Part 18 (1/2)

The Westerner and the professor came creeping to his side.

”What is it?” asked Bushnell.

”Look,” directed Frank. ”What do you make of it?”

Peering down into the dark depths of the gorge, they saw black figures flitting silently past, men and horses, as they were able to make out.

”Hors.e.m.e.n!” breathed the professor. ”They must be the bandits!”

”But look!” came cautiously from Frank's lips; ”they are riding swiftly, yet the feet of their horses make no sound!”

”That's right!” gasped Scotch. ”Great Jupiter! can they be more ghosts?”

”Mysteries are crowding each other,” said Frank.

Bushnell was silent, but he was watching and listening.

Like a band of black phantoms, the silent hors.e.m.e.n rode along the ravine and disappeared. Frank could hear the professor's teeth chattering as if the man had a chill.

”This bub-bub-beats my tut-tut-tut-time!” confessed Scotch. ”I rather think we'd better turn back and let the Silver Palace alone.”

”Rot!” growled Bushnell. ”Them varmints wuz Pacheco's gang, an' they hed the feet of their critters m.u.f.fled, thet's all. Don't git leery fer thet. All ther same, ef Jack Burk or his spook hedn't warned us, them onery skunks w'u'd hed us in a consarned bad trap.”

This was the truth, as they all knew, and they were decidedly thankful to the mysterious individual who had warned them.

Bushnell now resorted to the trick of ”covering the trail,” in order to do which it was necessary to m.u.f.fle the feet of their horses and lead them over the rocky ground, where their bandaged hoofs could make no mark. At length he came to a stream, and he led the way into the water, following the course of the stream, and having the others trail along in single file directly behind him.

When they halted again Bushnell a.s.sured them that there was little danger that the bandits would be able to follow them closely, and they rested without molestation till morning.

At daybreak the Westerner was astir, being alive with eagerness and impatience, as he repeatedly declared they would behold the wonderful Silver Palace before another sunset.

Eating a hasty breakfast, they pushed forward, with the Westerner in the lead.

Once more the tower of smoke, which they had noted the day before, was before them, but now it seemed blacker and more ominous than on the previous day.

It was not far from midday when, away to the westward, they heard rumbling sounds, like distant thunder.

”Vot id vas, ain'd id?” asked Hans, in alarm. ”I don'd seen no dunder shower coming up somevere, do I?”

”It did not seem like thunder,” said Frank, soberly. ”It was more like a rumbling beneath the ground, and I fancied the earth quivered a bit.”

”Perhaps it is an earthquake,” put in the professor, apprehensively. ”I believe they have such convulsions of nature in this part of the world.”

Bushnell said nothing, but there was a troubled look on his face, and he urged them all forward at a still swifter pace.

The smoke tower was now looming near at hand, and they could see it s.h.i.+ft and sway, grow thin, and roll up in a dense, black ma.s.s. It cast a gloom over their spirits, and made them all feel as if some frightful disaster was impending.

Again and again, at irregular intervals, they heard the sullen rumbling, and once all were positive the earth shook.