The Border Boys with the Texas Rangers

For the first few yards all went well. The water came up to the ponies’ withers, but it did not appear to get deeper. Ralph was just congratulating himself that they would get across with ease and safety if things continued that way when his pony suddenly floundered into a deep hole. Instantly it lost its footing and went clear under.

Ralph had not time to extricate his feet from the stirrups, and was carried with it. As he vanished from view under the turbid current an alarmed cry broke from both Captain Atkinson and Walt Phelps.

CHAPTER XV.

A “BLANK WALL.”

“He’s drowning!” cried Walt in alarmed tones.

“It is just as I feared,” cried Captain Atkinson, “the pony struck a water hole and – ”

“Look, there’s the pony now!” cried Walt as the little animal reappeared and began swimming for the bank.

“But where is Ralph?”

Without waiting to make any reply to Captain Atkinson, Walt suddenly wheeled his pony. Down the stream he had seen an arm extended above the muddy current. He knew that it was Ralph’s.

There was no hesitation in the boy’s manner as he turned his pony, and, plunging the spurs in deep, drove him through the water. All at once Walt and his pony floundered into the same hole that had been Ralph’s undoing. At the same instant a sudden swirl of the current caught Ralph, who, though half drowned, was making a brave struggle. The momentary halt was the chance that Captain Atkinson had been looking for.

He had followed close on Walt’s heels and now, while the latter was struggling to maintain a hold on his swimming pony, the captain of the Rangers uncoiled his lariat.

Swish! It shot out in a long rolling coil and fell fairly about the shoulders of the struggling Ralph Stetson. Although half choked into insensibility with the water he had swallowed, Ralph still maintained enough sense to grasp the rawhide while Captain Atkinson drew it tight.

When the coil was fast the captain backed his pony upstream until Ralph had been dragged to shallow water. Then he pulled him out and laid him on the bank, gasping and almost drowned. In the meantime Walt Phelps had succeeded in extricating himself from his perilous position, and he and his pony, drenched through and dripping, arrived on the bank almost at the same time as Ralph was dragged ashore.

Captain Atkinson had some simple remedies in his kit and he applied these to Ralph, who was soon able, as he put it, “to sit up and take notice.” As he did so the stumbling pony, which had been the cause of all the trouble, came up and sniffed at his master curiously.

“Well, Spot–nose,” said Ralph, using the name he had given the little beast, “you almost caused me to find a watery grave.”

The pony whinnied as if to show that he was sorry and was willing to apologize. This view of the circumstance made them all laugh. By this time Captain Atkinson had a roaring fire going, by the side of which they dried themselves, and there was soon a decidedly more cheerful tone to the party.

“It makes me shiver, though, when I think of that narrow escape,” said Ralph as they prepared to continue their journey.

“That is just an incident of life here on the Border,” declared Captain Atkinson. “It’s such things as those that make a man or a boy know that there is a divine Providence watching over us. No man who has lived on the desert or at sea doubts that there is a watchful eye upon us, saving by seeming miracles from disaster and death.”

“That is so,” agreed Walt soberly, “I’ve often heard my father say that the best cure for religious doubts is to have a man come out here on the Borderland. He says that heaven and earth are closer here than in the cities or in the more civilized portions of the country.”

They rode on, following the branch of the Rio, tracing, although they did not at the time know it, the course of the runaway raft on which Jack had made his wild trip.

It was late that afternoon that they came to the falls that thundered down into the Pool of Death.

Awe–struck by the wild and gloomy majesty of the scene, not one of the party spoke for a time. It was Walt who broke the silence, shouting above the mighty roaring of the falls.

“Can Jack have gone over this cataract and lived?” he said.

Captain Atkinson shook his head gloomily.

“It looks bad,” he said. “If the boy was plunged over such a place only one of those miracles of which we spoke awhile back can have saved his life.”

“How can we reach the foot of the falls?” asked Ralph in a quavery tone.

The sublimity of the scene and its suggestion of ruthless power and pitiless force had overawed him.

“We must look about for a way,” declared Captain Atkinson, “at any rate we won’t turn back till we know, or at least are reasonably certain, of Jack’s fate.”

For some time they searched about the summit of the steep cliffs surrounding the Pool of Death without coming on any path or series of ledges by which they could hope to gain the foot of the falls. But at last Captain Atkinson halted by a rock that towered up like a pinnacle or obelisk. It stood at the edge of the cliffs, at a spot where they did not appear more than a hundred feet or so high.

“We might be able to get down from here,” he decided.

The boys peered over the edge of the cliff. It was perpendicular and steep as a wall. It was hard to imagine even a fly maintaining a hold on it.

But they knew that Captain Atkinson was not the man to speak without reason, and so they respectfully waited for him to continue.

“I estimate the height of this cliff at a trifle under one hundred feet,” he said, “therefore we have a means of getting to the bottom.”

“I don’t see how,” rejoined Ralph.

“My boy, you will never make a Ranger if you can’t make the best of a situation,” said Captain Atkinson in a tone of mild reproof. “We have the three lariats. Their united length is one hundred and twenty feet. That will allow us a chance to knot some sticks into the united ropes and thus make a sort of rope ladder. We can secure it ’round this spindle–shaped rock and so reach the foot of the falls without much difficulty.”

The boys hailed the idea with enthusiasm, Ralph saying:

“Well, I am a chucklehead. Why on earth didn’t I think of that?”

“Because you’re not a full–fledged Texas Ranger,” laughed Walt. “I guess there’s more to being a Ranger than we thought.”

“I guess there is,” agreed Ralph contritely.

The three ropes were fetched from the saddles and one long one made out of them. Then stout sticks were knotted in at long intervals so as to form a rough kind of ladder.

“Now, then,” said Captain Atkinson, when he had fastened the rope about the obelisk–shaped rock, “I will go first and test it.”

“Would it not be better if one of us, who are lighter, took your place?” asked Ralph, unwilling to see the daring Texas Ranger risk his life.

“No. It is my duty to go first. If it will bear me, it will bear you.”

So saying, Captain Atkinson began that thrilling descent. The boys, lying flat, with their heads extended over the rim of the Pool of Death, watched him till he reached the ground. They could not restrain a cheer when they saw that the feat had been accomplished in safety. In response Captain Atkinson waved his hand up to them.

“Now, boys, it is your turn,” he cried encouragingly.

After a moment’s argument, for each wished the other to have the honor of going first, Ralph was persuaded to make the descent. He reached the ground safely, and was soon standing beside Captain Atkinson. Then came Walt’s turn, after which the three adventurers were united.

“What an awful place!” shuddered Ralph, glancing about him nervously.

“Yes, let us be pushing on. It is high time we – Great heavens, look here!”

The captain had stopped abruptly at the rock on which Jack had dried out his dripping garments. What he had seen had been the ashes of the fire the lad had kindled.

“Some one has lit a fire here,” cried Ralph as he, too, saw the embers.