The Border Boys on the Trail. Goldfrap John Henry
of the water as it tore through its confines.
Bud glanced quickly round.
Where Jack Merrill had stood a moment before were a pair of shoes, the boy's coat and his shirt.
But Jack had gone – he had jumped to Ralph's rescue. As Bud, with a sharp exclamation of dismay, switched sharply round, he was just in time to see the forms of the two boys swallowed in the darkness of the irrigation tunnel.
CHAPTER IV.
THROUGH THE GREAT DARKNESS
Little given to emotion as he was, Bud Wilson reeled backward as if about to fall, and gripped the woodwork of the sluice till the blood came beneath his nails. His eyes were still riveted on the yawning black mouth of the tunnel, and the white-flecked, yellow water racing into it, when the followers of the chase for life came galloping up, leading the ponies of the two boys who had vanished. Blank looks were exchanged as they learned what had happened.
"Not a chance for them." was the consensus of opinion.
Jack Merrill was not a boy who does things without due thought, however. When he had jumped into what seemed certain death he had done so with a definite plan in his head.
In moments of intense mental strain the mind sometimes acts with lightning-like rapidity, and Jack had reasoned like a flash that the irrigation tunnel, being built to convey water to the lands of the Maguez Land and Development Company, probably emerged on their lands, which lay not more than a mile away. Of course, he was not certain of this, but the life of his friend was at stake.
Spent as his chum was, Jack thought Ralph could hardly last throughout the passage of the tunnel, while he, Jack, was fresh, and also a stronger swimmer. These thoughts had all raced through his mind while he kicked off his boots and tugged his shirt over his head.
Then had come the swift flash below him of Ralph's white, imploring face – and the leap.
For a second the current, as he struck it, seemed to be tearing Jack limb from limb. The undertow at the sluice caught him and dragged him down, down, and held him under the turbid water till it seemed that his head must burst open. At last, however, he was shot to the surface like a cork out of a bottle. Joyously he filled his lungs and began swimming.
As his hands struck out they encountered something.
To his intense joy, the next instant Jack found that the current had thrown its two victims, himself and Ralph Stetson, together, and none too soon.
Ralph's eyes were closed, and though he still floated, he seemed incapable of further effort.
Hardly had Jack time to note this, when the light was suddenly blotted out, as if a great curtain had been drawn across the sun. There was a mighty roaring, like that of a thousand huge cataracts in his ears, and he knew that they had entered the water tunnel.
Where would it lead them?
Fortunately, to Jack, fresh as he was, it was not hard to support Ralph, who was almost exhausted, and keep his own head above water at the same time. All that the Western boy now feared was that he would give out before they reached the mouth of the tunnel, or a still more alarming possibility which he hardly dared to dwell on.
What if the tunnel narrowed?
In that case they would be completely submerged, and if the water were enclosed in an iron tube for any great distance, they would inevitably be miserably drowned. The roaring in the tunnel was terrific, but at least it meant one thing, and that was that there was space for sound to reverberate.
On and on they shot, borne like straws on the surface of the mad torrent.
"Does this thing never end, or have they run it clear through to the Pacific?" Jack began to wonder.
It seemed to him they had been traveling for hours. In reality it was only a few minutes.
All at once the boy was hurled against the side of the tunnel, and his feet touched bottom. If it had not been for the velocity of the current, he could have stopped his mad course right there. But the smooth sides of the tube afforded no hand hold, and the rapidity of the stream precluded all idea of attempting to stem the torrent.
But this incident meant to Jack that what he had dreaded most was actually happening.
The subterranean watercourse was narrowing.
Hardly had the thought flashed through his mind before he felt himself sucked by what seemed an invisible arm below the surface. At the same instant Ralph was torn from his arms, and both boys, submerged in a narrow part of the tunnel, were drawn through the dark tube at the speed of an express train.
"The end!" was the thought that flashed through Jack's mind as he felt that his worst apprehension had come true.
But it was not the end, for an instant later he was shot out of the terrible restriction of the narrow irrigation tube into brilliant, blinding sunlight.
"Why, this is a sort of scenic railway!" was the whimsical idea that sped across the boy's mind as he gazed about him. The current had ceased dashing him about, and he was floating in a large pool from which ramifications of sluiceways led in every direction. It was the main retaining basin of the irrigation works. Weakened though he was, Jack found no difficulty in swimming here, and, to his delight, not many feet from him Ralph was still struggling feebly for life. A few strokes brought the boy to his chum's side, and a few strokes more brought them both ashore.
They reached the shallow bank, and Jack laid Ralph down. As he did so, the other boy fainted in good earnest. As Jack bent over his chum he was startled to hear a voice above, and looking up, saw a man in irrigation boots, with a big shovel in his hand, gazing at them curiously.
"Say, are you real, or just what the ground grew?" demanded the stranger. "The advertisements of this land company say their land'll grow anything, but dear land of Goshen! I didn't know it grew boys. That's a crop I've no use for. I've four of my own, and – "
"We're real boys, have nothing to do with any land company, and don't want to, either, after our experience in their water tunnel; and if you can help me get my chum up on the bank and help me revive him, I'll be much obliged," rejoined Jack, all in one breath.
"Well, if you came through that tube, it hasn't hurt your wind any," said the rancher admiringly, dropping his irrigation tool and clambering down the bank. Together he and Jack soon had Ralph stretched out on the warm sandy soil in a big peach orchard, and it was not long before the Eastern boy opened his eyes and looked about him. It was longer, though, before he recollected what had happened. When he did, he knew that it was Jack who must have held him above water at the most critical stage of their wild trip through the tube.
"Thank you, Jack," he said simply.
"Oh, pshaw!" said Jack, reddening. "Didn't you trip up that Mexican and save me getting a bullet through my head?"
At this moment a great shout caused them both to look up. Riding toward them among the trees were a hundred or more mounted men, who broke into cheers as they saw the boys. They were the men who had found Bud Wilson at the sluice gate, and who had at once insisted on his mounting and riding on to the end of the tube to ascertain if by some marvelous chance the boys had survived. When Jack and Ralph stood up – for they had been sitting on the ground, relating to their interested host their adventures – the cheers broke out afresh.
Bud Wilson did not say much. He was not a man of words, but his face expressed what he felt when he exclaimed in a voice that trembled a little in spite of his efforts to keep it steady.
"Waal, I knowed you'd come out of it all right, Jack Merrill."
"I wasn't so sure of it myself, I can tell you!" laughed Jack.
"Say," said Ralph, after the first outburst of questions and answers had subsided, and the boys had had to tell over and over again every detail of their perilous trip, "what I can't understand is why you call that plug," pointing to the now downcast Petticoats, who had been led along with the party, "why you call that animal 'quiet.' What do wild horses do out here, eat you alive or breathe fire?"
"There was a blamed good reason fer Petticoats' ructions," said Bud slowly;