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Title: The Motor Rangers Through the Sierras

Author: John Henry Goldfrap

Release date: October 9, 2013 [eBook #43917]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Emmy and the Online
        Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOTOR RANGERS THROUGH THE SIERRAS ***




Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Emmy and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net







[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.




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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
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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
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       *       *       *       *       *

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 THE MOTOR RANGERS THROUGH THE SIERRAS ***


    

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