"The danger must be in the timber," thought the boomer. "Bonnie Bird wouldn't balk for nothing. I'll dismount and reconnoitre."

Springing to the ground, he drew his pistol and moved forward silently.

Scarcely had he taken a dozen steps than he realized the cause of his mare's unwillingness to proceed further.

He was in a bed of quicksand.

Anybody who knows what a bed of quicksand is knows how dangerous it is--dangerous to both man and beast. Just as the scout made his discovery he sank up to his knees in the ma.s.s.

"By Jove! I must get back out of this, and in double-quick order," he muttered, and tried to turn, to find himself sinking up to his waist.

p.a.w.nee Brown was now fully alive to the grave peril of his situation.

He tried by all the strength at his command to pull himself to the firm ground from which he had started.

He could not budge a foot. True, he took one step, but it was only to sink in deeper than ever.

Several minutes of great anxiety pa.s.sed. He had sunk very nearly up to his armpits.

Quarter of an hour more and he would be up to his head, and then----?

Brave as he was, the great scout did not dare to think further. The idea of a death in the treacherous quicksand was truly horrible.

His friends would wonder what had become of him, but it was not likely that they would ever find his body.

And even faithful Bonnie Bird would be dumb, so far as telling the particulars of her master's disappearance was concerned.

The mare now stood upon the edge of the quicksands, fifteen feet off, whining anxiously. She knew as well as though she had been a human being that something was wrong.

Suddenly an inspiration came to p.a.w.nee Brown.

"How foolish! Why didn't I think of that before?" he muttered.

At his belt had hung a lariat, placed there when the wagon train started, in case any of the animals should attempt to run off in the darkness.

The boomer could use a lariat as well as Clemmer or any of the cowboys.

More than once, riding at full speed upon his mare, he had thrown the noose around any foot of a steer that was selected by those looking on.

He put his hand down to his waist and felt for the lariat. It was still there, and he brought it up and swung it over his head, to free it from the quicksand.

As has been stated, the belt of timber was not far away, the nearest tree being less than fifty feet from where he remained stuck.

Preparing the lariat, he threw the noose up and away from him. It circled through the air and fell over the nearest branch of the tree.

Hauling it taut, p.a.w.nee Brown tested it, to make sure it would not slip, and then began to haul himself up, as Rasco had done at the swamp hole.

It was slow work, and more than once he felt that the lariat would break, so great was the strain put upon it.

But it held, and a few minutes later p.a.w.nee Brown found himself with somewhat cut hands, safe in the branches of the tree.

Winding up the lariat, he descended to the ground, and made a detour to where Bonnie Bird remained standing, and to where he had cast his pistol.

The mare and weapon secured, he continued on his way, but made certain to wander into no more quicksand spots.

"It was too narrow an escape for comfort," was the way in which p.a.w.nee Brown expressed himself, when he told the story later.

An hour after found him again among the boomers.

Mike Delaney was just coming in by the Allen trail. The Irishman was much crestfallen over his failure to find a better trail than that selected by the scout, and Rosy was giving it to him with a vengeance.

"Th' nixt toime ye go forward it will be undher p.a.w.nee Brown's directions, Moike Delaney!" she cried. "It's not yerself thot is as woise as Moses in the wilderness, moind thot!" And her clenched fist shook vigorously to emphasize her words. After that Delaney never strayed from the proper trail again.

All of the boomers but Jack Rasco were now on hand, and as hour after hour went by and Rasco did not turn up, p.a.w.nee Brown grew anxious about the welfare of his right-hand man.

"Looking for the girl had brought him into trouble, more than likely,"

he thought, as he rode away from Honnewell, taking a due south course.

"And what can have become of her?"

p.a.w.nee Brown was on his way to the spot where he had left d.i.c.k. He had decided that as soon as he had found the lad, he would return to camp, and then the onward march of the boomers for Oklahoma should at once be begun.

On through the ravine where he had met Yellow Elk he dashed, Bonnie Bird feeling fresh after a short rest and her morning meal, for the sun was now creeping skyward. On through the brush, and he turned toward the open prairie.

"Halt! Throw up your hands!"

The unexpected command came from the thicket on the edge of the prairie.

On the instant the boomer wheeled about. The sight which met his gaze caused his heart to sink within him. There, drawn up in line, was the full troop of cavalry sent out by the government to stop the boomers'

entrance to the much-coveted territory.

Vorlange's spy work was responsible, and p.a.w.nee Brown's carefully-laid plan had fallen through.

CHAPTER XXI.

d.i.c.k'S DISAGREEABLE DISCOVERY.

"Lost!"

d.i.c.k murmured the word over and over again, as he peered through the brush, first in one direction and then in another.

"I ought to have kept track of where I was going," he went on bitterly.

"Of course, away out here one place is about as good as another for hiding, but how am I going to find the others, or, rather, how are they going to find me, when they come back?"

He pushed on for nearly a quarter of an hour; then, coming to a flat rock, threw himself down for reflection.

"Just my luck!" he muttered. "I'll have to have a string tied about my neck like a poodle dog. What a clown I was to go it blind! But Nellie's cry for help made me forget everything else. Poor girl! I do hope she is safe. If that redskin--gosh! what's that?"

The flat rock was backed up by a number of heavy bushes. From these bushes had come a peculiar noise, half grunt, half yawn! d.i.c.k leaped to his feet, the bushes parted and there appeared the savage face of Yellow Elk!

d.i.c.k knew the Indian by that plume of which he had heard so much. He rightfully guessed that Yellow Elk had been taking a nap behind the bushes. He had been shot in the thigh, and this, coupled with the fact that he had had no sleep for two nights, had made him very weary.