He was scarcely entrenched again, with the three magazine rifles laid on the barricade before him, when his straining ears heard a new sound. Far away and faint, but meaning only one thing, the soft chugging of a motor. The Cibola! There could be no doubt of it.

The instant feeling of relief was shattered even as it gave Elmer new courage; to attempt to light the signal fires would probably mean instant death. And without them how would his friends know his position or peril? But one thing he could do; and even knowing that it would mean an answering shot from the skulking horse thieves he discharged his revolver into the air.

Then the sound of the motor died away and the long minutes dragged by. When it began again, and more softly, the sound was nearer.

Nearer, and nearer it came and then the circle of light fell on the wagon and was gone. "At least they know where I am," thought Elmer to himself, and settled down courageously for renewed attack, determined to hold out to the last. At this moment came the shot that put out the Cibola's light.

The nervy boy had been tempted to abandon the wagon and follow the light, but his second judgment was against this. "If they can, the boys will come back," he argued, "and I'll only get out of this when I have to."

To Elmer's surprise the attackers had been strangely silent for some time. With more experience he would have known that this meant even greater danger, but he only hoped it was due to the distracting and mysterious flying light. Then the sepulchral green light burst out in its funnel-like volume. It was coming back. It flared, went out, shot over the distant sands again like a searching' eye and then began moving straight up the river bank towards the wagon.

Then came the earth rending explosion. Nor could the besieged boy know even then that Ned's well-aimed bomb had sent five Utes to their last sleep.

When the sound of the explosion had died away and Elmer had recovered himself--for the shock had thrown him forward on the barricade--the whirr of the Cibola's motor was again far away. But it was directly above him!

As if the attackers had been paralyzed by the explosion, the long interval continued without a shot. Then suddenly, from the right and left and front, the real attack began. One shot sounded as a signal, and then from a half circle before him half a dozen bullets tore their way towards the boy and his barricade. Most of them went wild. Two hit the boxes and half stunned the lone guardian behind them. The a.s.sailants did not know that one of the two white men was dead, and Elmer, in hopes temporarily to deceive them, fired two of the rifles at the same moment.

But his enemies were closing in; the half circle was growing smaller and the crash of the bullets in the wagon above him and in the barricade in front told the boy that the end could not be far away.

To the right in the direction of the explosion there was a gap in the fast closing circle. It was folly to delay longer. If escape were possible, it was in that direction. He would make one desperate attempt. One shot remained in his rifles. Putting it where he thought it would do the most good, and catching up the two yet full revolvers, the colored boy crawled under the wagon and crept hastily along the river bank.

And yet he did not dare to attempt to pa.s.s the end of the Indian semi-circle. It was one chance in a thousand. Throwing himself on the ground, he waited. "Crack!" It was the rifle of an Indian, not fifty feet away and coming nearer. The stealthy footfalls told Elmer that his foe was heading straight for the river bank and that he was in the Ute's path. Then he could hear the Indian's deep breathing. Detection was inevitable.

One last thing remained to be done--to kill the Indian and make a dash forward down the river bank. And he must act before his foe discovered him. Elmer's revolver flashed fire and he saw his foe of the red and yellow face bound into the air and then topple forward with a cry of anguish.

The boy turned, but too late. Directly in front he heard the sudden shouts of other Indians. The river at his back! Flight down its cement-like bank was impossible. He might plunge forward and pray that the water was beneath.

The death cry of the man he had shot and the echoing yells of the Indians behind him had been taken up by others. He knew the determined savages were making a final rush. Indian cries seemed to come from the very ground at his feet. He hesitated no lodger.

As he turned to the river a sudden and strange wave of cool air struck down on him from above. Without reasoning he paused. That pause saved his life. In that swift moment he heard the low creak of something straining. His eyes pierced the black about him. Was it a shadow? Something was brushing by him like a great bird asleep on the wing. Then it was on him.

"Ned?" It was only a whisper but it was enough.

"Elmer, here, quick!"

Even the whisper had brought an instant shot, but the colored boy had hurled himself toward the voice and an instant later a strong young arm was about the besieged lad.

It was Ned Napier on the swaying ladder of the Cibola.

"Cut away," came the low quick order and before even the nearby besiegers could locate the sound Bob Russell, high above, had slashed the lashings of a bag of ballast. The big balloon sprang forward, Elmer dangling in the air, and then settled again to the earth as the desperate colored boy found the last rung of the ladder and clung fast opposite his rescuer.

"Another, another," called Ned springing up the fragile length of the doubly laden ladder.

A thud on the ground told where another bag of ballast had fallen.

The crash of the fallen fifty-pound bag of sand probably saved the Cibola. Shot after shot poured in the direction of the sound, although the Cibola, dragging forward, yet refused to rise. Elmer, at the bottom of the ladder, was helping the car onward in low bounds by touching the ground with one foot.

Then the air craft settled again. Elmer's weight was too much. A mad thought came into the boy's brain. The Indians had located the new invader and yells nearby told that hot pursuit was already being made. Then the spit, spit, of new shots showed the risk the boys had taken. Elmer realized it. Should he hang on and endanger the lives of his friends, or should he let go?

There seemed no time to think, but the boy's hand had already loosened when out of the black came the hot breath of the foremost pursuer. As the savage sprang forward Elmer's free arm gave him a blow full in the face. At the same instant the Cibola sprang upward like a bullet. A volley of shots rang out below, but they were too late. The balloon had saved Elmer's life, and even before the lad had made his way up the swaying ladder into the cabin it was a thousand feet in the air.

CHATER XXIII

CAMP EAGLE IN THE MOUNTAINS

It seemed too wonderful to be true. But words were proof enough that Ned Napier and Alan Hope had found a new use for dirigible balloons. Faithful Buck's death was more than the loss of a companion. In the short time the boys had known him he had shown that under his rough frontier bearing he was a brave and honest man.

"We can't go back now," explained Ned, "and we can't afford to land and wait for day. We can't all stay in the Cibola, and those of us who are landed must be left in a safe place. Our work," he continued turning to Bob, "is in the Tunit Chas Mountains, thirty miles west of here. It seems as if you had to know it. We'll go there to-night and land, if we can, on some isolated and inaccessible plateau. We'll make that our new relief camp and you and Elmer must take charge of it. To-morrow Alan and I will return in the Cibola to our abandoned wagon, bury Buck and bring away such of our stores as may be left. It's going to be a great loss, for I suppose the Indians have stolen everything. If the gasoline is gone it will cut short our work in the mountains."

"I don't think it will be lost," said Elmer, quietly. "We tried to save it. We rolled it into the river."

"But it will float away," exclaimed Alan.

"Unless de tins caught on in de drift in de bend jes' below,"

answered Elmer. "I seen four ob de eight tins dar befo' dark."

"That's what I call genius," exclaimed Ned. "Elmer, you're a brick!

And now our course is due east at half speed. By daybreak we'll be over the Tunit Chas. Until then, the rest of you turn in. I'll run the ship."

Fifteen minutes later, despite the nerve-racking experiences of the momentous day, Alan, Bob and Elmer were wrapped in their blankets and sound asleep on the bridge deck of the Cibola.

The night pa.s.sed slowly, but Captain Ned stood the long trick at the wheel, happy and content. To feel the Cibola, the product of his youthful genius, at last moving forward in obedience to his slightest touch drove all thought of fatigue and sleep from him.

But, above all, the early light of the coming day was to reveal to him a sight of the land of his hopes. There, before him, were the Tunit Chas; peaks and chasms of unsolved mystery wherein the centuries had held close their secret. Many trials had blocked his way. Was he now about to reap the reward of his labors? Did the hidden city of Cibola lie somewhere below him? Or were the Palace of the Pueblos and the Turquoise Temple but empty myths?

The young aeronaut's present plans were simple enough. The Cibola had now been afloat twelve hours and nearly half her gasoline was exhausted. More than once in the night Ned had noticed that the balloon was settling lower and he had been forced to maintain his level by casting over ballast. It was apparent that they were already losing gas.

In boyish impulse and sympathy they had made Bob Russell, the young reporter, a third and unexpected pa.s.senger, and accident had forced them to add Elmer Grissom, their colored friend and servant. And these extra occupants of the car must be landed at the earliest opportunity.

This became imperative now because, the relief and supply station on the Chusco river having been destroyed, the Cibola must add enough ballast and gasoline to make its exploring tour in the mountains in one journey. The original plan had been to make quick dashes to the camp on the Chusco for gasoline and then return to the mountains. To provide for this new weight the two new pa.s.sengers and a good portion of the air ship's stores must be landed. And the most feasible plan seemed to be to set up a new emergency camp in the heart of the mountains.

Many things might happen to the now perfectly working balloon. And, even if cast away in the mountains, it was no part of Ned and Alan's plan to cease searching for the temple of treasure until dire necessity drove them from it. In case wreck and privation came it would be comforting to know that somewhere in the same wilderness food and friends awaited them.

The first glow of the sun painted for the ever watchful pilot a picture beyond the possibilities of brush and canvas. Here and there out of the blackness below sprang rosy points, the sun-tinted peaks of the Tunit Chas. Down the mountain sides, like rivers of silver pink, fell the sun's light. Then the valleys began to open out of the chasm of night-dark canyons wrought in the wilderness of the mountain sides. Here and there, oases left by the devastating hand of time, rose high plateaus, tree-crowned and verdant. And then, higher up among the white peaks, sentinel-like, stood giant tables whose brown tops and precipitous sides told of inaccessible and arid wastes. "And somewhere," said Ned to himself, "in this t.i.tanic chaos lies the object of our search."

Starting at half speed, Ned had soon reduced the engine to quarter speed. When he aroused his sleeping companions Wilson's peak, their chief landmark, was just in sight far behind. His calculations placed the present location of the Cibola thirty miles from the Chusco river and just over the eastern Tunit Chas Mountains.

"All hands turn to," shouted Ned cheerily, "and stand by to make a landing."

There was a scramble, a rubbing of yet sleepy eyes and then an outburst of admiring wonder. The Cibola had sailed over two broken ridges enclosing an irregular, broken valley and was now looking down on a shelf-like plateau ab.u.t.ting on the second ridge and west of it. On three sides the plateau dropped precipitately into a lower rock-strewn, valley. On its eastern side it joined the still higher ridge. A pine forest crowned the top of the shelf-like mountain side and then ran up to the higher slopes until the carpet of green faded into the brown wastes of the timber line. In the very center of the wilderness of trees glistened a little lake of mountain water. From it the silver thread of a rivulet wormed its way for a mile or more among the trees and then trickled over the side of the cliff in a vapory waterfall.

Ned had swung the Cibola into a wide curve and the balloon and car were soon directly over the mountain creek. He threw the aeroplane guides downward and the slowly moving car drifted lower until it was but four hundred feet above the water and the overhanging pines.

Then, following the water course beneath, the air ship floated back into the woods and the little lake widened out beneath them. Two deer, at the water's edge, stood unalarmed. On the south of the lake a gra.s.sy opening indicated Ned's destination.

"Here," he explained, "we can make a safe landing. It is an ideal place for a camp, with plenty of firewood and water."

"And meat, too," interrupted Alan, pointing to the deer.

"Venison and bear meat too, no doubt," laughed Ned.