Chapter VII: In the Black Bottle

It is astonishing what a tremendous medley of sound usually follows the smashing of a window, especially in the dead of night, with everything around gripped in silence.

Frank had a sensation almost of panic, hardly knowing what had happened. Paul, on his part, involuntarily ducked down, as if under the impression that the runt outside had hurled his spade through the window and would possibly follow it with other things still more dangerous.

Lanky, who was himself the culprit, appeared to grasp the situation and its undoubted disastrous consequences better than either of his companions. This was proved when he made a vigorous bolt for the exit of the room, leading outdoors.

"Let's grab him, fellows!" he shouted back over his shoulder, just before tearing open the door and leaping headlong through.

In his haste he made some sort of miscalculation, and the next thing he knew he tripped over some object and went headlong to the ground.

Frank and Paul, having caught his idea, and being nimble enough to follow close on his heels, also had the experience of taking headers, so for a few seconds there was something of a mix-up.

When they managed to untie the tangle and gain their feet, look as they might there was no sign of the little man to be seen. He had vanished as quietly as the wreaths of fog do in the morning when a puff of air welcomes the rising of the sun.

"Please somebody kick me for a duffer!" pleaded the disgusted Lanky.

Loud voices attested to the fact that the smash and jingle of falling fragments of glass had instantly awakened every sleeper in the near-by bunk-house.

Out they came running, helter-skelter, some in pajamas, others partly dressed, as was their habit while sleeping, but all wildly excited.

"What happened, boys?" bellowed Lige Smith, racing up barefooted.

"That measly little runt with the big head's been nosing around here again! But he got scared off when my elbow slipped and broke the window."

It was Lanky who made this hurried explanation, ready to shoulder all the blame of the mishap. No one had accepted his invitation to indulge in kicking him, he felt sure both Frank and Paul must feel as disgusted as he was himself.

"Which way did the critter vamoose?" asked Hoptoad Atkins, quite savagely for such a diminutive specimen of a puncher.

"None of us saw him skip out," admitted Lanky, "But say, he came from over that way," and he pointed toward that part of the sky where some time before the bright star had set beyond the level horizon.

There was an immediate rush on the part of the rustlers, and Frank, on noting their scantiness of attire, could not keep from chuckling. He felt positive he would never see the equal of that picture again, and its memory would always bring a laugh to his lips.

Of course no vigorous search could be made, for many reasons. In the first place, none of the punchers were more than half clad; besides, chasing over the wide stretches of the prairie after such a will-o'-the-wisp as that unknown but slippery runt, was out of the question.

Then again it might be he was only "tolling" them away, so that during their absence he could stampede the horses or accomplish some other species of mischief, such as might take form in a rattlebox brain.

They went as far as the corral, to make sure the ponies were safe, and then came drifting back again, their curiosity having been awakened by seeing Frank hard at work with a spade, enlarging a hole in the ground that some one had dug.

Some of the punchers had gone back into the bunk-house to get into warmer garments, sensing that the end of the strange midnight adventure was not yet. These wise ones came straggling back, to find Frank had handed over his task to the eager Lanky, who was making the dirt fly.

Then came a sudden rifle shot and the thump of a bullet as it buried itself in the tree trunk just over Lanky's head.

Frank happened to be looking in a direction that enabled him to glimpse the distant flash.

"Git tuh kiver!" bawled Jerry Brime.

Some dodged around the house while others flattened themselves out on the ground, which they hugged assiduously. Frank was one of those on the ground, while Lanky and Paul hurried around the corner of the building.

Two of those who had secured weapons as well as clothes when in the bunk-house started on the run toward the quarter from which the shot had come. Just then a second shot sounded, and the whine of the projectile as it winged past close to their heads could be plainly heard, giving the boys a queer sensation.

Cowboy yells sounded as the pair of runners started directly toward the marksman's stand, but it was answered by a mocking laugh. Then followed the rapid pounding of a horse's hoofs, telling them that their intended quarry was in no hurry for the punishment which they would only too willingly bestow upon him, could he be overtaken.

Of course, they could not pursue on foot, for cowboys as a rule are badly handicapped when out of the saddle. After blazing away several times in the vague hope of crippling the unseen pony or winging its rider by a lucky shot, the two armed men ran for the corral, to get astride their mounts.

But all that of course consumed time, and when they were ready to start it was too late. Listen as they might, the keenest of ears proved unable to catch the least sound. Even the faint night breeze was against them, for it came out of the wrong quarter.

It was an angry bunch of punchers that gathered around where Frank once more assumed the task of digging. He had seen how recklessly Lanky worked, and considered it the part of wisdom to exercise a little more caution, not knowing whether there might be dynamite or some other explosive that lay buried there, and this action of the stranger only a trap to lure them on to their own sorrow.

It proved a wise move on Frank's part, as succeeding events turned out. Those hovering close around him, watching with more or less curiosity, heard a queer clicking sound. Evidently the carefully handled spade had come in contact with some object.

"Another iron box, I bet my dandy new quirt!" ejaculated Zander Forbes, showing signs of unusual excitement. Probably he or the rest of the bunch had never before been at the digging up of a treasure-trove until that night when Josh Kinney's secret receptacle was unearthed deep down in the cellar under the ranch pantry.

"Pull off another one, Zander, old hoss!" snorted Hoptoad Atkins. "Reckon I know the sound of metal hittin' glass."

"Shoot, Frank, and let's see who's got the correct answer!" Buster urged.

Frank Allen was not to be hurried an atom.

He leaned toward Hoptoad's guess, for the peculiar clink that followed his gently striking some object made him think of a glass bottle. The times were such that bootleggers drifted all over the prairie, disposing of their illegal wares to customers on different ranches.

Could it be possible that there was a regular cache of bottled goods hidden here so close to the ranch house? He had heard that Lanky's Uncle George had had more or less trouble with some of his former employees along these very lines; for they seemed able to get the stuff and go on protracted sprees in spite of all his precautions.

So when he reached over and lifted a bottle out of the hole it was with a feeling akin to bitter disappointment. Would this explain the persistent attempts of the queer little man to carry out some plan?

Low laughter and then grunts came from the group of punchers.

"Nothin' but a leetle moonshine, looks to me," old Jerry remarked, as he rubbed his pointed chin with finger and thumb.

"No brand on the pesky bottle, you-uns notice," ventured Lige, the foreman, trying to make the best of a bad bargain.

"Mighty queer that little runt taking such big chances just to get hold of a bottle of hot stuff," Zander Forbes from Yale remarked shrewdly.

"Jerry, they tell me you used to be a good judge of such things," observed Sally Keating. "Take a sniff, and see if you can name the brand."

"Hold on boys, you're all away off your trolley," Frank told them. "This bottle has been buried here for a good many years, I'd say; as long, it might be, as that old chest was in the cellar!"

"Bully boy!" snapped Lanky enthusiastically. "Hit her again, Frank! Put the pins up on the other alley and make a spare or a strike. Now go on and tell us _how_ you know?"

"Here, fetch that lantern over, Charlie Gin Sing," Frank called out to the cook who had just appeared on the scene, understanding that all firing had stopped and that it was safe for him to venture abroad.

"Say, it does look mighty like the old bottle's been under the soil for ages, boys," agreed Zander, after a close scrutiny of the object. "Shake it, Frank, and see if you hear something gurgle."

"Nixey! Never a solitary gurgle!" gloated Lanky. "There's something else than liquid lightning inside that black bottle. Frank, knock the head off, or I'll explode, I'm that stuffed with curiosity."

Bang! went the bottle against the edge of the spade. As the glass flew in a shower a curled paper yellowed with age, fell to the ground. On this Frank pounced and straightened it out. Everybody crowded around, eager to see, and among them old Jerry Brime pushed his beak forward, to immediately cry out something that sent a thrill through the three boys.