Peggy, with a perfectly grave face, indicated Miss Prescott's tent, from between the flaps of which that New England lady's spectacled countenance was peering.

"Come out, auntie," she added.

"Oh, Peggy, is it perfectly safe?" queried Miss Prescott anxiously.

"Safe, mum!" exclaimed Bud expansively. "If it was any safer you'd hav ter send fer ther perlice. Jes becos we're rough and ain't got on full evenin' dress you musn't think we're dangerous, mum," he went on more gravely. "I'll warrant you'll fin' better fellers right here on ther alkali than on Fit' Avenoo back in New York."

"Oh, do you come from New York," cried the romantic Jess, scenting what she would have called "a dear of a story."

"A long time ago I did," rejoined Bud slowly. "But come on, boys,"

he resumed with a return to his old careless manner, "come up an' be interduced."

The others, hats in hand, shuffled forward. It was plainly a novel experience for them.

"And now," said Peggy cheerfully, when the ceremony had been concluded, "you all look dreadfully tired and hot. The water hole's right over there. When you've got off some of that dust we shall have something for you to eat and some coffee."

This announcement took the horse hunters by storm. With yips and whoops they dashed off to the water hole, while Miss Sally and old Peter Bell began to prepare a hasty meal for the unexpected visitors.

CHAPTER XII

THE WATER THIEVES

It was an hour or more later when, having inspected the aeroplane and marveled much thereat, the horse hunters arose to take their leave. They would have to press on, they explained, to reach the rendezvous of the wild horses in the San Pablo range. These hills lay far to the northeast. Bud perspiringly made the farewell speech.

"Thankin' you one and all," he began, with perhaps a vague recollection of the last circus he had seen, and there he stopped short.

"Anyhow we thanks you," he said, getting a fresh start and jerking the words out as if they had been shots from a revolver. "It ain't every day we has a pleasure like this here hes bin--"

"Hooray!" yelled the other horse hunters, who, already mounted, stood behind their leader at the edge of the willows.

"An'--an'--wall, ther desert hes dangers uv its own an' if at any time Bud Reynolds er ther boys kin help yer out send fer them to ther San Pablo Range and if we're thar we'll be with yer ter ther last bank uv ther last ditch."

With a sigh of relief Bud flung himself upon his pony and drove the spurs home. Amidst a tornado of yells and shouts the rest, waving their sombreros wildly, dashed off after him. In a few moments they were only a cloud of dust on the alkali.

"I declare I feel kind of sad now they're gone," said Miss Sally after an interval of silence.

"Rough diamonds," opined old Mr. Bell guardedly.

"But they've got warm, big hearts," stoutly declared Peggy. "I wish-"

She stopped abruptly.

"Wish what, Peggy dear?" asked Jess, noting the troubled look that had crept over her chum's face.

"Oh, nothing at all," rejoined Peggy. But she was not speaking the whole truth, for the girl had been thinking what a bulwark of strength Bud and his followers would have been against the vague menace of Red Bill.

It was late that night--after midnight as well as Peggy could judge--that she was awakened by Jess bending over her cot in the tent that both girls shared.

"O-h-h! Peggy, Peggy! I'm frightened!" wailed the girl aviator's chum.

"Frightened? Of what dear?" asked Peggy wide awake in an instant.

"I--I don't just know," quavered Jess, "but, Oh, Peggy, you'll think I'm an awful 'fraid cat, but I'm absolutely certain I heard footsteps, stealthy footsteps outside just now."

"Nonsense, girlie. It must have been a nightmare," rejoined Peggy with sharp a.s.surance.

"I might have thought so," went on Jess, "but I looked out through the flap of the tent to make sure and I'm certain as that I'm standing here now that I saw some figures on horseback over by the water hole."

"Perhaps another party of horse hunters," suggested Peggy soothingly.

"But, Peggy dear, they made hardly any noise. That is, the horses I mean. I heard men's footsteps, but after a minute they mounted and rode off, and--oh, it was too ghostly for anything--they made no noise at all."

"You mean you couldn't hear any sound of the ponies' hoofs?" asked Peggy incredulously.

"No, they moved in absolute silence. Peggy, you don't think it was anything supernatural, do you?"

For answer Peggy drew her revolver from under her pillow and tiptoed to the tent flap. It faced the water hole and in the bright white moonlight a clear view of it could be obtained. But after a prolonged scrutiny Jess's plucky chum was unable to make out any objects other than the usual ones appertaining to the camp.

"Imagination, my dear," she said, with positiveness. But Jess still shuddered and seemed under the influence of some strange fear.

"It was not imagination, Peggy. It wasn't it really wasn't."

"Well, we'll look in the morning and if we find tracks we shall know that you are right, and we'll get the boys back for a while anyhow,"

rea.s.sured Peggy.

But in the morning it was Alverado who came to the tent and in an excited voice asked to see "missee" at once.

Peggy hastily completed dressing and emerged, leaving Jess still asleep. Something warned her that it would be best not to arouse her chum just then.

"What is it, Alverado?" she asked, as the Mexican, betraying every mark of agitation, hastened to her side.

"Santa Maria, missee," breathed the Mexican, "water almost all gone!"

"The water is almost all gone?" quavered Peggy, beginning to sense what was coming.

"Yes, missee. Me go there this morning and--Madre de Dios--the water hole almost empty."

"Were there any tracks?" inquired Peggy anxiously.

"Plenty tracks, but the man's had the cavallos' feet bundled in sacks so make no noise--leave no tracks."

"Let me have a look."