All of them were staring at the little placard by now, even Adrian feeling almost as much astonishment as the kneeling Billie. Indeed, what they saw written there in a crude manner was quite enough to give the fat boy a cold chill. Underneath that plainly printed word “Warning!” was the following:

“Don’t yu drink here, spring poizened by crazy Injun long tim ago. Dangrous. Go on further down vally, mor water.”

There was no name signed, but just then none of the boys thought anything about that little fact.

“What!” burst out the indignant Billie, “poisoned, this lovely spring? Now, ain’t that just too bad for anything? And so we don’t get a drink after all. But whatever d’ye think any Injun’d want to do such a mean thing as that for?”

“Well,” remarked Donald, “I’ve heard something about this same spring, and that was why I warned you to go slow. Fact is, I expected we’d run across this before we came to the one that’s safe to drink from. But I tell you plainly though, I didn’t expect to find this kind warning stuck up here. The boys didn’t say a word about that. And as sure as you live, Adrian, I begin to believe it was put here today, and for our special benefit!”

“Listen to that, now, would you?” burst out Billie, still staring hard at the paper in the cleft stick that had been pushed into the ground; “the mystery deepens, seems like. One night we have an unknown friend wounding an Injun that’s trying to make way with our ponies; and now here’s somebody mighty anxious that we don’t drink from this poisoned spring. It’s sure getting interesting, fellers; and I’d give a cookey to know who he might be, wouldn’t you?”

But from the blank expression on the faces of his two chums, Billie realized that they were just as far from guessing the truth as he might be.

“Then we don’t take the chances of having even a little drink here, do we?” the sorely disappointed fat boy asked, as he sat and looked regretfully at the water that was so tempting.

“Better not,” decided Donald. “It might be only some sort of fake; but we can’t afford to take the chances, you see. Let somebody else experiment, if they want to. So long as there is another spring hole further down the valley, why, we’d better be trotting along. And just notice the way the ponies sniff the air, will you? I really believe they know that this water is bad to drink.”

“What, ponies know better than human beings, do they?” demanded Billie, hardly relishing such a state of affairs.

“They’ve been given an unerring instinct, where we depend on reason, and that often fails us. Just watch a horse feeding, and notice how he refuses to touch all kinds of weeds, and how a cow drops the same out of her mouth after she’s scooped in a whole bunch of grass. Instinct, and nothing else. But there’s no use in us hanging out here, when we can soon get to good water.”

Reluctantly Billie quitted that beautiful spring. He even turned to look back at it several times, and went on to remark:

“That crazy Injun ought to have been shot, to do such a thing. Why didn’t he pick out an ordinary spring, and put his loco weed in the same?”

“Oh! well, perhaps that story is only one of the Indian legends we read about, and it’s really something else that makes the water coming from that spring bad, so that people who drink it feel sick right away. I’ve got an idea myself that it must pass through some sort of copper deposit that poisons the water. Because if this thing happened years and years ago, as the reds say, how could the poison still keep on working?”

“Well, now, that doesn’t stand to reason, does it?” remarked Billie. “And I reckon you’re right when you say it, Donald. But let me tell you I never was more disappointed in my life. But I didn’t notice any bones lying around there, or graves either.”

“What makes you say that?” demanded Adrian.

“Why, if the water is really poisoned, lots of fellows must have drank of it, time in and time out, not knowing how dangerous it was; and if they fell down and kicked the bucket, wouldn’t we see their bones scattered around, just as the wolves and coyotes had left ’em?”

“Oh! it doesn’t kill you outright, they say; just sickens you, until you feel like you’d be glad to die to end it all,” Donald assured him.

“I’ve heard people talk that way about being seasick,” Billie observed; and then he seemed to fall into a musing spell, as though the recent strange event had, as was only natural, made a serious impression on his mind.

It was only half an hour later that the ponies again manifested an unusual eagerness to get on. Donald called the attention of Billie to the fact.

“You notice that there isn’t the least sign of water, so far as we can see for ourselves, Billie; and yet they scent it plain enough. Doesn’t that prove what I said about their being smarter than any human being?”

Billie admitted that it did; for he was very frank, and ready to own up to anything, after he had been convinced of his error.

“P’raps we might let the ponies try first this time,” he suggested, cautiously. “If they tackle it right off the reel, then it ought to be safe for us to drink, eh, fellows?”

“Not a bad idea at all, Billie, and does you credit,” said Adrian; “sort of taking advantage of their sagacity, you might call it, I reckon.”

“Only don’t let ’em muddy things for us,” admonished the fat boy. “Somebody else will have to lend me a hand with Bray here, because I just can’t hold him in when he takes a notion to do something.”

“That’s easily managed,” laughed Donald, coming up on the other side, so that he could lean over, and grip the rope that served as a bridle for the pack mule.

The little trick turned out very well, for none of the animals manifested the slightest disposition to scorn the water of the second spring. Indeed, they one and all sucked in such huge draughts that Billie immediately became alarmed lest they exhaust the limited supply.

“Hold your horses, there!” he called out, pulling back on Jupiter’s bridle, although the horse seemed unwilling to mind; “give a fellow a chance, won’t you? Don’t go and hog it all, just because we were considerate enough to let you drink first. Have some manners, can’t you, I say? Drag ’em back, boys, and let’s get a sup ourselves before it’s all gone.”

“No worry, Billie,” said Donald; “because, if you look sharp you’ll see that the spring is running at a lively rate, and the cup’ll fill up with fresh water right off. It creeps away under this rank vegetation, and is lost in the sand beyond. But there’s going to be plenty of water right along. Better let the ponies have all they want while we’re about it.”

“Oh! I s’pose that’s right,” grumbled Billie, “but I was always brought up to say ‘gentlemen first;’ and it kind of goes against the grain to just keep on being thirsty while animals are sucking it all down by barrels full.”

However, when a little later on the pool filled again with fresh water, Billie admitted that it was delightfully cool and refreshing. And then besides, they owed the horses something for showing them that the water was uncontaminated, and good to drink.

“I’m going to propose something that will have to be settled by a majority vote,” said Donald, a short time later, as he looked smilingly at his two chums.

“I can give a guess what it is; but go on,” observed Adrian, nodding.

“What time is it, Billie?” the other continued.

So Billie, consulting the little nickel watch he carried, replied that it wanted just three minutes of four.

“You see, the day is pretty nearly done,” Donald continued, impressively; “and we couldn’t go much farther if we tried. Besides, we won’t find another spring on the trail between here and the edge of the desert, which truth to tell can’t be far from this spot. So I was going to propose that we camp right here tonight.”

“Eureka! count on my vote in favor of that same!” cried Billie, promptly falling in with the scheme, as Donald knew full well he would; because if there was one thing the fat boy liked above all others it was fresh water; and there were times when it seemed as though he could never drink enough, especially should the weather turn hot.

“Make it unanimous, Donald,” laughed Adrian; “for I knew that was what you meant to say. Fact is, I was thinking about broaching the idea myself, when you took the words right out of my mouth.”

“Another thing,” ventured the pleased Billie; “we can fill up our canteens fresh before we start in the morning; and make the ponies drink all they want; for if we have to cross that sand stretch, why, the chances are it’ll be a dry job, and we’ll be glad we stopped over night here, see if we don’t.”

As it was settled that they should go no further that day, the three lads started to get the camp in shape. First they found a place where the animals could be staked out, so that they might pick up some of the grass which seemed only to grow around the spring hole, as is often the case in this country of the Southwest, where arid wastes and rocky regions predominate.

Then the tent was erected, and the fireplace made; so that in a short time things began to take on the appearance of a regular camp. Billie was in his glory at such a time. He knew that soon there would be a delicious aroma filling the air, as they started to get supper ready; and that always tickled him greatly. As the war horse prances when he whiffs the smoke of battle, so Billie became animated as soon as he caught the first scent of onions frying, or coffee boiling; as he would himself say, “simply because he was built that way, and couldn’t help it.”

And so the second day of their journey across the wild country that lay between the Red Spar Mine and the village of the Zuni Indians, came to an end, with all well. Billie could not see that they had any reason to complain, as, seated on the ground, tailor fashion, with his legs curled under him, and a pannikin of venison, together with fried onions and beans, in his lap, his tin cup of fragrant coffee resting close beside him, he started in to appease the ferocious appetite that had been worrying him for half an hour and more.

Why, the future looked as bright as that glowing sky that marked the going down of the sun in the west. For it did not lie in their power to roll back the curtains of the future for even one day, and see what lay awaiting them on the morrow. Perhaps Billie might not have felt so light-hearted had he known what was coming; but after all it was just as well.