Part 4 (1/2)

In about a hundred yards it began to widen, and they soon found themselves in a narrow valley with perpendicular sides, which seemed to widen farther up. The horses, were at once unloaded.

”Now do you lie down,” Dave said. ”I will keep watch at the mouth. I don't think there is any danger; still, we may as well begin as we shall have to go on.”

”Well, call me up in a couple of hours, then,” Zeke said; ”it will begin to get light in about four, and as soon as it does we will cover up the tracks.”

With the first dawn of light the three miners, taking their blankets, went down to the mouth of the Canyon. The boys accompanied them to watch their operations. It was only in the sand and gravel swept down by the floods from the gorge that any footmarks could be seen; these were first leveled, and then with the blankets the surface of the sand was carefully swept so as to erase all signs of disturbance. Before the sun was up the operation was completed, twenty or thirty yards up the Canyon.

”That is enough for the present,” Dave said; ”we are safe from anyone pa.s.sing. Now, let us have a look round up above.”

”They must have been awful careless if they were surprised in here,”

Zeke said; ”half a dozen men ought to hold this place against a hull tribe of redskins.”

”That is so,” Boston Joe agreed, ”but the greasers are mighty bad watchmen, and no doubt they thought they were safe in here. That Indian village could not have been over on the hill opposite then, or it would have been put down on the map.”

”Like enough they had been followed,” Dave said. ”If a redskin had caught sight of them, he might have followed on their trail for weeks, till he found where they were going, and then made off to bring his tribe down on them. It may be that one has been hanging behind us just in the same way.”

”It is a very unpleasant idea,” Tom said.

”The redskins' ways aint pleasant,” Dave said. ”Well, let us be moving up. The first thing we have got to look for aint gold. There is no doubt about that being here somewhere. What we have got to look for is if there is any way out of this hole, because it is a regular trap, and if we were caught here we might hold the gorge for a long time, but they would have us at last certain; besides, they could shoot us down from the top.”

They proceeded a few hundred yards up the valley, and then stopped suddenly on a cleared s.p.a.ce of ground. In the center lay a score of skeletons, some separately, some in groups of twos and threes. The remnants of the rags that still hung on them showed that they had been Mexicans. The two lads felt a thrill of horror at this proof of the fate that had befallen their predecessors.

”Wall,” Zeke exclaimed, ”that was something like a surprise; there aint no sign they made a fight of it; they were just caught in their sleep, and never even gathered, for resistance. Well, well, what fools men are to be sure. I shouldn't have believed as even Mexicans would have been such fools as to sleep here without putting a guard at the entrance. I reckon the redskins must have come down from above somewhere, and so caught them unawares. Well, let us be moving on.”

Chapter X.--Watched.

A little higher up the valley narrowed again, the sides came closer and closer, until they closed in abruptly in a rounded precipice, down which in the wet season it was evident that a waterfall leaped from a height above.

”They didn't come down here,” Dave said. ”If it were anywhere it was near where the attack was made; the sides slope away a bit there. Now keep your eyes skinned, and see if you can make out any place where a man might climb up or down. Our lives may depend on it.”

Just as they reached the old encampment d.i.c.k said, ”Look, Dave, there is a ledge running up behind that bush; it seems to me that it joins another ledge halfway up. Tom and I are accustomed to climbing; we will go up a bit and see if it goes anywhere.”

The two lads stopped as they got behind the bush.

”It looks like a path here, Dave; it has certainly been trodden.”

The miners came to the spot.

”You are right,” Dave said; ”it is a path, sure enough. Animals of some sort come up and down--bears, I should say; maybe goats, and lots of them, like enough; it is the only way they can get down from the top into the valley, and they come down to drink.”

The ridge was wider than it looked, being, where it started, fully two feet across. The boys at once set off up it; as d.i.c.k had supposed, it met another ledge running along halfway up the face of the hill. From below this ledge seemed a mere line, but it was really two feet wide in most places, and even at the narrowest was not less than a foot. Two hundred yards along, another ascent was met with, and after half an hour's climbing they found themselves on a level plateau, from which they could see across to the three peaks. The path was everywhere worn smooth, showing that it had been used for ages by animals of some kind.

”One would almost think it had been cut by hand,” d.i.c.k said; ”who would have thought from below that there was such a way as this out of the valley? The best of it is, that it is good enough for the horses to get up as well as us. Well, thank goodness, we have found a back door to that place. It was not a pleasant idea that we might be shut up there with the option of being either shot or starved.”

”They would take some time to starve us, d.i.c.k; nine horses would last us for a long time.”

”Yes, but it would come sooner or later, Tom. Anyhow, I shall feel a great deal more comfortable now I know that there is a way out.”

”But the Indians know of it too, d.i.c.k, if, as Dave thinks, they came down this way to attack the Mexicans.”