CHAPTER X.

LOST IN THE SAND STORM.

They passed a fairly comfortable night, in camp there by the spring. Nothing occurred to cause an alarm, though Donald and Adrian would not allow the camp to go unguarded, and took turns playing sentry.

Billie, too, was quite anxious to try his hand at the job; and they had to let him have a turn; but not feeling any confidence that the fat boy would stay awake Donald made sure to keep one eye open. And sure enough, later on he found Billie calmly sleeping, with his gun across his knees.

At first Donald was half tempted to give the other a scare by firing his own gun close to the slumbering sentry's ear; but on second thought he decided not to do this. Billie meant well, and was so good-natured; besides, it was hard for any one to get provoked at the fat chum, no matter what happened; because he was always trying to do his level best. Then again, the report would give Adrian a shock, which must seem cruel and unnecessary.

Morning found them much refreshed, and ready to take up the new duties of the day. Although Billie had now been quite some time in this country of the Southwest, he had as yet never had but one experience in crossing a desert, and nothing had happened at that time to strike him as odd.

Donald warned him that perhaps he was going to experience something now he would not be apt to soon forget.

"For they told me," he went on to add, "at the mine, that this same strip of burning sand lying short of the Zuni village is a particularly wicked place to be caught out on, should one of those sand storms come along."

"Sand storms, did you say, Donald? Now what under the sun can you mean by that? Does it rain sand out here?" Billie wanted to know immediately.

"You'll think it does before long, if we're so unlucky as to run across such a thing," Donald told him.

"You see," Adrian explained, "the sand is so fine that when the wind increases to a gale, instead of rain, the air is filled with clouds of sand that choke you, and cause those hills and windrows to come and go, changing after each storm. Over in Africa the Arabs fear them worse than anything else going. They have animals in the camels that are fitted best of all to live through such a storm; and so they just give up, and hide their heads until it's all over; then dig a way out, and continue their journey."

"Whew! that sounds interesting like," commented Billie; "and do you think we'll strike it as bad as that?"

"Nobody can say," continued Donald; "but let's hope by all means that we get across without any experience of the kind. Perhaps you think it sounds interesting, but take my word for it, Billie, if it comes, you'll sure believe you're having the worst time of your whole life."

After that Billie did not seem quite so anxious to know what a sand storm was like. He realized that when his chums took a thing so seriously there must be something about it that was menacing.

Donald was right when he said that they had camped not a great ways from where the mountains came to an end, and the glistening desert lay beyond; for two hours after leaving the spring they found themselves on the border of the wide sandy stretch.

Billie looked out over that sizzling desert, and began to realize the meaning of what Donald and Adrian had said when they told him about its terrors. But there was no other trail by means of which they could reach the Zuni village; and unless they wished to give that project up for good and all, they must proceed, come what would.

As Billie was the one who wanted to look upon the strange sights connected with the quaint homes of the cliff dwellers, he held his peace; though truth to tell the prospect of a ride of hours across that desert did not appeal very much to him now, after he had heard such dismal stories about what it could do when it took a notion.

The sunshine was very vivid, and half blinded them when they tried to look far away to where Donald said the other elevation undoubtedly lay, amidst which the Zuni village was to be found. From another quarter it could be reached without any necessity for crossing the desert, but not from the south.

"Kind of like buying a pig in the poke, ain't it, this thing of starting out there without seeing where you're heading for?" remarked Billie, a little uneasily; for now that he was gazing on the sandy waste, its tremendous possibilities began to really awe him; and then the way the sun was shining on the billows of sand made him feel as though they must come near being roasted before they had gone a great ways.

"Oh! we know that we've got to keep heading straight into the northwest; and what's the use of having compasses with us if we can't keep our course?" said Donald, who did not appear to be worried at the prospect.

So they started off.

It soon began to feel uncomfortable for the fat boy; and he was heard to mumble more or less to himself; but Billie was a "stayer," as Adrian called it; and once he embarked on an undertaking he would not easily give up. So he mopped his reeking forehead, and kept everlastingly at it, even urging his pony to renewed exertions; though the wise animal seemed to know there was no use trying to make haste while plodding through these sand hills.

"Well, I never knew before I came out here, that a desert was like this," Billie had blurted out once, when Adrian came alongside, and he just felt that he had to say something.

"Few people do know anything about it until they see with their own eyes," returned the other boy; "for of course you believed that it must be perfectly flat, and as level as a billiard table, didn't you?"

"That's right," returned the frank Billie; "and here it's all sand hills, many of 'em equal to little mountains, and all frilled and scolloped like. That's where the wind makes its fancy work, I take it. Many a time I've seen dry snow cut like that; and sand acts just the same way, don't it?"

"Exactly," answered Adrian; "and as we've been moving along for nearly two hours now, look back and see where the mountains we left lie."

No sooner had Billie turned his head than he gave a cry of wonder.

"Why, they've gone!" he exclaimed; "blotted right out of sight, too. Never saw anything like it before, believe me. It must be the glare of the sun on all this white sand that does it. Only for the dark glasses we're wearing, that same would be making us nearly blind, I take it."

"Sure thing," Adrian told him, and then almost immediately he went on to say in a different tone of voice, that had a vein of new anxiety in it, Billie thought: "I wonder why Donald is rubbering so much for toward the southwest. Perhaps he feels the hot breeze that's beginning to blow from there. I hope it doesn't mean we're going to have a sand storm."

Billie pricked up his ears, so to speak; that is, he showed considerable interest, and himself turned to watch Donald.

"He does look like he had got on the track of something out of the usual run, for a fact," he muttered, uneasily.

Then he sneezed several times in quick succession, at which Adrian looked as if even this simple event had its significance.

"Beginning to be dust in the air, and I always sneeze when it tickles my nose," Billie started to say, as if in apology for his explosion.

"Yes, the breeze is picking up, and already the air is starting to get full of the fine sand," Adrian told him.

"Does that mean we're bound to run up against a real sand storm?" Billie wanted to know at once, scenting trouble.

"Donald's coming this way, and we'll soon hear what he thinks," was all Adrian would say.

"Looks to me as if we're going to get caught out here in a lovely mess," Donald told them, as he came up.

"Sand storm, is it?" demanded Billie, trying not to show any apprehension, for he never wanted others to know when his heart was beating faster than its wont.

"Yes, and coming down on us like two-forty," the other declared. "Watch the nags, and you'll see that they know what they're in for. Here's _Wireless_ been looking over that way every little while for ten minutes past. The wind's rising, and all around us the sand is stirring, so that the air's getting thicker all the while. Before half an hour we'll have the worst of it around us. It's about noon now, and let's hope that we get to the hills before night sets in."

"What's the programme?" asked Billie, undaunted Billie, carelessly enough.

"Keep as close together as we can travel, and go straight ahead," answered Donald; "there'll be all sorts of queer noises around us, so pay no attention to them. Be sure and keep your mouth shut all the time; and have water along with you, every fellow, so that in case one of us did stray away, he wouldn't die of thirst before he could be found. Now, let's push on again."

His words were more than verified, for presently the wind grew to the proportions of a gale, and the way that fine sand whirled through the air was something that Billie had never expected to experience in all his life.

It was a terrible task to press on, but luckily the prevailing wind was from the southwest now, and so they had the worst of the sand storm to their backs. Only for that they could not have ventured to attempt any progress whatever; but must have camped where they were, to wait for the whirlwind of sand to cease.

Billie, with his head bowed, and drawing his breath with great difficulty, kept steadily moving on. He managed to keep in close touch with his chums for some time, and then, falling into some sort of a dreamy state, possibly brought about by his sufferings, and the effect of the blinding sand with which the air was charged, he forgot to keep constantly on the alert. The consequence was that suddenly Billie aroused to the startling fact that neither to the right nor to the left, nor yet ahead of him could he discover the faintest sign of the others. All about was the whirling, blinding sand; while strange noises made his head ring, and he fancied that he could see tempting pools of cool water close at hand, which his common sense told him were only the effect of imagination.

And then and there Billie had a cold sensation in the region of his heart that contrasted strangely with his torrid surroundings, for he knew that he was lost!