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Page 52
They did. The ponies were thirsty again, and it required several
bucketfuls to satiate thirst, after which everything fillable was
filled with water. Grace, to pass away the time, got out her lasso
and tried to throw it, but she made a complete failure. In turn,
each of the others tried their hand at throwing the rope, but with
no better success. Ping offered himself for a mark, chattering
like a magpie as, each time, the loop of the lasso collapsed
before reaching him.
"What for you makee so fashion?" he cried between laughs, chuckles
and grimaces.
"Never mind, Ping. You will not talkee 'so fashion' one day. When
I learn to throw the rope, which I shall, I will rope you when you
are not looking," threatened Grace.
"No can do," grinned the Chinaman. "HAI YAH! Man b'longey top-side
horse," he cried, pointing off over the desert.
Looking in the direction in which he was pointing, the Overland
girls saw in the far distance a horseman, sitting his mount so
motionless that at first they were not positive whether it were a
horseman or a distorted cactus plant.
Grace ran for her binoculars and for some minutes studied the
stranger.
"That's our caller," suggested Hippy.
Maybe he has decided to hang around for another meal. I don't know
that I blame him."
"No, it is not the same man, at least not same pony," answered
Grace, snapping glasses shut. "The man yonder is riding a black
pony. The one who called on us rode a nearly white animal. I can't
imagine why he is so interested, but he is surely watching us.
However, we won't worry so long as we have a water tank at hand."
At four o'clock in the afternoon the mysterious stranger was still
in practically the same place. He appeared to move only when his
pony stepped forward a few paces for more sagebrush.
"Man b'longey top-side horse!" cried Ping, again pointing in
another direction.
The Overlanders saw a cloud of dust rolling toward them over the
desert, ahead of the cloud being a horseman riding at a swift
gallop.
"This would seem to be our day at home, judging from the number of
callers who are dropping in," observed Elfreda.
Grace threw up her glasses and took a quick look.
"I can't make him out," she said. "It can't be Mr. Lang, for this
man is coming from a direction different from the one he took, if
the footprints of his pony leading out of this camp are any
indication."
"Man b'longey horse hab go chop-chop!" volunteered Ping.
Looking quickly toward the west the Overlanders were amazed to
find that the silent horseman who had had them under observation
for hours was no longer in view. Though not more than two or three
minutes had elapsed since Grace Harlowe last saw him, he had
disappeared as suddenly as if the sands of the desert had opened
and taken him in.
"Maybe he has fallen into a tank, just as I did," suggested Hippy.
"Mr. Lang is coming. It is he, after all," cried Grace joyously,
as she gazed at the swiftly moving cloud of dust that Ping had
called her attention to some moments before.
CHAPTER XV
THE GUIDE READS A DESERT TRAIL
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