Well, that means that we don’t starve, anyhow.”
The others followed the direction of Walt’s gaze and saw a big lumbering vehicle drawn by eight mules approaching across the mesquite plain. It was roofed with canvas, and through this roof stuck a rusty iron stove pipe. From this blue smoke was pouring in a cloud.
“Talk about a prairie schooner. I guess that’s a prairie steamer. Look at her smoke–stack,” cried Ralph.
“Yes; and look at the captain,” laughed Jack, pointing to the yellow face and flying queue of a Chinaman, which were at this moment projected from the back of the wagon.
“That’s the cook,” said Walt Phelps, “I guess he’s been getting supper ready as they came along.”
A loud cheer went up from the Rangers as their traveling dining–room came into sight.
“Hello, old Sawed Off, how’s chuck?” yelled one Ranger at the grinning Chinaman.
“Hey, there! What’s the news from the Chinese Republic?” shouted another.
“Me no Chinese ‘public. Me Chinese Democlat!” bawled the yellow man, waving an iron spoon and vanishing into the interior of his wheeled domain.
“They call him Sawed Off because his name is Tuo Long,” chuckled Captain Atkinson, when he had directed the driver of the cook wagon where to draw up and unharness his mules, “but he’s a mighty good cook – none better, in fact. He’s only got one failing, if you can call it such, and that is his dislike of the new Chinese Republic. If you want to get him excited you’ve only to start him on that.”
“I don’t much believe in getting cooks angry,” announced Walt Phelps, whose appetite was always a source of merriment with the Border Boys.
“Nor I. But come along and get acquainted with the boys. By–the–way, you brought blankets and slickers as I wrote you?”
“Oh, yes, and canteens, too. In fact, I guess we are all prepared to be regular Rangers,” smiled Jack.
By this time the camp was a scene of picturesque bustle. Ponies had been unsaddled and tethered, and presently another wagon, loaded with baled hay in a great yellow stack, came rumbling up. The Rangers, who had by this time selected their sleeping places and bestowed their saddles, at once set about giving their active little mounts their suppers.
First, each man mounted on his pony barebacked and rode it down to the river to get a drink of water. To do this they had to ride some little distance, as the bluffs at that point were steep and no path offered. At last, however, a trail was found, and in single file down they went to the watering place.
The boys followed the rest along the steep path, Jack coming last of the trio. The trail lay along the edge of the bluff, and at some places was not much wider than a man’s hand. Jack had reached the worst part of it, where a drop of some hundred feet lay below him, when he was astonished to hear the sound of hoofs behind him.
He was astonished because, he had judged, almost everybody in the camp had preceded him while he had been busy inspecting the different arrangements. He faced round abruptly in his saddle and saw that the rider behind him was Shorty.
It must have been at almost the same moment that, for some unknown reason, Shorty’s horse began to plunge and kick. Then it dashed forward, bearing down directly on Jack.
“Look out!” shouted Jack, “there’s only room for one on the trail. You’ll knock me off!”
“I can’t pull him in! I can’t pull him in!” yelled Shorty, making what appeared to be frantic efforts to pull in his pony. At the same time he kept the cayuse to the inside of the trail.
Jack saw that unless he did something, and quickly, too, his pony was likely to become unmanageable and plunge off the narrow path. But there was small choice of remedies. Already Shorty’s horse, which was coming as if maddened by something, was dashing down on him. Jack resolved to take a desperate chance. The others had by this time almost reached the bottom of the trail. As fast as he dared he compelled his pony to gallop down the steep incline. It was a dangerous thing to do, for the trail was too narrow to afford any foothold at more than a slow and careful walk.
Behind him, yelling like one possessed, came Shorty. Jack urged his mount faster.
“Goodness! I hope we get to the bottom safely!” he gasped out.
The words had hardly left his lips when he felt his pony’s hoofs slip from under him.
The next instant, amid a horrified shout from the men below, Jack and the pony went rolling and plunging off the trail down toward the river.
The last sound Jack heard was Shorty’s loud:
“Yip! yip! Ye–o–o–ow!”
CHAPTER IV.
WITH THE RANGERS
From below, where Jack’s companions had witnessed his fall with horrified eyes, it appeared almost impossible that he could escape without serious injury. But as his pony struck the ground at the foot of the cliff, amidst a regular landslide of twigs, rocks and earth, Jack succeeded in extricating himself from under the animal, and rolling a few yards he scrambled to his feet, unhurt except for a few slight cuts and bruises.
Ralph and Walt Phelps left their ponies and came running up to where Jack stood brushing the dirt from his garments.
“Hurt, Jack?” cried Ralph.
“No; never touched me,” laughed the boy; “and look at that cayuse of mine, I guess he isn’t injured, either.”
As Jack spoke he nodded his head in the direction of his pony, which had risen and was now galloping off to join its companions at the watering place.
“How did it happen?” demanded Walt. “We saw you coming down the trail quietly enough one moment, and at the next look, behold, you were riding like Tam o’ Shanter.”
Jack looked about him before replying. But he and his companions were alone, for the Rangers were too busy watering their mounts to bother with the boys once it had been seen that Jack was not hurt.
“I guess you were right when you said that Shorty had it in for me,” he remarked, turning to Walt Phelps.
“How do you mean?”
“Just this: Shorty was behind me on that trail. Suddenly his pony began to bolt. It was to avoid being forced from the narrow path that I spurred up my cayuse so as to keep ahead of him.”
“What do you think he meant to do?”
The question came from Ralph.
“It’s my opinion that he deliberately tried to get between me and the wall of the cliff and force me off the trail.”
“Gracious! You might have been killed.”
“Not much doubt that I’d have been badly injured, anyway. But Shorty miscalculated, and where I left the trail was further on and not so far to fall.”
“Why don’t you tell Captain Atkinson?”
“Why, I have nothing to prove that Shorty’s pony really didn’t get beyond his control.”
