Jimmy was looking a trifle peaked and worried as he came clambering over the edge of the narrow path, assisted by Ned, who as soon as he could get a grip on the other scout’s jacket knew that all was well. No sooner did Jimmy realize that he was surely safe than he proceeded to indulge on one of his favorite grins, although they could see that a deep sigh of gratitude accompanied the same.
The very first thing he did was to turn around, and lying flat on his chest, look back down into that gulf from which he had just been dragged.
“Gee, whiz! but that was somethin’ of a drop, believe me!” he remarked, trying to keep his voice from trembling. “And there lies me silly old burro on his back with never a sign of a kick acomin’. He’s sure on the blink and whatever am I agoin’ to do now, without any Navajo blanket to sleep in nights? Mebbe we might have ropes aplenty to lower me down there, so I could recover me valuables. ’Tis a piece of great luck I had me Marlin gun in me hands at the time and dropped it on the ledge, so I did.”
“If we couldn’t get the things any other way, Jimmy,” announced Ned, “perhaps I’d agree to that spliced rope business, because we’ve got more than thirty yards of good line with us, but I’d go down myself and not let you try a second time. Still I don’t think it’ll be necessary. From what I see of the lay of the mountain we can reach that place after we leave this narrow trail.”
Jimmy did not insist. Perhaps his nerves had been more roughly shaken by his recent experience than he cared to admit; and the possibility of again finding himself dangling in space did not appeal very strongly to him.
It was just as well that Ned decided the matter as he did, for they found that once the end of the narrow stretch of rock was gained it was no great task to creep along the side of the mountain to the place where the dead pack animal lay.
Ned and Jack made the little journey and in due time turned up again carrying with them all that had been upon the burro, save the water keg.
“We left that behind,” explained Ned, “because as we are done with desert travel for this trip we won’t find any need of such a thing. But here’s your precious Navajo colored blanket, Jimmy; likewise we’ve saved what grub there was in the pack.”
“Good for you, Ned; I’d hated to lose that blanket the worst kind, you know; and as for the food end of the deal, well, what’s the use telling you how I feel about that when you all know that I’m the candy boy when the dinner horn blows.”
Jimmy was a great “feeder,” as Jack called it, and on many an occasion this weakness on his part had made him the butt of practical jokes on the part of his chums. But Jimmy was not the one to give up any cherished object simply because some one laughed at him on account of it. He was more apt to join in the merriment and consider it all a good joke.
The journey was now resumed, and the balance of the afternoon they met with no new hardships or perils worth recording. When the day was done and the shadows of coming night began to steal forth from all their hiding places where the bright sunlight had failed to locate them, the four scouts had reached the foot of the rocky mountain range and looked out upon the plain.
Here they made camp and passed a pleasant night with nothing to disturb their slumbers save the distant howl of a wolf, which was a familiar sound in the ears of these lads, since they had roughed it on many occasions in the past in more than a few strange parts of the world.
Although they had recently passed through some very arduous experiences these were only looked on as vague reminiscences by these energetic chums. The future beckoned with rosy fingers and that level plain looked very attractive in their eyes, after such a long and painful trip across the burning deserts and through that terrible Death Valley, where so many venturesome prospectors, gold-mad, have left their bones as a monument to their folly.
When morning came again they cooked breakfast with new vim. And the fragrant odor of the coffee seemed to appeal to them with more than ordinary force because of the bright prospect that opened before them.
“Ned says it might be only two more days before we get close to Uncle Job’s ranch,” remarked Harry, as he assisted Jimmy in getting breakfast; for since the latter was so fond of eating his comrades always saw to it that he had a hand in the preparation of the meals, to which Jimmy was never heard to offer the slightest objection.
“Then it’s me that will have to be studying harder on all them cowboy terms so they won’t take me for a greeny,” Jimmy went on to say in reply. “You just wait and see how I branch out a full-blown puncher. Right now I c’n ride a bucking pony and stick in the saddle like a leech; and I’m practicin’ how to throw a rope, though I must say I don’t get it very good and sometimes drop the old loop over my own coco instead of the post I’m aimin’ to lasso. But I’ll never give it up till I get there. That’s the way with the McGraws, we’re all set in our way and want baseball championships and everything else that’s good to own.”
“Jimmy,” called out Jack just then, “I think if you didn’t talk so much we’d be getting our breakfast sooner, because you kind of cool things off. There, see how the coffee boils like mad whenever you hold up. How about it, Harry, isn’t it nearly done? I’m feeling half-starved, to tell you the truth.”
“Then I’m not the only pebble on the beach this time, it seems,” chuckled Jimmy, who was so used to being made fun of on account of his voracious appetite that he felt happy to find that someone else could also get hungry on occasion.
“In three minutes we’ll give you the high sign, Jack,” Harry announced and he was as good as his word, for it was not long before the chums might have been seen discussing the food that had been prepared and making merry over the meal as was their usual custom.
Starting forth in high spirits they began to head across the plain and at about noon all of them were electrified on hearing the distant but unmistakable whistle of a locomotive, showing that they were approaching the railroad.
After their recent experiences in the dead lands this sign of civilization was enough to thrill them through and through. Jimmy was immediately waving his hat and letting off a few yells to denote his overwhelming joy; while even Ned looked around with more or less of a smile on his face.
“Sounds like home, don’t it?” asked Jack, beaming on the rest. “Takes you back to good old New York, where you can sit down next to a plate of ice cream when your tongue feels thick from the heat and cool off. Seems like I’d never get my fill of cold stuff again.”
Pushing on they presently sighted the railroad and also discovered that just as Ned had figured would be the case, they were approaching a town.
“That’s where we ordered our mail to be sent on from Los Angeles, up to the tenth, and I hope we find letters waiting for us,” Harry remarked; for he was quite a correspondent, though not in the same class with Frank Shaw, another member of the Black Bear Patrol, whose father owned a big daily in New York and who often contributed letters to its columns when he was away on trips with Ned.
Ned on his part was wondering whether he would receive anything in the way of business communications from the Government people in Washington, for it would be forwarded on from Los Angeles if such a message did come in cipher.
So anxious were the boys to reach the settlement on the railroad that it was decided not to stop for any lunch at noon but to push right along. If there was any eating place in the town they could get a bite before leaving; and the change from camp fare might be agreeable to them all.
At two o’clock they reached the place, which was hardly of respectable size, although it had a station and post office. The first thing the boys did was to head for this latter place and ask for mail, which was handed out after the old man had slowly gone over several packages. Strangers were such a novelty in that Nevada railroad settlement that the postmaster evidently was consumed with curiosity to know what could have brought four lively looking boys dressed in khaki suits very much on the same pattern as United States regulars, to that jumping-off place. But they did not