THE LONE RANCHO.

Well, that was an odd meal, that refection of water-soaked biscuit and canned corned beef, with flood water as a beverage. Perhaps in all the adventures of the Border Boys, when in after years they came to recall them, no scene stood out quite so strikingly.

For one thing, Coyote Pete alone, of the party, possessed any sort of wardrobe. The professor was clad in his “barber pole” pajamas. Ralph boasted a shirt and Walt Phelps possessed the same with the addition of a pair of socks, which latter hardly fulfilled requirements so far as a covering for his nether limbs was concerned.

From time to time the Border Boys had to look at each other and burst out laughing. Only the professor viewed the matter in a serious light.

“Suppose we should meet some ladies,” he asked indignantly.

“Reckon thar ain’t many of ’em hereabouts,” ventured Coyote, spreading a big slice of beef on a bit of soggy bread. “The burros is ther only representatives of the gentle sex fer a good many miles, I opinion.”

The burros, relieved of their packs, which had been swept away, wagged their ears appreciatively at this, and continued browsing on the short, coarse grass which grew in patches here and there, and which the boys were delighted to see seemed also to be palatable to the horses.

Ralph and the others had already related how the terrified animals had been recaptured without difficulty early that day. In fact, a circumstance which has often been noted was their good fortune, namely, that panic-stricken horses in lonely, wild countries, will actually seek human companionship,—provided, of course, that they have already been domesticated. As for the burros, their loud “hee-haws” had resounded all night.

Ralph also explained how the idea of the mirror heliograph came to him. The lad who, as has been explained, was a bit of a dandy, was horrified to discover the abbreviated state of his wardrobe. But a search of his shirt pocket revealed his pocket-mirror with its folding brush and comb fittings. The railroad king’s son had at once set to work to make himself presentable about the head at least, and was combing his hair neatly and wondering how Jack and Pete had fared, when the sun caught the mirror and it flashed blindingly into his eyes. This gave him the idea of flashing it in all directions in the hope that the others, if within sight, would catch its glint. Then came the happy thought of telegraphing with the bit of glass by alternately covering and uncovering it. The idea had met with the warm approval of the professor and Walt Phelps, although, perhaps, even they had not been over sanguine of results.

“Well,” said Jack at length, after the events of the night and the following incidents had been discussed and re-discussed, “what are we going to do now?”

“Get clothes,” cried Ralph, without an instant’s hesitation, regarding his bare legs disparagingly.

“By all means, yes,” agreed the professor.

Coyote Pete grinned.

“Jack,” said he, “will you be so kind as ter step ter the telephone and tell the Blue Front Store to send up a few samples of men’s furnishings?”

All but the professor burst into a roar of laughter at this sally.

“At any rate,” suggested Walt Phelps, “we’re not likely to get held up.”

“Not so sure about that,” said the professor, “I have the money belt containing most of our finances around my waist. I always sleep with it there.”

“Hooray!” shouted the boys, who, up to that moment had not once thought of the important question of finances. It struck them now with sobering force.

“By George!” cried Jack, “if it hadn’t been for your foresight, professor, we might have been penniless as well as wardrobeless.”

“That’s right,” agreed Coyote Pete, “and ther chance that you’d stand of being helped out by the greasers would be about ther same as a snowflake ’ud have on a red-hot cook stove.”

“My idea is to lose no time in striking out for a town or village where we can get some clothes, even if they are only Mexican garments,” announced Jack.

“And food, too,” put in Walt Phelps, who liked to get his three meals a day, “we’ll be on starvation diet if we don’t stock up on that.”

After more discussion it was agreed to follow up the dry bed of the river, as the professor’s map showed a small village some distance up a stream which, though unnamed on the map, seemed to be the one on whose banks they now were. This decision reached, no time was lost in mounting. There was no saddling to be done, for the saddles had been swept off with most of the rest of their outfit.

“If you ever catch me camping in the dry bed of a river again you are welcome to hang me to a sour apple tree,” grumbled Walt Phelps, as he mounted.

“I reckon I’m ter blame fer it all,” volunteered Coyote Pete, “but I never thought as how that far-off storm would affect us in the plains. That must have bin a jim-dandy of a cloudburst.”

“I’d hate to have been any closer to it than we were,” laughed Jack. “If we had been, we’d have been going yet, I imagine.”

“I heard of a cloudburst once that did some good, though,” struck in Pete; “ther thing happened to a friend of mine in Californy. He wuz a miner, Jefferson Blunt by name.

“Wall, sir, Jeff had struck such all-fired bad luck up on the Stanislaus River that he’d about concluded to pull out for other regions when, all of a sudden, one night up came a storm, and in the middle of it there come the all-firedest cloudburst that Jeff had ever heard of. It picked up his cabin and floated Jeff off down the river, a-going like a blue streak. He thought every minute that he’d hear Gabriel’s trumpet and see ther golden stairs, but that little old cabin was well built and watertight, and it floated like a boat.

“It must hev been hours, Jeff says, afore he felt ther thing give a bump and stop. As soon as he dared he opened ther door and peeked out. He wuz in a part uv ther country he’d never seen. It was all cliffs and big trees and very imposing, and ther like of that,—that ‘imposing’ is Jeff’s word.

“Wall, Jeff he steps out of his sea-going shack and looks about him, and ther first thing he sees is a big streak of ore just a-glitter with gold and stuck, like a band of yaller ribbon along ther cliff face above his head.

“Jeff had bin so unlucky that first he thinks it’s jes’ fool’s gold and not the real article. But he soon convinces himself thet he’s struck it rich at last. Wall, ter make a long story short, Jeff files a claim and in a few y’ars is a rich man, and what d’ye s’pose he called ther mine?”

“‘The Cloud Burst,’ of course!” cried Jack.

“How’d yer guess it?” asked Pete. “But yer right, and thet’s ther only cloudburst I ever hearn’ of, thet brought anybody any luck.”

“Personally, if I could find a pair of trousers,” wailed the professor, “I should esteem their possession almost above even such a lucky discovery as you have related.”

“I think I’d trade it right now for a porter-house steak and trimmings, brown gravy and green corn, and——”

“See here,” put in Ralph, with assumed indignation, “if you don’t shut up I’ll, I’ll——”

“Go right home,” chuckled Walt teasingly; “you’d be a fine sight in that rig. I’ll bet the folks back east would have you put in the calaboose.”

But by noon the gay spirits of the boys were considerably toned down. No sign of a town had yet come in sight and they were all hot, hungry and tired. The odd procession, with the burros tagging along behind, looked disconsolate enough as it followed the windings of the river. The shallow aftermath of the flood steamed and simmered under the hot sun, sending up unpleasant odors,—yet they had to drink it or go without.

By way of cheering the party up, Coyote Pete began to sing—or rather wail—in the high-pitched voice affected by cow-punchers singing to their cattle:

“O-ho-wa-hay da-own upon the Su-wahanee River,
Fa-har, fa-har a-way——”

But before he could begin the next line Ralph struck in with:

“There’s where our pants are floating ever;
There’s where they’re gone to stay!”

In the general roar of laughter which followed, the “grouch” which had settled down on the tired wayfarers vanished like the spring snow under a burst of sunlight.

With a shout the boys, their troubles forgotten in an outburst of that good nature that makes the whole world kin, plunged forward, their shirt tails flying.

“Yip-yip-ye-ee!”

The joyous yell filled the air. And then it broke off into a real cheer, for, on surmounting the summit of a small eminence, they saw below them, not more than a mile off, a small adobe house of unusual type, for it had two stories. It was surrounded by a grove of green willows which delighted the eye tired by the endless gray-green stretches of grease-wood savannahs.

Even the dignified professor joined in the enthusiasm, and in a minute a cavalcade was bearing down on the place at breakneck speed. As they neared it in a thunder of hoofs and a cloud of yellow dust, a door opened and the figure of a gaunt Mexican, with long, shaggy, black hair hanging straight and lank to his shoulders, stepped out. His next move halted the leaders of the party abruptly.

He jerked a long-barreled rifle to his shoulder and pointed it threateningly.

“Mira rurales!” he yelled to some one within the house.

“No rurales! Americanos!” cried Coyote Pete.

The effect was magical. The man’s startled air changed, and with a sheepish smile he stepped forward as Jack and Ralph, who were in advance, drew rein.

“What did he mean by rurales, I wonder?” asked Ralph of Jack in a low tone as the others loped up.

“Why, rurales are a species of police. Rangers, they are called sometimes. They are wild chaps, mostly recruited from the ranks of brigands and highwaymen. The government pays them a high figure to be good and keep law and order.”

“But this man seemed to fear them.”

“Maybe he has reason to. But we can’t be particular. At any rate, we are a strong enough party to look after our own hands. But see, here comes his wife. I guess, after all, he is nothing more unlawful than a cattle rancher in a small way, who perhaps, once-in-a-while takes an unbranded calf or two from his neighbor’s estates.”

The woman who joined the man, who by this time had set down the rifle, was a stout, slatternly-looking creature in a greasy cotton wrapper. She shot out a few rapid words in a low voice to the other, who replied in equally low tones. So far as Jack, who was closest, could judge, the woman seemed to be protesting against something, and the man stilling her objections.

Coyote Pete as spokesman now advanced, and in Spanish asked if they could obtain lodging and refreshment for themselves and their stock.