The Border Boys Across the Frontier

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walls of the lofty, vaulted chamber in which the adventurers found thems

en excavated apparently uncounted ages before. They were daubed with grotesque figures in faded, but still discernible, colors. Most of these figures had

men in what appeared to be intended for boats. The professor found these inexplicable. The very idea of b

n, it had yet been some moments before the adventurers, coming out of the brilliant sunlight outside, grew used enough to th

s long, angular limbs, inspecting minutely the drawings and crude attempts at decoration. Already he had out his tape-measure and sket

explore this chamber, which seems to have been used as a counc

e dust thet's in it, if nothing else. But what I'd like to know," he added to

e a few moments before our party had entered t

n, when you are told that the footsteps abruptly vanished at the summit of the zig-zag trail. Although dust lay thick on the chambers within the mesa, not a sol

xplicable that a party of men should have visited the mesa and contented themselves with running or walking up and down the causewa

all "apartments," so to speak, giving upon a common passage just beyond the "Council Hall." The professor told them that each of these small chambers was formerly the home of

ented must have been a deity of the tribe. Each of the small chambers was lighted by one of the holes cut in the face of the cliff, which they had noticed from be

tson, as, with flushed faces, plentifully begrimed wi

assage-way under the old mission, and started our bank accounts," laughed Jack. "You must be

rofessor Wintergreen, who was now standing with Coyote Pet

lace for the cattlemen driving from one section of this country to another. Sence they cut up that land over to the westward inter farms, though, t

ey are varmints?" l

, and--" began Pete, but a perfect tempest of laug

ored the habitation part of the mesa, let us mak

gestion at once, and a dash up the narrow causeway follo

upward, "we don't want no funerals here, an' it's

ys' enthusiasm, and they w

ncil hall below them, while in a spot almost exactly in the middle of the queer elevation, was a rough, square erection of sun-baked brick. This was about twelve feet in length, five feet in height, and six

ed at the altar. "And they used

y; "probably that altar has witnessed the immolation of

tar as the professor spoke, but at hearin

ining it till some other

d. At that altitude the rocky, desolate range of sierras to t

er yonder," said

uess," said Jack. "I hope he found ev

ser uprisings don't amount to a busted gourd. Mister Diaz's t

tionally well provided with arms and ammunition," objected the professor. "The American

norted Pete. "The border is well guarded at any point

ly points?" inquired

t stumped by this last, "I don't

etter than any white could ever hope to. By the admission of our own secret agents, it has hitherto been impossible to find how the arms,

seem unassailable. The rebels of Northern Chihuahua were getting arms-but how? The cow-puncher and the boys

arms were being shipped across the border into Chihuahua from American soil, b

th us. We are here to measure the mesa for scientific purposes, not to get into arguments over how a band of insurrectos are getting their arms. Come, b

agerly began to carry out these orders, while Coyote Pete seated himself on the side of the summit overlooking the travelers' c

ered up its rough sides, which afforded an easy foothold, for the purpose of ascertaining the dimensions

an of science had been greatly puzzled over the total absence of any traces of th

races of sacrifices inside it,

" shouted Wal

. "There are some queer-looki

one corner of the erection, in which he had spi

e inspection of the professor, who had by this time hoisted his

e also offered up rattlesnakes, which seem to have been a sort of sacred reptile among them; much as, in a

numerous human sacrifices were offered here in th

oples are veiled in mystery. We can only surmise and reconstruct.

or sounds to me as if it was hollow; maybe

th a vague sense of making some such di

he professor, with every a

, li

ut it-the stone-paving, of which the floor of the al

he scent. In the meantime the others stamped about in other parts of the interior, but only

g with perspiration, "there should be some sort of trap-door here, to judge by the sounds, but so far as I can see, t

ut he was interrupted by a

Come here quic