The Border Boys with the Texas Rangers

“Yes, and not long ago, either.”

Captain Atkinson bent over and picked up a handful of the blackened embers, examining them carefully.

“This fire is not over forty–eight hours old,” he exclaimed in a voice that fairly shook with suppressed excitement.

“And that means that Jack has – ”

“In some miraculous way been swept over those falls and survived. Let us press on at once. Before dark we may have him with us again.”

At these words new life seemed to course through the veins of the two exhausted young Rangers. They plucked up energy and courage from the captain’s manner.

“Forward,” cried their leader, plunging into the narrow passage which we have seen Jack traverse.

Entering the valley, they had hardly gotten over the first shock of their surprise at its extent and formation when the keen eyes of Captain Atkinson discovered the figure of the Mexican.

“What can this mean?” he exclaimed. “Yonder is a man watching us. Let us go up to him at once and find out what this means; perhaps Jack has found friends; perhaps the valley is inhabited.”

It was a moment later that the scene of recognition which we have described took place.

“How came you here, señors?” demanded the Mexican, who, seemingly, was the first to recover his self–possession.

For reply Captain Atkinson whipped out his revolver with incredible swiftness and leveled it at the fellow’s head.

“Speak the truth, Alvarez,” he snapped, “or it will be the worse for you. Where is Jack Merrill?”

“If you mean the boy who was dashed over the falls with me,” was the reply, “he has gone.”

“Gone?”

“Si, señor.”

“Where?”

“Quien sabe.”

“Answer me quick, Alvarez.”

The brow of Captain Atkinson puckered angrily, his countenance grew dark.

“It is as I say, señor. What object would I have in lying to you? The boy climbed yonder cliff but this minute and has vanished.”

Although they would have liked to disbelieve the fellow’s story, and incredible as it seemed that a human being could have climbed that cliff, there was an unmistakable ring of sincerity in the man’s tone; it was impossible to make light of his tale.

“Boys, we have run against a blank wall,” spoke Captain Atkinson at length, with heavy anxiety in his tone.

“Do you think Jack is safe?” breathed Ralph.

“Heaven, in whose power he is, alone knows,” was the earnest rejoinder.

CHAPTER XVI.

LOST IN THE BURNING DESERT

Jack’s first thought when he rose to his feet had been, as we know, to signal the Mexican whom he had left behind him, and try to assure him by sign language that he would do all in his power to bring rescuers to the valley. Not that the boy had any particular affection for the swarthy Alvarez; but naturally, with his warm, forgiving temperament, he hated the idea of leaving a fellow being behind without hope of succor.

But the dark shadows of evening hid the valley from him, and the boy was forced to set forward without having had a chance to signal the Mexican, or to witness a scene that would have interested him in an extraordinary degree, namely, the arrival of his chums and Captain Atkinson.

Naturally enough, the first thing that Jack did when he found himself at the top of the dread precipice was to look about him and see what kind of country it was into which he had fallen, or rather, climbed. While it was rapidly growing dark in the valley below, the sun still shone brightly on the heights above, although the luminary of day was not far from the horizon.

So far as Jack could see, the country round about was not dissimilar in the main from that across the Border. It was a rolling country, grown with bunch grass and here and there a ghostly–looking yucca stretching its gaunt arms out against the sky. As far as the eye could reach this sort of country extended, except that in the distance was a purplish mass of what might have been either mountains or low–lying clouds.

But to the boy’s dismay there was not a sign of a human dwelling, nor of anything to indicate that life existed in that dreary plain.

“Gracious,” thought Jack, “this is really serious. I feel weak for want of food and I’m thirsty enough to drink a well dry. Surely, there must be some human beings in the vicinity. At least I’ll not give up hope.”

With a great sigh the boy struck out toward the east. He chose this direction because he thought it was as good as any other, and not for any particular reason. He trudged pluckily on across arid, rocky plains till the sun sank in a blaze of copper and gold behind his back.

It was then, and not till then, that Jack gave way. He flung himself down despairingly on the hot ground under the cheerless arms of a huge yucca.

“What is to become of me?” he cried in a dismayed tone. “What shall I do? Evidently this part of the country is good for neither ranching or mining, and is uninhabited. I might tramp on for days without finding a soul to help me. Am I doomed to end my life in this dreary place?”

These and a hundred other gloomy thoughts flitted through the boy’s mind as, utterly exhausted and unnerved, he lay on the ground beneath the yucca. What were his chums doing? he wondered. No doubt by this time a search party had been organized to seek for him, but Jack owned, with a sinking of the heart, that it was beyond the range of possibilities, almost, that they should ever find the Pool of Death and the secret valley.

“No,” he owned with bitter resignation, “my bones will bleach in this God–forgotten place, and none will ever know my fate.”

Then he thought of his home and his father, the stalwart ranchman, and tears welled up in his eyes and a great lump rose in his throat.

“Oh, it’s hard to have to die like this,” he moaned, “and yet there is nothing to be done. True, I may live for a day or two yet. I can start out again to–morrow morning and go on stumbling along till I drop exhausted.”

It was at this bitter moment that a sudden recollection of a favorite saying of his father’s came into the boy’s mind: “Never give up while you’ve a kick left in you.”

Jack thought of the bluff ranchman as the saying came back to him with poignant force.

“Never give up while you’ve a kick left in you.”

“For shame, Jack Merrill,” he said half aloud, “for shame, to be giving up this way. You’ve a kick left in you, many of them perhaps. What would your dad say if he saw you sitting down like a girl or a baby and giving in before you had to? Don’t you dare to do it again.”

Having thus scolded himself, Jack felt somewhat better, though there was still the great dread of a death in the desert upon him. But at least some of his spirit had returned. He resolved to struggle on as soon as he was sufficiently rested.

With this determination in his mind, the boy tried to compose himself for sleep. He knew that a good spell of slumber would refresh him almost as much as food or drink. Thus he unconsciously echoed the sentiments of the philosopher who declared that “He who sleeps, dines.”

At any rate, the practical Jack Merrill wished to be at his best when he started off once more on his wanderings, so he laid down and composed himself as comfortably as he could. Strange as it may seem that he could sleep under such conditions, slumber he did, although all sorts of wild dreams beset his rest. At one moment he was toiling over a burning desert under a pitiless sun, calling aloud for water. Then again he was in the shade of a delightful group of trees while bright crystal springs flashed and rippled. He was dreaming that he felt the delightful cooling sensation of a cold plunge into one of these rivulets when he awoke with a start.

Above him the stars glittered coldly. The yuccas, like grim sentinels, outstretched their gaunt, semaphore–like arms against the night sky. A breeze that seemed chilly after the heat of the day swept the dismal plain. The sensation of coming from that dream of cool green places to that dry, desolate, stony waste gave Jack a fresh shock; but, true to his determination to act as he knew his father would wish him to do, he shook off his gloomy depression and struck out once more toward the east, taking his direction from the North Star, which he sighted by means of the “pointers” in the Dipper.

As he strode forward the poor boy whistled “Marching Thro’ Georgia” to keep up his spirits. But the tune soon wavered and died out. His lips were too dry and cracked to make whistling anything but a painful process. Thereafter he trudged along in silence. Soon a rosy flush appeared in the east, and before long the sun rushed up and it was a new day.

But to Jack the coming of the sun meant fresh disappointment. He had hoped that with daylight he might perceive some house, however rough, or at least a road he could follow. But none appeared. He mounted to the highest bit of rocky land he could find in the vicinity in the hope that the elevation might aid him in surveying the country.