"Perhaps that's so," remarked Donald; "but here we are at the ledge, and let's hope we'll have little trouble in getting up where Billie is."

"Let's hope," urged his chum, "that the same Billie is awake, and attending to his business; because we may need the help of his strong arms before both of us climb the rope to the top."

CHAPTER x.x.x.

BILLIE MAKES A DISCOVERY-CONCLUSION.

"Hold up, boys, I thought I heard some one shouting just then; and seemed like they might be calling for help!"

When Donald said this, the little party drew in their horses, as well as the pack mule, Bray, and sat there listening.

They were well on their journey, with the Zuni village many miles distant. Donald and Adrian had found little difficulty in climbing to the top of the cliff after reaching the ledge. There they were eagerly greeted by Billie, who confessed that he had for half an hour been lying there, with his ear to the ground, catching the faint sounds of the most heavenly music he ever heard. And as he was wild to hear what they had learned, they had to tell him.

Billie considered it the best joke he had ever run across. Often since then the others had heard him chuckling, at times, and knew that he was drawing a mental picture of that grim old necromancer, clad in all his savage attire, squatted before that talking machine, and drinking in airs from the opera, rollicking songs by Harry Lauder, and then the ponderous speeches of ex-presidents and other statesmen.

"You're right, Donald," said Adrian quickly, "I heard it as plain as anything right then; and seemed to come from down this queer little stream that we're just going to cross, after the horses have drank their fill-you don't often run across such a jolly flow of water in this region of rocks and deserts. There it comes again, a cry for help; and there goes a gun of some sort!"

"It couldn't be a trap, now, could it?" asked Billie, a bit nervously; for he could not get the remembrance of those Apaches off their reservation out of his mind.

"That's a white man calling, so let's head that way, and see what ails him," Donald decided, after they had heard the call several more times.

After following the little wandering stream for half a mile they suddenly made a strange discovery. In the midst of the water there was a human head, with a pair of shoulders-only that to be seen, and nothing more.

"Whatever is he adoing wading in there, and where it's nearly over his head?" asked Billie, wonderingly.

But the others knew.

"He's being sucked down in a quicksand!" cried Donald.

"And we've got to get busy, if we want to save the poor wretch!" echoed Adrian, as they urged their horses forward.

While the two ranch boys got their ropes out, and made arrangements to have one of the horses pull, after a noose had been placed under the man's arms, Billie made a sudden discovery.

"Say," he called out, from the sh.o.r.e, close by where his chums were working like a pair of beavers, "I think I know that man, even if his face is covered with mud. It's Tod Harkness, that's who it is, the worst rascal along the border, so lots of people say."

"But the man you saved once before, Billie," remarked Donald, as he too now recognized the ugly face of the fellow.

"Don't let thet same keep you from yankin' me out, gents," whined the man, who had rather lost his nerve when he believed that his doom was certain; he might have faced pistol fire without flinching, or almost any other form of death; but this thing of being sucked down, inches at a time, until the end came, was worse than Indian torture.

"Rest easy, Tod, we're not the kind to let any man, no matter how much of a bad egg he may be, go to such a death," said Adrian.

"Out you will come, as soon as I get this loop fixed," added Donald.

"It'll hurt some when the horse pulls; but you've got to stand for that, Tod."

"I kin stand anything, if on'y I git out," said the border desperado.

When they had all arrangements made, he did come out, though the strain was so great that the man fairly shrieked, and then swooned before they had him safe on land.

Donald proceeded to examine him, and Adrian as well said that no damage had been done except to bruise his body a little. He would soon be himself again. His horse was calmly grazing near by, and had apparently paid no attention to the calls of its master, while it could find green gra.s.s to nibble.

In running his hands over the man's person Adrian happened to draw out what seemed to be an old and much used notebook. He opened the same in idle curiosity, and hardly had he done so than Billie gave a whoop.

"Oh! look, would you, fellows?" he cried; "don't you see several pages have been torn out right here? Wait a minute, Adrian, and watch me fit them two warnings we got to the torn edges of the balance of the pages.

There, they match like magic! Don't you see, it was _him_ that kept watching over us all the time-only for Tod Harkness we might have drunk some of that poisoned water at the spring; if _he_ hadn't seen that Injun sneaking up and wounded him, who knows what would have happened to us; and last but not least, _he_ let us know about that measly game the showman Braddon was putting up on us. Now the mystery is all clear. It was only poor old Tod Harkness atrying to pay back the debt he thought he owed me, because I helped him that time!"

The three Broncho Rider Boys stood there by the side of the slowly recovering border desperado, and stared at each other. It was almost too strange to believe, but they had all the evidence necessary in that soiled notebook, with the two warning notes fitting snugly in the torn places.

"Well, after this," said Donald, slowly and earnestly, "I'm never going to believe any man is _all_ bad. Even Tod Harkness has human feelings; and if he had had a home like mine perhaps he'd have been a good man today. I only hope he's found it so fine to be doing decent things, that he'll keep it up after this. If I thought so, I'd even try and get dad to give him a job at the Keystone."

And strange to say, that was what really came about; for Tod, after he had come back to his senses, told them he was determined to turn over a new leaf, and gladly accepted the chance to get employment under a man so highly respected as Mr. Mackay.

As he will probably never be heard of again in these stories it may only be right and proper to say here and now that Tod _did_ make good. The little seed sown by honest Billie on that occasion when he a.s.sisted the desperado, had been working over-time in the brain of the man, with the result that his regeneration was brought about. While he had meant to hover around, and be of some a.s.sistance to Billie, Tod had not wanted his ident.i.ty to be known, and on that account he kept in the background while at the Zuni village, which accounted for their not having seen anything of him.

"Everything has now been cleared up," remarked Donald, as they sat around their camp-fire that same evening, Tod being one of the number, a quiet man who had begun to _think_, for possibly the first time in his whole life, and was very grateful to these lads, not only for saving his life, but for promising to give him a chance to redeem his bad past.

"Yes, and there's nothing now to keep me from heading north, after we get back to Keystone Ranch," added Adrian. "I'm thinking of my place up there most all the time now; and it seems like I couldn't keep back any longer. I must know the truth about what my uncle is doing there. If he's acting square by me I want to forget I ever felt uneasy; and on the other hand, if there is any crooked work going on, which would account for the poor returns I've had of late years, why the sooner I make a change in my manager the better."

"Yes," added Billie, with a tender look over to where Adrian sat on the opposite side of the glowing camp-fire, "and don't forget, please, that we're going to ride with you when you take that long trip."

"Sure we are," declared Donald, heartily. "We've been pards so long now that what's the injury to one is the same with all. When you start for your faraway ranch, Billie and Donald will be in the bunch, believe me!"

And that this prophecy was later on fulfilled the reader may readily guess when he examines the next volume in this series, which is now on sale under the t.i.tle of "The Broncho Rider Boys On the Wyoming Trail; Or, The Mystery of the Prairie Stampede;" and those who have come to admire the sterling nature of Adrian; the rugged honesty and get-there qualities of the ranchman's son, Donald; and the humorous make-up of Billie, will find adventure and fun to their heart's content between the covers of the succeeding volume.

THE END.