CHAPTER XVIII.

THE INDIAN AGENT.

From the dense surrounding clumps of chaparral there had suddenly emerged the figure of a tall, bearded man, with keen blue eyes and a striking air of self-reliance and resolution. It was Mr. Mayberry, the Indian agent. Over his arm he carried an automatic rifle, which he instantly jerked to his shoulder as his amazed eyes fell on the extraordinary scene before him. Surely Jeffries Mayberry was the first man who had ever gazed upon the spectacle of a boy, unarmed and alone, attacking the hugest grizzly in that part of the country.

"The boy is mad!" was his first thought, and, as we know, he was not far wrong in this surmise.

But it was no time for speculation as to the causes of this strange scene, and Jeffries Mayberry was not the man to indulge in rumination when the necessity called for immediate action.

Bang!

For the twentieth--or was it the hundredth?--time in his eventful life, Silver Tip felt the impingement of a bullet. But with the monster's usual good fortune, the ball did not pierce a vital part. Instead, it buried itself in the fleshy part of the brute's forequarters, inflicting a wound that made him bellow with pain and face round on this new foe.

As Silver Tip, in regal majesty, swung his huge form about, Rob crumpled up in a heap and lay senseless on the hot ground.

For an instant it looked as if the great monarch of the Santa Catapinas meant to attack the Indian agent. But it seemed that he changed his mind as he faced him. An animal so relentlessly hunted, and so often wounded as Silver Tip, becomes endowed with almost human cunning and reasoning power, and part of Silver Tip's immunity from mortal wounds had doubtless been due to this. Most grizzlies, when wounded, charge furiously on their tormentors, thus assuring their fatal injury. These had never been Silver Tip's tactics. He had always preferred to "fight and run away, and live to fight some other day."

So it was now. For the space of a breath, the two splendid specimens of human kind and the animal kingdom stared into each other's eyes. In his admiration of the magnificent brute before him, Jeffries Mayberry held his fire. He could not bring himself to kill the splendid creature unless such an action became necessary in self-defense. Were there more hunters like him, our forests and plains would not have become devastated of many of the species once so plentiful among them.

Suddenly the bear's eyes turned away under the steady scrutiny of the plainsman, and with a growl that was half a whine, he dropped on all fours and lumbered off.

"Lucky for you you didn't hurt this boy, or even your splendid majesty wouldn't have saved you," muttered Jeffries Mayberry, reaching the unconscious Rob's side in three or four rapid strides.

"Hum! in bad shape," he murmured, laying open the boy's blue flannel shirt and placing a hand over his heart. "Good thing I happened along when I did, and---- Hullo!" he gave a long, low whistle of astonishment. "It's one of those kids that my bad boy Moquis held up this side of Mesaville. Well, here's a discovery."

He stood erect, and placing his fingers to his lips, blew a shrill, piercing call.

The next instant a splendid cream-colored horse came bounding into the clearing, shaking his head impatiently and whinnying as his large liquid eyes fell on his master.

"Here, Ranger," said Mayberry, addressing the beautiful steed as if it had possessed the faculty of understanding. "Here is a poor boy overcome for want of food and water, and I think he's got a touch of the sun. We've got to get him home, Ranger."

Ranger pawed the ground with one forefoot and his nostrils dilated. His keen senses indicated to him that a bear had been about, and if there is one creature of which Western horses are thoroughly afraid it is his majesty, King Bruin.

Perceiving this, Mayberry spoke a few reassuring words to the splendid horse, which instantly quieted down, though it still glanced apprehensively about it. The Indian agent's next action was to place Rob's senseless form across the saddle, while he himself swung rapidly up behind the cantle.

Lightly pressing the rein to the left side of his horse's glossy neck, the Indian agent urged it forward into the chaparral. Ranger's dainty skin shivered at the rough touch of the prickly stuff, but he went unflinchingly in the direction his master guided him.

After an hour or more of riding, Mayberry emerged on a curiously located open space. It lay at the bottom of a saucer-like depression, which might, in some remote day, have been a volcanic fire basin. Now, however, it was covered with a luxuriant growth of wild oats, and at the bottom bubbled up a little spring. All about it shot up scarred mountain sides, with scanty timber hanging to their rocky ribs. In the midst of this isolation and wilderness it looked strange to see a small cabin located. It was somewhat tumbledown, to be sure, and had, in fact, been erected there in the early fifties by a wandering prospector. Jeffries Mayberry, seeking a convenient spot from which to keep up his surveillance over his Moquis, had stumbled upon it by accident, and with an old woodsman's skill had rendered it quite habitable.

So, at least, Rob thought, when half an hour later he recovered consciousness in the cool gloom of the shanty. He was lying on a bed of fragrant boughs, and above him was the shingle roof of the hut, through holes in which he could see the blue sky.

"Where on earth am I?" was Rob's first thought, as consciousness rushed back like a tide that has been temporarily stemmed.

Gradually the events preceding his collapse grew clear to him, and he retraced recent happenings up to the appearance of the grizzly. Of his delirious attack upon the monster, he had, of course, no recollection.

"I must get up and find out where this is, and how I got here," was Rob's first thought, and with this intention he rose to his feet. To his intense astonishment, the room instantly whirled dizzily about him, and the earthen floor seemed to rise and smite him in the face. What had happened was that the weakened boy had fallen headlong. As he lay there, a hearty voice rang out in an amused tone:

"Hello, hello! Pretty weak, ain't you, for a boy who wanted to fight grizzlies with his bare hands?"

Rob looked up. The big form of Jeffries Mayberry stood framed in the doorway.

He came forward and, gently as a woman, placed Rob on the couch.

"Why--why, it's Mr. Mayberry!" gasped Rob, as his eyes fell on his companion's kindly, bearded features.

"Yes, it's me, right enough," laughed the Indian agent. "And now, if you'll lie quiet for a minute, I'll see how some rabbit stew is getting along. How does that sound?"

"Fine!" smiled Rob, and, indeed, the mention of food had set all his appetite on edge again. "But see here, Mr. Mayberry, I don't want to be babied this way. I'm going to get up and----"

"You are going to do nothing of the sort," exclaimed the Indian agent. "Here, Ranger." Again he gave the peculiar whistle, and Ranger's dainty head appeared inquiringly in the doorway.

"Watch that boy, Ranger, and if he tries to get up--grab him!"

With these words, the kind-hearted Indian agent vanished, to superintend the composition of the stew he was making over a camp fire outside.

"Well," thought Rob, "this is a funny situation. I'm in a hut, and haven't the least idea how I got here. A horse is set to guard me, and---- I wonder," he went on, "if that horse is really a watch dog, or if that was just a bluff."

It was a good evidence of Rob's returning vitality that he stretched out a foot to test Ranger's watchfulness.

Instantly the sharp, pointed ears lay flat back on the horse's head, and the whites of his eyes showed menacingly.

"I guess I'll stay here!" laughed Rob.

As soon as he resumed his posture, Ranger's ears came forward, and the kind light came back into his eyes.

"I've heard of horses that were broken that way," thought Rob, "but this is the first I have ever seen."

Had Rob known it, such horses as Ranger--animals trained to the same wonderful pitch of intelligence--are not uncommon in the Southwest. Presently Mr. Mayberry appeared with a bowl of what to Rob smelled more appetizing than anything he had ever known.

"Ah-h-h-h-h!" he exclaimed, as his nostrils caught the savor.

"Wade in," said Mr. Mayberry, placing the dish on a rough, home-made table by his side. And "wade in" Rob did. He could have finished half a dozen more bowls like it--or so he felt--but Mr. Mayberry told him that after such a fast as he had endured it was important to "go slow."

So much better was the boy after dispatching the meal that he was able to get up, and after a short time spent in staggering about, he quite recovered his faculties.

"Now," said Mr. Mayberry, "tell me how you came to be where I found you?"

Rob told him, his narrative being interrupted from time to time by exclamations of astonishment from the Indian agent.

"This youth, Clark Jennings," interrupted Mr. Mayberry once, "has been a thorn in my side for years. His father is almost as bad. They have frequently committed all sorts of outrages on ranchers and implicated the Indians in them. Not only that, but they have paid the most unprincipled of the Moquis to help them in their cattle stealing and fence cutting."

"I wonder they haven't ever been captured," said Rob.

"Well," said Mr. Mayberry, "as the saying goes, it is almost impossible to 'get the goods' on them. And you say you know this cousin of his from the East, and his companions?"

"Very well," rejoined Rob, "some time I will tell you about our experiences in the East with their gang. They actually kidnapped one of our Boy Scouts, and imprisoned him in a hut."

"Why, they could have been imprisoned for that!"

"They would have been if it had not been for the fact that they fled to the West."

Rob soon concluded his narration, and Mr. Mayberry then related to him some of his own movements of the last few days. Despairing of rounding up the Moquis by moral suasion, he had telegraphed to Fort Miles for a detachment of troops. He was to meet them the next evening at Sentinel Peak, a mountain about ten miles from his present camping-place. The Indian agent had succeeded in locating the valley in which the great Snake Dance was to be held, and, in consequence, was ready to raid it with the troops at the height of the ceremonies.

"Such an action will break up their practices for many years," he declared.

"When are you going to start for the peak?" asked Rob.

"I had not intended to leave till to-morrow," said Mr. Mayberry, "but since you have told me you are anxious that your friends should be informed of your safety, I must start this evening in order to reach a settlement from which I can telephone to the Harkness ranch."

Rob's heart sank. Mr. Mayberry had not said "we." The boy had hoped it would be possible for him to go along. The Indian agent saw his manifest disappointment and hastened to reassure him.

"I would gladly take you," he said, "but it is too arduous a trip for even Ranger to carry more than one. You will be safe here till I return with the troops. I will come by here with an extra horse, and, if possible, with your friends, and then we will ride together on the Moquis."

A shrill whinny suddenly sounded outside.

"Hullo, what's the matter with Ranger?" exclaimed Mr. Mayberry, springing up, followed by Rob.

Outside the hut the boy saw a strange sight. The splendid horse was gazing about him apprehensively, and stamping the ground impatiently. His nostrils were dilated, showing red inside, and his whole appearance was one of intense nervousness.

"What's the matter with him?" asked Rob, noting in a swift glance that Mr. Mayberry's face had become suddenly clouded.

"Well," said Mayberry succinctly, "there are only two things which make him act like that--Indians and bears--and I reckon there are no bears about right now.

"But Ranger scents danger," he went on. "I am certain of it. Old horse, you'll have to carry double, after all."