
+
+Sure enough, as he said, the smoke was coming from some great
+timber-clad slopes directly in front of them.
+
+"May be some more campers," suggested Joe.
+
+"Not likely," said Cal gravely, "no campers would light a fire big
+enough to make all that smoke."
+
+Nat did not reply, being too busy applying the brakes as the road
+took a sudden steep pitch downward. At the bottom of the dip was a
+bridge, made after the fashion of most mountain bridges in those remote
+regions. That is to say, two long logs had been felled to span the
+abyss the bridge crossed. Then across these string pieces, had been
+laid other logs close together. The contrivance seemed hardly wide
+enough to allow the auto to cross. Grinding down his brakes Nat brought
+the machine to a halt.
+
+"I guess we'd better have a look at that bridge before we try to cross
+it," he said, turning to Cal.
+
+"Right you are, boy," assented the ex-stage driver, getting out, "this
+gasolene gig is a sight heavier than anything that bridge was ever
+built for. Come on, Joe, we'll take a look at it."
+
+Accompanied by the young Motor Ranger the Westerner set off at his
+swinging stride down the few paces between the auto and the bridge.
+Lying on his stomach at the edge of the brink, he gazed over and
+carefully examined the supports of the bridge and the manner in which
+they were embedded in the earth on either side.
+
+Then he and Joe jumped up and down on the contrivance and gave it every
+test they could.
+
+"I guess it will be all right," said Cal, as he rejoined the party.
+
+"You guess?" said Nat, "say, Cal, if your guess is wrong we're in for a
+nasty tumble."
+
+"Wall, then I'm sure," amended the former stage driver, "I've driv'
+stage enough to know what a bridge 'ull hold I guess, and that span
+yonder will carry this car over in good shape. How about it, Joe?"
+
+"It'll be all right, Nat," Joe assured his chum, "in any case we are
+justified in taking a chance, for after what you told us about the
+colonel's gang it would be dangerous to go back again."
+
+"That's so," agreed Nat, "now then, all hold tight, for I'm going to go
+ahead at a good clip. Hang on to Bismark, Herr Muller."
+
+"I holdt on py him like he voss my long lost brudder," the German
+assured him.
+
+Forward plunged the auto, Bismark almost jerking Herr Muller out of
+the tonneau as his head rope tightened. The next instant the car was
+thundering upon the doubtful bridge. A thrill went through every one of
+the party as the instant the entire weight of the heavy vehicle was
+placed upon it the flimsy structure gave a distinct sag.
+
+"Let her have it, Nat!" yelled Cal, "or we're gone coons!"
+
+There was a rending, cracking sound, as Nat responded, and the car
+leaped forward like a live thing. But as the auto bounded forward to
+safety Bismark hung back, shaking his head stubbornly. Herr Muller,
+caught by surprise, was jerked half out of the tonneau and was in
+imminent peril of being carried over and toppling into the chasm. But
+Joe grasped his legs firmly while Cal struck the rope--to which the
+Teuton obstinately held--out of his hands.
+
+"Bismark! Come back!" wailed the German as the released horse turned
+swiftly on the rickety bridge and galloped madly back in the direction
+from which they had come.
+
+But the horse, which was without saddle or bridle, both having been
+placed in the car when they started out, paid no attention to his
+owner's impassioned cry. Flinging up his heels he soon vanished in a
+cloud of dust over the hilltop.
+
+"Turn round der auto. Vee go pack after him," yelled the German.
+
+"Not much we won't," retorted Cal indignantly, "that plug of yours is
+headed for his old home. You wouldn't get him across that bridge if you
+built a fire under him."
+
+"And I certainly wouldn't try to recross it with this car," said Nat.
+
+"I should say not," put in Joe, "why we could feel the thing give way
+as our weight came on it."
+
+"Goodt pye, Bismark, mein faithful lager--charger I mean," wailed Herr
+Muller, "I nefer see you again."
+
+"Oh yes, you will," comforted Cal, seeing the German's real distress,
+"he'll go right home to the hotel stable that he come frum. You'll see.
+The man that owns it is honest as daylight and ef you don't come back
+fer the horse he'll send you yer money."
+
+"Put poor Bismark will starfe!" wailed the Teuton.
+
+"Not he," chuckled Cal, "between here and Lariat is all fine grazing
+country, and there's lots of water. He'll get back fatter than he came
+out."
+
+"Dot is more than I'll do," wailed Herr Muller resignedly as Nat set
+the auto in motion once more and they left behind them the weakened
+bridge.
+
+"No auto 'ull ever go over that agin," commented Cal, looking back.
+
+"Not unless it has an aeroplane attachment," added Joe.
+
+But their attention now was all centred on the smoke that rose in front
+of them. The bridge had lain in a small depression so that they had
+not been able to see far beyond it, but as they rolled over the brow
+of the hill beyond, the cause of the uprising of the vapor soon became
+alarmingly apparent.
+
+A pungent smell was in the air.
+
+"Smells like the punks on Fourth of July," said Joe, as he sniffed.
+
+But joking was far from Cal's mind as he gazed through narrowed eyes.
+The smoke which had at first not been much more than a pillar, was now
+a vast volume of dark vapor rolling up crowdedly from the forests ahead
+of them. Worse still, the wind was sweeping the fire down toward the
+track they had to traverse.
+
+"The woods are on fire!" cried Nat as he gazed, and voicing the fear
+that now held them all.
+
+As he spoke, from out of the midst of the dark, rolling clouds of
+smoke, there shot up a bright, wavering flame. It instantly died down
+again, but presently another fiery sword flashed up, in a different
+direction, and hung above the dark woods. They could now hear quite
+distinctly, too, the sound of heavy, booming falls as big trees
+succumbed to the fire and fell with a mighty crash.
+
+"Great Scott, what are we going to do?" gasped Joe.
+
+"T-t-t-t-turn b-b-b-back!" said Ding-dong as if that settled the matter.
+
+"Py all means," chimed in Herr Muller, gazing ahead at the
+awe-inspiring spectacle.
+
+"How are you going to do that when that bridge won't hold us?" asked
+Nat. "Do you think we can beat the fire to the trail, Cal?"
+
+"We've gotter," was the brief, but comprehensive rejoinder.
+
+"But if we don't?" wailed Ding-dong.
+
+"Ef you can't find nothing ter say but that, jus' shut yer mouth,"
+warned Cal in a sharp tone.
+
+His face was drawn and anxious. He was too old a mountaineer not to
+realize to a far greater extent than the boys the nature of the peril
+that environed them. His acute mind had already weighed the situation
+in all its bearings. In no quarter could he find a trace of hope,
+except in going right onward and trusting to their speed to beat the
+flames.
+
+True, they might have turned back and waited by the bridge, but the
+woods grew right up to the trail, and it would be only a matter of time
+in all probability before the flames reached there. In that case the
+Motor Rangers would have been in almost as grave a peril as they would
+by going on. The fire was nearly two miles from where they were, but
+Cal knew full well the almost incredible rapidity with which these
+conflagrations leap from tree to tree, bridging trails, roads, and even
+broad rivers. It has been said that the man or boy who starts a forest
+fire is an enemy to his race, and truly to any one that has witnessed
+the awful speed with which these fires devour timber and threaten big
+ranges of country, the observation must ever seem a just one.
+
+"Can't we turn off and outflank the flames?" asked Joe, as they sped on
+at as fast a pace as Nat dared to urge the car over the rough trail.
+
+Cal's answer was a wave of his hand to the thickset trees on either
+side. Even had it not been for the danger of fire reaching them before
+they could outflank it, the trunks were too close together to permit of
+any vehicle threading its way amidst them.
+
+There was but little conversation in the car as it roared on, leaping
+and careering over rocks and obstructions like a small boat in a heavy
+sea. The Motor Rangers were engaged in the most desperate race of their
+lives. As they sped along the eyes of all were glued on the trail
+ahead, with its towering walls of mighty pines and about whose bases
+chaparral and inflammable brush grew closely.
+
+The air was perceptibly warmer now, and once or twice a spark was blown
+into the car. Not the least awe-inspiring feature of a forest fire in
+the mountains is the mighty booming of the great trunks as they fall.
+It is as impressive as a funeral march.
+
+"Ouch, somebody burned my hand!" exclaimed Joe suddenly.
+
+But gazing down he saw that a big ember had lit on the back of it. He
+glanced up and noticed that the air above them was now full of the
+driving fire-brands. Overhead the dun-colored smoke was racing by like
+a succession of tempest-driven storm clouds. A sinister gloom was in
+the air.
+
+Suddenly, Cal, who had been half standing, gazing intently ahead, gave
+a loud shout and pointed in front of them. The others as they gazed
+echoed his cry of alarm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+A DASH THROUGH THE FLAMES.
+
+
+The object thus indicated by Cal was in fact about as alarming a thing
+as they could have encountered. It was nothing more or less than the
+smoking summit of a big tree a few hundred feet ahead of them. As
+they gazed it broke into flame, the resinous leaves igniting with a
+succession of sharp cracks like pistol shots. In a second the tree was
+transformed into the semblance of an immense torch. Driven by the wind
+the flames went leaping and rioting among its neighbors till all above
+the Motor Rangers was a fiery curtain stretched between them and the
+sky.
+
+To make matters worse, the smoke, as acrid and pungent as chemical
+vapor, was driven in Nat's eyes, and he could hardly see to drive.
+His throat, too, felt hot and parched, and his gloves were singed and
+smoking in half a dozen places.
+
+"Get out that big bucket and fill it from the tank," he ordered as he
+drove blindly onward.
+
+"Guess it's about time," muttered Cal as he, guessing the rest of Nat's
+order, dashed the water right and left over the party, "we'd have bin
+on fire ourselves in a few seconds."
+
+Nat drove as fast as he dared, but the fire seemed to travel
+faster. The roar now resembled the voice of a mighty waterfall, and
+occasionally the sharp cracks of bursting trunks or falling branches
+filled the air.
+
+"The whole forest is going," bawled Cal, "put on more steam Nat."
+
+The boy did as he was directed and the beleaguered auto forged forward
+a little more swiftly. Suddenly, however, a happening that bade fair
+to put a dead stop to their progress occurred. Directly in front of
+them the chaparral had blazed about a tree, till it had eaten into the
+trunk. Weakened, the monster trembled for a moment and then plunged
+downward.
+
+"Lo-ok ou-t!"
+
+Cal bellowed the warning, and just in time. Nat, half blinded as he
+was, had not seen the imminent danger.
+
+With a crash like the subsidence of a big building, the tree toppled
+over and fell across the track, blazing fiercely, and with a shower of
+sparks and embers flying upward from it.
+
+[Illustration: As if it had been a leaping, hunting horse, the big car
+bounced and jolted over the log.]
+
+A new peril now threatened the already danger-surrounded lads, and
+their Western companion. The tree lay across their path, an apparently
+insurmountable object. A glance behind showed that the flames had
+already closed in, the fire, by some freak of the wind, having been
+driven back from their temporary resting place. But they knew that the
+respite was only momentary.
+
+Suddenly, the car surged forward, and before one of the party even
+realized that Nat had made up his mind they were rushing full tilt for
+the blazing log.
+
+"Wow!" yelled Cal carried away by excitement, as he sensed Nat's daring
+purpose, "he's going ter jump it--by thunder!"
+
+Even as he spoke the auto was upon the log and its front wheels
+struck the glowing, blazing barrier with a terrific thud. Had they not
+been prepared for the shock the Motor Rangers would have scattered out
+of the car like so many loose attachments.
+
+As if it had been a leaping, hunting horse, the big car bounced and
+jolted over the log, which was fully six feet in diameter. It came down
+again beyond it with a jounce that almost shook the teeth out of their
+heads, but the lads broke into a cheer in which Herr Muller's and Cal's
+voices joined, as they realized that Nat's daring had saved the day for
+them.
+
+Behind them lay the fiercely blazing forest, but in front the road was
+clear, although the resinous smell of the blaze and the smoke pall lay
+heavily above them still. A short distance further a fresh surprise
+greeted them. A number of deer, going like the wind, crossed the road,
+fleeing in what their instinct told them was a safe direction. They
+were followed by numerous wolves, foxes and other smaller animals.
+
+As they went onward they came upon a big burned-out patch in which an
+ember must have fallen, carried by some freak of the capricious wind.
+In the midst of it, squirming in slimy, scaly knots, were a hundred or
+more snakes of half a dozen kinds, all scorched and writhing in their
+death agonies. The boys were glad to leave the repulsive sight behind
+them. At last, after ascending a steep bit of grade they were able to
+gaze back.
+
+It was a soul-stirring sight, and one of unpassable grandeur. Below
+them the fire was leaping and raging on its way eastward. Behind it lay
+a smoking, desolate waste, with here and there a charred trunk standing
+upright in its midst. Already the blaze had swept across the trail,
+stripping it bare on either side. The lads shuddered as they thought
+that but for good fortune and Nat's plucky management of the car, they
+might have been among the ashes and débris.
+
+"Wall, boys," said Cal, turning to them, "you've seen a forest fire.
+What do you think of it?"
+
+"I think," said Nat, "that it is the most terrible agent of destruction
+I have ever seen."
+
+"I t-t-t-think we need a w-w-w-ash," stuttered Ding-dong.
+
+They burst into a laugh as they looked at one another and recognized
+the truth of their whimsical comrade's words. With faces blackened and
+blistered by their fiery ordeal and with their clothes scorched and
+singed in a hundred places, they were indeed a vagabond looking crew.
+
+"I'll bet if old Colonel Morello could see us now we'd scare him away,"
+laughed Joe, although it pained his blistered lips to indulge in
+merriment.
+
+"Wall, there's a stream a little way down in that hollow," said Cal,
+pointing, "we'll have a good wash when we reach it."
+
+"And maybe I won't be glad, too," laughed Nat, setting the brakes for
+the hill ahead of them.
+
+Suddenly Ding-dong piped up.
+
+"S-s-s-s-say, m-m-m-may I m-m-m-make a remark?"
+
+"Certainly, boy, half a dozen of them," said Cal.
+
+"It's a go-g-g-g-good thing we lost Bismark," grinned Ding-dong, in
+which sage observation they all perforce acquiesced.
+
+"I've got something to say myself," observed Joe suddenly, "maybe you
+other fellows have noticed it? This seat is getting awfully hot."
+
+"By ginger, so it is," cried Cal suddenly, springing up from the easy
+posture he had assumed.
+
+"L-l-l-ook, there is s-s-s-smoke c-c-c-coming out from back of the
+car!" cried Ding-dong alarmedly.
+
+As he spoke a volume of smoke rolled out from behind them.
+
+"Good gracious, the car's on fire!" yelled Nat, "throw some water on it
+quick!"
+
+"Can't," exclaimed Cal, "we used it all up coming through the flames
+yonder."
+
+"We'll burn up!" yelled Joe despairingly.
+
+Indeed it seemed like it. Smoke was now rolling out in prodigious
+quantities from beneath the tonneau and to make the possibilities more
+alarming still, the reserve tank full of gasolene was located there.
+
+The tonneau had now grown so hot that they could not sit down.
+
+"Get out, everybody," yelled Joe, as badly scared as he had ever been
+in his life.
+
+"Yep, let us out, Nat," begged Cal. The Westerner was no coward, but he
+did not fancy the idea of being blown sky high on top of an explosion
+of gasolene any more than the rest.
+
+"Good thing I haven't got on my Sunday pants," the irrepressible
+Westerner remarked. "Hey, Nat," he yelled the next minute, as no
+diminution of speed was perceptible, "ain't you going ter stop?"
+
+"Not on your life," hurled back Nat, without so much as turning his
+head.
+
+He evidently had some plan, but what it was they could not for the
+life of them tell. Their hearts beat quickly and fast with a lively
+sensation of danger as the burning auto plunged on down the rough
+slope.
+
+All at once Joe gave a shout of astonishment.
+
+"I see what he's going to do now!" he exclaimed.
+
+So fast was the auto travelling that hardly had the words left his lips
+before they were fairly upon the little rivulet or creek Cal's acute
+eyes had spied from the summit of the hill.
+
+The next instant they were in it, the water coming up to the hubs.
+Clouds of white steam arose about the car and a great sound of hissing
+filled the air as the burning portion encountered the chill of the
+water.
+
+"Wall, that beats a fire department," exclaimed Cal, as, after
+remaining immersed for a short time, Nat drove the car up the opposite
+bank which, luckily, had a gentle slope.
+
+As Cal had remarked, it did indeed beat a fire department, for the
+water had put out the flames effectually. An investigation showed that
+beyond having charred and blistered the woodwork and paint that the
+fire had fortunately done no damage. It would take some little time
+to set things to rights, though, after the ordeal they had all gone
+through, and so it was decided that they would camp for a time at the
+edge of the river.
+
+"Hullo, what's all that going on over there?" wondered Joe, as he
+pointed to a cloud of dust in the distance.
+
+Cal rapidly shinned up a tree, and shading his eyes with his hand,
+gazed for some moments in the direction of the cloud.
+
+"Sheep!" he announced as he slid down again, "consarn thet Jeb
+Scantling, now I know who set thet fire."
+
+The boys looked puzzled till Cal went on to explain.
+
+"You know I told you fellows that cattlemen was dead sore at sheepmen,"
+he said, "and that's the reason."
+
+He jerked one brown thumb backward to indicate that "that" was the fire.
+
+"Do you mean to say that Jeb Scantling started it?" gasped Nat. The
+idea was a new one to him.
+
+"Wall, I'd hate to accuse any one of doing sich a thing," rejoined Cal
+non-committally, "but," he added with a meaning emphasis, "I've heard
+of sheepmen setting tracts on fire afore this."
+
+"But whatever for?" inquired Joe in a puzzled tone.
+
+"So's to burn the brush away and hev nice green grass in the spring,"
+responded Cal.
+
+"Well, that's a nice idea," exclaimed Nat, "so they burn up a whole
+section of country to get feed for a few old sheep."
+
+"Yep," nodded Cal, "and that's what is at the bottom of most of the
+sheep and cattlemen's wars you read about."
+
+At first the boys felt inclined to chase up Jeb, but they concluded
+that it would be impracticable, so, allowing the sheepman to take
+his distant way off into the lonelier fastnesses of the Sierras,
+they hastened to the stream and began splashing about, enjoying the
+sensation hugely. Suddenly a voice on the bank above hailed them.
+Somewhat startled they all turned quickly and burst into a roar of
+laughter as they saw Herr Muller, who had slipped quietly from among
+them "holding them up" with a camera.
+
+"Lookd idt breddy, blease," he grinned, "a picdgure I take idt."
+
+Click!
+
+And there the whole crew were transferred to a picture for future
+development.
+
+"I guess we won't be very proud of that picture," laughed Nat, turning
+to his ablutions once more.
+
+"No, we must answer in the negative," punned Joe. But the next minute
+he paid the penalty as Cal leaped upon him and bore him struggling to
+the earth. Over and over they rolled, Cal attempting to stuff a handful
+of soapsuds in the punning youth's mouth.
+
+"Help! Nat!" yelled Joe.
+
+"Not me," grinned Nat, enjoying the rough sport, "you deserve your
+fate."
+
+Soon after order was restored and they sat down to a meal to which they
+were fully prepared to do ample justice.
+
+"Say," remarked Cal suddenly, with his mouth full of canned plum
+pudding, "this stream and those sheep back yonder put me in mind of a
+story I once heard."
+
+"What was it?" came the chorus.
+
+"Wall, children, sit right quiet an' I'll tell yer. Oncet upon a time
+thar was a sheepman in these hills----"
+
+"Sing ho, the sheepman in the hills!" hummed Joe.
+
+"Thar was a sheepman in these hills," went on Cal, disdaining the
+interruption, "who got in trouble with some cattlemen, the same way
+as this one will if they git him. Wall, this sheepman had a pal and
+the two of them decided one day that ef they didn't want ter act as
+reliable imitations of porous plasters they'd better be gitting. So
+they gabbled and got. Wall, the cattlemen behind 'em pressed em pretty
+dern close, an' one night they come ter a creek purty much like this
+one.
+
+"Wall, they was in a hurry ter git across as you may suppose, but the
+problem was ter git ther sheep over. You see they didn't want ter
+leave 'em as they was about all the worldly goods they had. But the
+sheep was inclined to mutiny."
+
+"Muttony, you mean, don't you?" grinned Joe, dodging to safe distance.
+When quiet was restored, Cal resumed.
+
+"As I said, the sheep was inclined ter argify"--this with a baleful
+glance at Joe--"and so they decided that they'd pick up each sheep in
+ther arms and carry them over till they got the hull three thousand
+sheep across ther crick. You see it wuz ther only thing ter do."
+
+The boys nodded interestedly.
+
+"Wall, one of ther fellows he picks up a sheep and takes it across and
+comes back fer another, and then ther other feller he does the same and
+in the meantime ther first feller had got his other across and come
+back fer more and ther second was on his way over and----"
+
+"Say, Cal," suggested Nat quietly, "let's suppose the whole bunch is
+across. You see----"
+
+"Say, who's tellin' this?" inquired Cal indignantly.
+
+"You are, but----"
+
+"Wall, let me go ahead in my own way," protested the Westerner. "Let's
+see where I was; I--oh yes, wall, and then ther other feller he dumped
+down his sheep and come back fer another and----Say, how many does that
+make, got across?"
+
+"Search me," said Joe.
+
+Nat shook his head.
+
+"I d-d-d-d-on't know," stuttered Ding-dong Bell.
+
+"Diss iss foolishness-ness," protested Herr Muller indignantly.
+
+"Wall, that ends it," said Cal tragically, "I can't go on."
+
+"Why not?" came an indignant chorus.
+
+"Wall, you fellers lost count of ther sheep and there ain't no way
+of going on till we get 'em all over. You see there's three thousand
+and----"
+
+This time they caught a merry twinkle in Cal's eye, and with wild yells
+they arose and fell upon him. It was a ruffled Cal who got up and
+resumed a sandy bit of canned plum pudding.
+
+"You fellers don't appreciate realism one bit," grumbled Cal.
+
+"Not three thousand sheep-power realism," retorted Nat with a laugh.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+THE HUT IN THE MOUNTAINS.
+
+
+The next morning they were off once more. As may be imagined each
+one of the party was anxious to reach the canyon in which Cal's mine
+was located. There they would be in touch with civilization and in a
+position to retaliate upon the band of Col. Morello if they dared to
+attack them.
+
+On the evening of the second day they found themselves not far from
+the place, according to Cal's calculations. But they were in a rugged
+country through which it would be impossible to proceed by night, so it
+was determined to make camp as soon as a suitable spot could be found.
+
+As it so happened, one was not far distant. A gentle slope
+comparatively free from rocks and stones, and affording a good view in
+either direction, was in the immediate vicinity. The auto, therefore,
+was run up there and brought to a halt, and the Motor Rangers at once
+set about looking for a spring. They had plenty of water in the tank,
+but preferred, if they could get it, to drink the fresh product. Water
+that has been carried a day or two in a tank is not nearly as nice as
+the fresh, sparkling article right out of the ground.
+
+"Look," cried Joe, as they scattered in search of a suitable spot,
+"there's a little hut up there."
+
+"M-m-m-maybe a h-h-h-hermit l-l-lives there," suggested Ding-dong in
+rather a quavering voice.
+
+"Nonsense," put in Nat, "that hut has been deserted for many years. See
+the ridge pole is broken, and the roof is all sagging in. Let's go and
+explore it."
+
+With a whoop they set out across the slope for the ruined hut, which
+stood back in a small clearing cut out of the forest. Blackened stumps
+stood about it but it was long since the ground had been cultivated. A
+few mouldering corn stalks, however, remained to show that the place
+had once been inhabited.
+
+As for the hut itself, it was a primitive shelter of rough logs, the
+roof of which had been formed out of "slabs" split from the logs
+direct. A stone chimney was crumbling away at one end, but it was many
+a year since any cheerful wreaths of smoke had wound upward from it.
+
+The boys were alone, Cal and Herr Muller having remained to attend to
+the auto and build a fire. Somehow, in the fading evening light, this
+ruined human habitation on the edge of the dark Sierran forest had
+an uncanny effect on the boys. The stillness was profound. And half
+consciously the lads sank their voices to whispers as they drew closer.
+
+"S-s-s-s-say hadn't we b-b-b-better go back and g-g-g-get a g-gun?"
+suggested Ding-dong in an awe-struck tone.
+
+"What for," rejoined Joe, whose voice was also sunk to a low pitch,
+"not scared, are you?"
+
+"N-n-n-no, but it seems kind of creepy somehow."
+
+"Nonsense," said Nat crisply, "come on, let's see what's inside."
+
+By this time they were pretty close to the place, and a few strides
+brought Nat to the rotting door. It was locked apparently, for, as he
+gave it a vigorous shake, it did not respond but remained closed.
+
+"Come on, fellows. Bring your shoulders to bear," cried Nat, "now then
+all together!"
+
+Three strong young bodies battered the door with their shoulders with
+all their might, and at the first assault the clumsy portal went
+crashing off its hinges, falling inward with a startling "bang."
+
+"Look out!" yelled Nat as it subsided, and it was well he gave the
+warning.
+
+Before his sharp cry had died out a dark form about the size of a small
+rabbit came leaping out with a squeak like the sound made by a slate
+pencil. Before the boy could recover from his involuntary recoil the
+creature was followed by a perfect swarm of his companions. Squeaking
+and showing their teeth the creatures came pouring forth, their
+thousands of little eyes glowing like tiny coals.
+
+"Timber rats!" shouted Nat, taking to his heels, but not before some
+of the little animals had made a show of attacking him. Nat was too
+prudent a lad to try conclusions with the ferocious rodents, which can
+be savage as wild cats, when cornered. Deeming discretion the better
+part of valor he sped down the hillside after Ding-dong and Joe, who
+had started back for the camp at the first appearance of the torrent of
+timber rats.
+
+From a safe distance the lads watched the exodus. For ten minutes or
+more the creatures came rushing forth in a solid stream. But at last
+the stampede began to dwindle, and presently the last old gray fellow
+joined his comrades in the woods.
+
+"Great Scott!" exclaimed Joe, "did you ever see such a sight?"
+
+"Well, I've heard of places in which the rats gathered in immense
+numbers, but I never knew before that such a thing as we have seen was
+possible," replied Nat; "there must have been thousands."
+
+"Mum-m-m-m-millions," stuttered Ding-dong, his eyes still round with
+astonishment.
+
+"I suppose some supplies were left in there," suggested Nat, "and that
+the rats gathered there and made a regular nesting place of it after
+the owner departed."
+
+"Well, now that they have all cleared out, let's go and have a look,"
+said Joe.
+
+"Might as well," agreed Nat, "it's a good thing those creatures didn't
+take it into their heads to attack us, as I have read they have done to
+miners. They might have picked our bones clean."
+
+They entered the hut with feelings of intense curiosity. It was well
+that they trod gingerly as they crossed the threshold, for the floor
+was so honeycombed with the holes of the timber rats that walking
+was difficult and even dangerous. The creatures had evidently gnawed
+through the sill beams supporting the floor, for the hearthstone in
+front of the open fireplace had subsided and sagged through into the
+foundations, leaving a big open space. The boys determined to explore
+this later but in the meantime other things in the hut attracted their
+attention.
+
+There was a rough board table with a cracker box to serve as chair
+drawn up close to it. But both the table and the box had been almost
+gnawed to pieces by the ravenous rats. Some tin utensils stood upon the
+table but all trace of what they might have contained had, of course,
+vanished. Even pictures from illustrated magazines which had once been
+pasted on the walls had been devoured, leaving only traces to show what
+they had been.
+
+Nat, while the others had been investigating at large, had made his way
+to the corner of the hut where a rude bunk had been built. As he gazed
+into its dark recesses he shrank back with a startled cry.
+
+"Fellows! Oh, fellows! Come here!"
+
+The other two hastened to his side and were scarcely less shocked
+than he at what they saw. Within the bunk, the bed clothing of which
+had been devoured wholesale, lay a heap of whitened bones. A skull at
+the head of the rude bed-place told all too clearly that the owner
+had either been killed or had died in the lonely place and had been
+devoured by the rats. The grisly evidences were only too plain.
+
+The boys were almost unnerved by this discovery, and it was some time
+before any one of them spoke. Then Nat said in a low tone, almost a
+whisper:--
+
+"I wonder who he was?"
+
+"There's a tin box," said Joe, pointing to a receptacle beneath the
+bunk, "maybe there's something in that to tell."
+
+"Perhaps," said Nat, picking the article up. It was a much battered
+case of the type known as "despatch box." The marks of the rats' teeth
+showed upon it, but it had not been opened. A rusty hammer with the
+handle half gnawed off lay a short distance away. With one sharp blow
+of this tool Nat knocked the lock off the despatch box. He gave a cry
+of triumph as he opened it. Within, yellow and faded, were several
+papers.
+
+"Let's get into the open air and examine these," suggested Nat, who
+was finding the ratty odor of the place almost overpowering. The
+others gladly followed him. Squatting down outside the hut in the
+fading light, they opened the first paper. It seemed to be a will of
+some sort and was signed Elias Goodale. Putting it aside for further
+perusal, Nat, in turn, opened and glanced at a packet of faded letters
+in a woman's handwriting, a folded paper containing a lock of hair,
+seemingly that of an infant, and at last a paper that seemed fresher
+than the others. This ink, instead of being a faded brown, was black
+and clear. The paper seemed to have been torn from a blank book.
+
+"Read it out," begged Joe.
+
+"All right," said Nat, "there doesn't seem to be much of it, so I will."
+
+Holding the paper close to his eyes in the waning day, the boy read as
+follows:--
+
+    "I am writing this with what I fear is my last
+    conscious effort. It will go with the other papers in
+    the box, and some day perhaps may reach my friends. I
+    hope and pray so. It has been snowing for weeks and
+    weeks. In my solitude it is dreadful, but no more of
+    that. I was took down ill three days ago and have been
+    steadily getting worse. It is hard to die like this on
+    the eve of my triumph, but if it is to be it must be.
+    The sapphires--for I found them at last--are hid under
+    the hearthstone. I pray whoever finds this to see that
+    they are restored to my folks whom I wronged much in my
+    life before I came out here.
+
+    "As I write this I feel myself growing weaker. The
+    timber rats--those terrible creatures--have grown quite
+    bold now. They openly invade the hut and steal my
+    stores. Even if I recover I shall hardly have enough
+    to live out the winter. The Lord have mercy on me and
+    bring this paper to the hands of honest men. They will
+    find details in the other papers of my identity."
+
+"Is that all?" asked Joe as Nat came to a stop.
+
+"That's all," rejoined Nat in a sober voice. "What do you think of it?"
+
+"That we'd better tell Cal and see what he advises."
+
+"That's my idea, too. Come on, let's tell him about it."
+
+The Motor Rangers lost no time in hastening back to the camp and Cal's
+face of amazement as he heard their story was a sight to behold. As
+for Herr Muller he tore his hair in despair at not having secured a
+photograph of the rats as they poured out of the ruined hut.
+
+"I've heard of this Elias Goodale," said Cal as he looked over the
+papers. "He was an odd sort of recluse that used to come to Lariat
+twice a year for his grub. The fellows all thought he was crazy. He was
+always talking about finding sapphires and making the folks at home
+rich. I gathered that some time he had done 'em a great wrong of some
+kind and wanted to repair it the best way he could. Anyhow, he had a
+claim hereabouts that he used to work on all the time. The boys all
+told him that the Injuns had taken all the sapphires there ever was in
+this part of the hills out of 'em, but he kep' right on. I last heard
+of him about a year ago--poor chap."
+
+"Was he old?" asked Nat.
+
+"Wall, maybe not in years, but in appearance he was the oldest, saddest
+chap you ever set eyes on. The boys all thought he was loony, but to
+me it always appeared that he had some sort of a secret sorrow."
+
+"Poor fellow," exclaimed Nat, "whatever wrong he may have done his
+death atoned for it."
+
+They were silent for a minute or so, thinking of the last scenes in
+that lonely hut with the snow drifting silently about it and the dying
+man within cringing from the timber rats.
+
+"Say!" exclaimed Joe suddenly, starting them out of this sad reverie,
+"what's the matter with finding out if he told the truth about those
+sapphires or if it was only a crazy dream?"
+
+"You're on, boy," exclaimed Cal, "I think myself that he must hev found
+a lot of junk and figgered out in his crazy mind they wuz sapphires and
+hid 'em away."
+
+"It's worth investigating, anyhow," said Nat, starting up followed by
+the others.
+
+It took them but a few seconds to reach the hut. Having entered they
+all crowded eagerly about the hearthstone. Cal dropped into the hole
+with his revolver ready for any stray rats that might remain, but not
+a trace of one was to be seen. Suddenly he gave a shout and seized a
+rough wooden box with both hands.
+
+"Ketch hold, boys," he cried, "it's so heavy I can't hardly heft it."
+
+Willing hands soon drew the box up upon the crazy floor, and Nat
+produced the rusty hammer.
+
+"Now to see if it was all a dream or reality," he cried, as he brought
+the tool down on the half rotten covering. The wood split with a
+rending sound and displayed within a number of dull-looking, half
+translucent rocks.
+
+"Junk!" cried Cal, who had hoisted himself out of the hole by this
+time, "a lot of blame worthless old pyrites."
+
+"Not py a chug ful," came an excited voice as Herr Muller pressed
+forward, "dem is der purest sapphires I haf effer seen."
+
+"How do you know?" demanded Nat quickly.
+
+"Pecos vunce py Amstertam I vork py a cheweller's. I know stones in der
+rough and dese is an almost priceless gollecdion."
+
+"Hoorooh!" yelled Cal, "we'll all be rich."
+
+He stepped quickly forward and prepared to scoop up a handful of the
+rough-looking stones, but Nat held him back.
+
+"They're not ours, Cal," he said, "they belong to the folks named in
+that will."
+
+"You're right, boy," said Cal abashed, "I let my enthoosiasm git away
+with me. But what are we going to do about it? Them folks don't live
+around here."
+
+"We'll have to find them and----Hark!"
+
+The boy gave an alarmed exclamation and looked behind him. He could
+have sworn that a dark shadow passed the window as they bent above the
+dully-gleaming stones. But although he darted to the door like a flash,
+nothing was to be seen outside.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Cal, curiously.
+
+"Nothing," was the quiet rejoinder, "I thought I saw another timber
+rat, but I guess I was mistaken."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+FACING THEIR FOES.
+
+
+"Nat, wake up!"
+
+"_Nat!_"
+
+"NAT!"
+
+Joe's third exclamation awoke the slumbering boy and he raised himself
+on the rough couch on one arm.
+
+"What is it, Joe?" he asked, gazing in a startled way at his chum. Joe
+was sitting bolt upright on the rough, wooden-framed bed, and gazing
+through a dilapidated window outside upon the moon-flooded canyon.
+
+"Hark!" whispered Joe, "don't you hear something?"
+
+"Nothing but the water running down that old flume behind the hut."
+
+"That's queer, I don't hear it any more either," said Joe; "guess it
+was a false alarm."
+
+"Guess so," assented Nat, settling down once more in the blankets. From
+various parts of the rough hut came the steady, regular breathing of
+Ding-dong Bell, Cal and Herr Muller. The latter must have been having a
+nightmare for he kept muttering:----
+
+"Lookd oudt py der sapphires. Lookd oudt!"
+
+"No need for him to worry, they are safe enough in the hiding place
+where Cal used to keep his dust when he had any," grunted Joe, still
+sitting erect and on the alert, however. Somehow he could not get it
+out of his head that outside the hut he had heard stealthy footsteps a
+few moments before.
+
+The Motor Rangers and their friends had arrived at Cal's hut in the
+canyon that afternoon. Their first care had been to dispose safely of
+the box of precious stones in the hiding place mentioned by Joe. The
+evening before their last act at the camp by the ruined hut had been to
+consign the remains of the dead miner to a grave under the great pines.
+Nat with his pocketknife had carved a memorial upon a slab of timber.
+
+"Sacred to the memory of Elias Goodale. Died----."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And so, with a last look backward at the scene of the lonely tragedy of
+the hills, they had proceeded. Nat had not mentioned to his companions
+that he was sure that he had seen some one at the window, as they bent
+over the sapphires. After all it might have been an hallucination. The
+boy's first and natural assumption had been that whoever had peeped
+through the window was a member of Col. Morello's band, sent forward
+to track them. But then he recollected the burned forest that lay
+behind. It seemed hardly credible that any member of the band could
+have passed that barrier and arrived at the hut at almost the same time
+as the Motor Rangers. Had Nat known what accurate and minute knowledge
+the colonel possessed of the secret trails and short cuts of that part
+of the Sierras he might not, however, have been so incredulous of his
+first theory.
+
+The same afternoon they had reached a summit from which Cal, pointing
+downward, had shown them a scanty collection of huts amid a dark sea
+of pines.
+
+"That's the place," he said.
+
+Half an hour's ride had brought them to the canyon which they found had
+been deserted even by the patient Chinamen, since Cal's last visit.
+His hut, however, was undisturbed and had not been raided by timber
+rats, thanks to an arrangement of tin pans set upside down which
+Cal had contrived on the corner posts. The afternoon had been spent
+in concealing the sapphire chest in a recess behind some rocks some
+distance from the hut. A short tour of exploration followed. As Cal
+had said on a previous occasion, the camp had once been the scene of
+great mining activity. Traces of it were everywhere. The hillside was
+honeycombed with deserted workings and mildewed embankments of slag.
+Scrub and brush had sprung up everywhere, and weeds flourished among
+rotting, rusty mining machinery. It was a melancholy spot, and the boys
+had been anxious to leave it and push on to Big Oak Flat, ten miles
+beyond. But by the time they reached this decision it was almost dark
+and the road before them was too rough to traverse by night. It had
+been decided therefore to camp in Cal's hut that night.
+
+"Pity we can't float like a lot of logs," said Joe, as he stood looking
+at the water roaring through the flume which was a short distance
+behind the hut.
+
+"Yep," rejoined Cal, "if we could, we'd reach Big Oak Flat in jig time.
+This here flume comes out thereabouts."
+
+"Who built it?" inquired Nat, gazing at the moss-grown contrivance
+through which the water was rushing at a rapid rate. There had been a
+cloudburst on a distant mountain and the stream was yellow and turbid.
+At other times, so Cal informed them, the flume was almost dry.
+
+"Why," said Cal, in reply to Nat's question, "it was put up by some
+fellows who thought they saw money in lumbering here. That was after
+the mines petered out. But it was too far to a market and after working
+it a while they left. We've always let the flume stand, as it is
+useful to carry off the overflow from the river above."
+
+Somehow sleep wouldn't come to Joe. Try as he would he could not doze
+off. He counted sheep jumping over a fence, kept tab of bees issuing
+from a hive and tried a dozen other infallible recipes for inducing
+slumber. But they wouldn't work. Nat, after his awakening, had,
+however, dozed off as peacefully as before.
+
+Suddenly, Joe sat up once more. He had been electrified by the sound of
+a low voice outside the hut. This time there was no mistake. Some human
+being was prowling about that lonely place. Who could it be? He was not
+kept long in doubt. It was the voice of Dayton. Low as it was there was
+no mistaking it. Joe's heart almost stopped beating as he listened:--
+
+"They're off as sound as so many tops, colonel. All we've got to do is
+to go in and land the sapphires, and the kid, too."
+
+"You are sure they have them?"
+
+"Of course. Didn't I see them in old Goodale's hut? You always said
+the old fellow was crazy. I guess you know better now. These cubs
+blundered into the biggest sapphire find I ever heard of."
+
+Joe was up now, and cautiously creeping about the room. One after
+another he awoke his sleeping companions. Before arousing Herr Muller,
+however, he clapped a hand over the German's mouth to check any outcry
+that the emotional Teuton might feel called upon to utter.
+
+Presently the voices died out and cautiously approaching the window Nat
+could see in the moonlight half a dozen dark forms further down the
+canyon. Suddenly a moonbeam glinted brightly on a rifle barrel.
+
+"They mean business this time and no mistake," thought Nat.
+
+Tiptoeing back he told the others what he had seen.
+
+"Maybe we can ketch them napping," said Cal, "oh, if only we had a
+telephone, the sheriff could nab the whole pack."
+
+"Yes, but we haven't," said the practical Nat.
+
+Cal tiptoed to the door and opened it a crack. If there had been any
+doubt that they were closely watched it was dispelled then.
+
+Zip!
+
+_Phut!_
+
+Two bullets sang by Cal's ears as he jumped hastily back, and buried
+themselves in the door jamb.
+
+"Purty close shooting for moonlight," he remarked coolly.
+
+"What are we going to do?" demanded Joe.
+
+"Well, thanks to our foresight in bringing in all the rifles and
+ammunition, we can make things interesting for them coyotes fer a long
+time," rejoined Cal.
+
+"But in this lonely place they could besiege us for a month if need
+be," said Nat.
+
+Cal looked grave.
+
+"That's so, lad," he agreed, "we'd be starved and thirsted out before
+long. If only we could communicate with Big Oak Flat."
+
+Nat dropped off into one of his deep studies. The boy's active mind
+was revolving the situation. It resolved itself into a very simple
+proposition. The colonel's band was well armed. They had ample
+opportunities for getting food and water. Situated as the Motor Rangers
+were, the others could keep them bottled up as long as they could
+stand it. Then nothing would be left but surrender. Nat knew now from
+what Joe had told him, that it was no fancy he had had at the hut.
+Dayton had been on their track and had unluckily arrived in time for
+his cupidity to be tempted by the sight of the sapphires. His injury
+when the man-trap fell must have been only a slight one. Nat knew the
+character of the outlaws too well to imagine that they would leave the
+canyon till they had the sapphire box and could wreak their revenge on
+the Motor Rangers.
+
+True, as long as their ammunition held out the occupants of the hut
+could have stood off an army. But as has been said, without food or
+water they were hopeless captives. Unless--unless----
+
+Nat leaped up from the bedstead with a low, suppressed:--
+
+"_Whoop!_"
+
+"You've found a way out of it?" exclaimed Joe, throwing an arm around
+his chum's shoulder.
+
+"I think so, old fellow--listen."
+
+They gathered around while in low tones Nat rehearsed his plan.
+
+"I ain't er goin' ter let you do it," protested Cal.
+
+"But you must, Cal, it's our only chance. You are needed here to help
+stand off those rascals. It is evident that they are in no hurry to
+attack us. They know that they can starve us out if they just squat
+down and wait."
+
+"Thet's so," assented Cal, scratching his head, "I guess there ain't no
+other way out of it but--Nat, I think a whole lot of you, and don't you
+take no chances you don't have to."
+
+"Not likely to," was the rejoinder, "and now the sooner I start the
+better, so good-bye, boys."
+
+Nat choked as he uttered the words, and the others crowded about him.
+
+"Donner blitzen," blurted out Herr Muller, "I dink you are der pravest
+poy I effer heardt of, und----"
+
+Nat cut him short. There was a brief hand pressure between himself and
+Joe, the same with Ding-dong and the others, and then the lad, with
+a quick, athletic movement, caught hold of a roof beam and hoisted
+himself upward toward a hole in the roof through which a stone chimney
+had once projected. Almost noiselessly he drew himself through it and
+the next moment vanished from their view.
+
+"Now then to cover his retreat," said Joe, seizing his rifle.
+
+The others, arming themselves in the same way rushed toward the window.
+Through its broken panes a volley was discharged down the canyon. A
+chorus of derisive yells greeted it from Morello's band.
+
+"Yell away," snarled Cal, "maybe you'll sing a different tune before
+daybreak."
+
+In the meantime Nat had emerged on the roof of the cabin. It was a
+difficult task he had set himself and this was but the first step. But
+as the volley rang out he knew that the attention of the outlaws had
+been distracted momentarily and he wriggled his way down toward the
+eaves at the rear of the hut. Luckily, the roof sloped backward in that
+direction, so that he was screened from the view of any one in front.
+
+Reaching the eaves he hung on for a second, and then dropped the ten
+feet or so to the ground. Then crouching like an Indian he darted
+through the brush till he reached the side of the old flume.
+
+He noted with satisfaction that the water was still running in a good
+stream down the mouldering trench. With a quick, backward look, Nat
+cast off his coat and boots, and flinging them aside picked up a board
+about six feet long that lay near by.
+
+The water at the head of the flume traversed a little level of ground,
+and here it ran more slowly than it did when it reached the grade
+below. Extending himself full length on the board, just as a boy does
+on a sleigh on a snowy hill, Nat held on for a moment.
+
+He gave one look about him at the moonlit hills, the dark pines and
+the rocky cliffs. Then, with a murmured prayer, he let go.
+
+The next instant he was shooting down through the flume at a rate that
+took his breath away. All about him roared the voices of the water
+while the crosspieces over his head whizzed by in one long blur.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+THROUGH THE FLUME.
+
+
+Faster than he had ever travelled before in his life Nat was hurtled
+along down the flume. Water dashed upward into his face, half choking
+him and occasionally his board would hit the wooden side with a bump
+that almost threw him off. His knuckles were bruised and bleeding and
+his head dizzy from the motion. It was the wildest ride that the lad,
+or any other lad for that matter, had ever undertaken.
+
+Suddenly, ahead of him--above the noise of the rushing water--came
+another sound, a deep-throated, sullen thunder. As he shot along
+with the speed of a projectile, Nat realized what the strange sound
+betokened. The end of the flume. Cal had told them that the raised
+water-course discharged its contents into a big pool at that point.
+With a sudden sinking of the heart Nat realized that he had forgotten
+to inquire how high the drop was. If it was very high--or if there was
+but little water in the pool below the flume--he would be dashed to
+pieces, or injured so that he could not swim, and thus drown.
+
+But even as the alarming thought was in his mind, Nat felt himself shot
+outward into space. Instinctively his hands came together and he dived
+downward, entering the water about twenty feet below him, with a clean
+dive.
+
+For a space the waters closed above the lad's head and he was lost to
+view in the moonlit pool. When he came to the surface, out of breath
+and bruised, but otherwise uninjured, he saw that he was in what had
+formerly been used as a "collection-pool" for the logs from the forest
+above. He struck out for the shore at once and presently emerged upon
+the bank. But as he clambered out, the figure of a Chinaman who had
+been seated fishing on the brink galvanized into sudden life. The
+Mongolian was poaching in private waters under cover of the darkness
+and was naturally startled out of a year's growth at the sudden
+apparition.
+
+With an ear-splitting screech the Mongolian leaped about three feet
+into the air as if propelled by a spring, and then, with his stumpy
+legs going under him like twin piston rods, he made tracks for the town.
+
+"Bad spill-it! Bad spill-it! He come catchee me!" he howled at the top
+of his voice, tearing along.
+
+As he dashed into the town a tall man dressed in Western style, and
+with a determined, clean-cut face under his broad-brimmed sombrero,
+stepped out of the lighted interior of the post-office, where the mail
+for the early stage was being sorted.
+
+"Here, Sing Lee," he demanded, catching the astonished Chinaman by the
+shoulder and swinging him around, "what's the matter with you?"
+
+"Wasee malla me, Missa Sheliff? Me tellee you number one chop quickee
+timee. Me fish down by old lumbel yard and me see spill-it come flum
+watel!"
+
+"What?" roared Jack Tebbetts, the sheriff, "a ghost? More likely one
+of Morello's band; I heard they were around here somewhere. But hullo,
+what's this?"
+
+He broke off as a strange figure came flying down the street, almost as
+fast as the fear-crazed Chinaman.
+
+"Wow!" yelled the sheriff, drawing an enormous gun as this weird
+figure came in view, "Halt whar you be, stranger? You're a suspicious
+character."
+
+Nat, out of breath, wet through, bruised, bleeding and with his
+clothing almost ripped off him, could not but admit the truth of this
+remark. But as he opened his mouth to speak a sudden dizziness seemed
+to overcome him. His knees developed strange hinges and he felt that in
+another moment he would topple over.
+
+The sheriff stepped quickly forward and caught him.
+
+"Here, hold up, lad," he said crisply, "what's ther trouble?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"One o'clock. We ought to be hearing from Nat soon."
+
+Cal put his old silver watch back in his pocket and resumed his anxious
+pacing of the floor. The others, in various attitudes of alertness,
+were scattered about the place. Since Nat's departure they had been, as
+you may imagine, at a pretty tight tension. Somehow, waiting there for
+an attack or for rescue, was much more trying than action would have
+been.
+
+"Do you guess he got through all right?" asked Joe.
+
+"I hope so," rejoined Cal, "but it was about as risky a bit of business
+as a lad could undertake. I blame myself for ever letting him do it."
+
+"If Nat had his mind made up you couldn't have stopped him," put in Joe
+earnestly.
+
+"H-h-h-hark!" exclaimed Ding-dong.
+
+Far down the canyon they could hear a sound. It grew closer. For an
+instant a wild hope that it was the rescue party flashed through their
+minds. But the next instant a voice hailed them. Evidently Col.
+Morello had made up his mind that a siege was too lengthy a proceeding.
+
+"I will give you fellows in the hut one chance," he said in a loud
+voice, "give up that boy Nat Trevor and the sapphires and I will
+withdraw my men."
+
+Cal's answer was to take careful aim, and if Joe had not hastily pulled
+his arm down that moment would have been Morello's last. But as Cal's
+white face was framed in the dark window a bullet sang by viciously and
+showered them with splinters.
+
+"That's for a lesson," snarled Morello, "there are lots more where that
+came from."
+
+But as he spoke there came a sudden yell of alarm from his rear.
+
+"We're attacked!" came a voice.
+
+At the same instant the sound of a distant volley resounded.
+
+"Hooray! Nat made good!" yelled Cal, leaping about and cracking his
+fingers.
+
+The next instant a rapid thunder of hoofs, as the outlaws wheeled and
+made off, was heard. As their dark forms raced by, the posse headed
+by Sheriff Tebbetts and Nat, fired volley after volley at them, but
+only two fell, slightly wounded. The rest got clear away. A subsequent
+visit to their fortress showed that on escaping from the posse they had
+revisited it and cleaned all the loot out of it that they could. The
+express box stolen from Cal's stage was, however, recovered.
+
+As the posse galloped up, cheering till the distant canyons echoed
+and re-echoed, the besieged party rushed out. They made for Nat and
+pulled him from his horse. Then, with the young Motor Ranger on their
+shoulders, they paraded around the hut with him, yelling like maniacs,
+"'For he's a jolly good fellow'!"
+
+"And that don't begin to express it," said the sheriff to himself.
+
+"He's the grit kid," put in one of the hastily-gathered posse
+admiringly.
+
+And the "Grit Kid" Nat was to them henceforth.
+
+The remainder of the night was spent in the hut, Nat telling and
+retelling his wild experience in the flume. The next morning the posse
+set out at once at top speed for the fortress of Morello, the sapphire
+chest being carried in the auto which accompanied the authorities. Of
+course they found no trace of the outlaws; but the place was destroyed
+and can never again be used by any nefarious band.
+
+Nat and his friends were anxious for the sheriff to take charge of the
+sapphire find, but this he refused to do. It remained, therefore, for
+the Motor Rangers themselves to unravel the mystery surrounding it.
+
+How they accomplished this, and the devious paths and adventures into
+which the quest led them, will be told in the next volume of this
+series. Here also will be found a further account of Col. Morello and
+his band who, driven from their haunts by the Motor Rangers, sought
+revenge on the lads.
+
+Having remained in the vicinity of Big Oak Flat till every point
+connected with Morello and his band had been cleared up, the boys
+decided to go on to the famous Yosemite Valley. There they spent some
+happy weeks amid its awe-inspiring natural wonders. With them was Herr
+Muller and Cal. Bismark, as Cal had foretold, returned to the hotel at
+Lariat and Herr Muller got his money.
+
+But all the time the duty which devolved upon the Motor Rangers of
+finding Elias Goodale's heirs and bestowing their rich inheritance
+on them was not forgotten. Nat and his companions considered it in
+the nature of a sacred trust--this mission which a strange chance
+had placed in their hands. How they carried out their task, and what
+difficulties and dangers they faced in doing it, will be related in
+"THE MOTOR RANGERS ON BLUE WATER; OR, THE SECRET OF THE DERELICT."
+
+
+    THE END.
+
+
+
+
+Reasons why you should obtain a Catalogue of our Publications
+
+_A postal to us will place it in your hands_
+
+1. You will possess a comprehensive and classified list of all the best
+standard books published, at prices less than offered by others.
+
+2. You will find listed in our catalogue books on every topic: Poetry,
+Fiction, Romance, Travel, Adventure, Humor, Science, History, Religion,
+Biography, Drama, etc., besides Dictionaries and Manuals, Bibles,
+Recitation and Hand Books, Sets, Octavos, Presentation Books and
+Juvenile and Nursery Literature in immense variety.
+
+3. You will be able to purchase books at prices within your reach; as
+low as 10 cents for paper covered books, to $5.00 for books bound in
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+the tastes of the most critical.
+
+4. You will save considerable money by taking advantage of our SPECIAL
+DISCOUNTS, which we offer to those whose purchases are large enough to
+warrant us in making a reduction.
+
+    HURST & CO., _Publishers_,
+    395, 397, 399 Broadway, New York.
+
+
+
+
+Motor Rangers Series
+
+By MARVIN WEST
+
+OUTDOOR LIFE STORIES FOR MODERN BOYS
+
+    Cloth Bound Price      50¢ per volume.
+
+
+The Motor Rangers' Lost Mine.
+
+A new series dealing with an idea altogether original in juvenile
+fiction,--the adventures of a party of bright, enterprising youngsters
+in a splendid motor car. Their first trip takes them to the dim and
+mysterious land of Lower California.
+
+Naturally, as one would judge from the title, the lost mine, which
+proves to be Nat Trevor's rightful inheritance,--occupies much of the
+interest of the book. But the mine was in the possession of enemies so
+powerful and wealthy that it taxed the boys' resources to the uttermost
+to overcome them. How they did so makes absorbing reading.
+
+In this book also, the young motor rangers solve the mystery of the
+haunted Mexican cabin, and exterminate for all time a strange terror of
+the mountains which has almost devastated a part of the peninsula.
+
+The Motor Rangers too, have an exciting encounter with Mexican cowboys,
+which beginning comically, comes very near having a serious termination
+for all hands. Emphatically "third speed" books.
+
+
+    Sold by Booksellers Everywhere.
+    Hurst & Co.,      Publishers      New York
+
+
+
+
+BORDER BOY SERIES
+
+BY
+
+FREMONT B. DEERING
+
+Frontier Stories for Modern Boys
+
+    Cloth Bound Price,      50¢ per volume.
+
+
+The Border Boys on the Trail.
+
+There is little left of the romantic western life of which our
+forefathers delighted to read and in which they not infrequently took a
+part. The author of this series has, however, taken to himself modern
+conditions in this interesting section of the country in a vital way.
+
+The pages of this book throb with the strenuous outdoor life and
+pastimes of the ranch and range. The volume is as vivid as a western
+sunset and as lively as a bucking broncho. What boy will not want to
+read of the adventures of the ranchers and the boys in Grizzly Pass and
+the strange strategy of Black Ramon--the Border cattle-rustler which
+came nearly costing them all their lives?
+
+But the adventures do not terminate at the annihilation of the bridge
+by the rustler's gang. They elude pursuit for a time by this means but
+only for a time. The beginning of the end of their depredations comes
+when Jack and his cowpuncher chum escape from the bell-tower of the
+old mission. From then on to the conclusion of the book events come as
+fast as the discharge of an automatic rifle, or the rattling execution
+of the long roll on a snare-drum. No boy should fail to read how the
+Mexicans almost succeeded in releasing the pent-up waters of the
+irrigation dam and ruining a vast track of country. Thoroughly healthy
+in tone and appealing to manly standards the Border Boys are ideal
+chums for the wholesome lads of to-day.
+
+
+    Sold by Booksellers Everywhere.
+    HURST & CO.,      Publishers      NEW YORK.
+
+
+
+
+BOY SCOUT SERIES
+
+BY
+
+LIEUT. HOWARD PAYSON
+
+MODERN BOY SCOUT STORIES FOR BOYS
+
+    Cloth Bound Price,      50¢ per volume.
+
+
+The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol.
+
+A fascinating narrative of the doings of some bright boys who become
+part of the great Boy Scout movement. The first of a series dealing
+with this organization, which has caught on like wild fire among
+healthy boys of all ages and in all parts of the country.
+
+While in no sense text-book, the volume deals, amid its exciting
+adventures, with the practical side of Scouting. To Rob Blake and his
+companions in the Eagle Patrol, surprising, and sometimes perilous
+things happen constantly. But the lads, who are, after all, typical of
+most young Americans of their type, are resourceful enough to overcome
+every one of their dangers and difficulties.
+
+How they discover the whereabouts of little Joe, the "kid" of the
+patrol, by means of smoke telegraphy and track his abductors to their
+disgrace; how they assist the passengers of a stranded steamer and foil
+a plot to harm and perhaps kill an aged sea-captain, one must read the
+book to learn. A swift-moving narrative of convincing interest and
+breathless incident.
+
+
+    Sold by Booksellers Everywhere.
+    Hurst & Co.      Publishers      New York
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Obvious punctuation errors repaired. Varied hyphenation was retained.
+
+Page 54, "attampt" changed to "attempt" (and an attempt made)
+
+Page 160, "penertate" changed to "penetrate" (could not penetrate into)
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Motor Rangers Through the Sierras, by 
+Marvin West
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43917 ***