“Sure, I’ll get your bronc.” Lance nodded and left Katherine listening to further happy utterances on the part of the overjoyed professor. He started back to the spot at which the horses had been left.
Five minutes later he arrived and found the ponies peacefully cropping near-by vegetation, with the reins dangling from their heads. The professor’s gray pony stood near a great shelf of overhanging rock, beside which grew a narrow clump of trees. Lance gathered the reins in his hand. Then he stopped, thinking he had heard a movement from overhead. He stepped back, but the move came too late. He had only a brief glance of a hurtling brown form, in flapping cotton garments, as it projected itself from the shelf above his head. He caught a quick glimpse of wild black hair, angry eyes, a red, open mouth. Then something crashed heavily on his head and a curtain of black, black velvet folded sickeningly about his fading senses!
XVII Temple of the Plumed Serpent
Lance awoke slowly. At the first move he made a dull ache permeated his head. His tongue felt thick and furry; his mouth was parched. He moved one hand exploringly and discovered he was stretched full length on a flat stone surface. He tried to make out where he was, but only the faintest light was to be seen, and that far above him.
“Jeepers!” Lance muttered. “What a head. If I didn’t know myself I’d sure think I’d been on one wild brannigan. What in the dev il happened to me? Where am I? What time is it?” Memory’s fingers feebly commenced to trace certain patterns on his mind. “Lemme see. I remember going after the professor’s horse and then——Oh yeah, I looked up just in time to see that hombre leaping down on me from above. He looked like a Yaquente. There was two Yaquentes anyway. I remember seeing a second man looking down over the shoulder of the first just before he jumped. He must have had a rock in his fist…. I know something came down awful hard on my head.”
He raised one hand and felt tenderly of the lump high above his right ear. “Whew! What a wallop! Dammit! I had a hunch there was something wrong—a feeling like somebody was watching us. I’ll bet those Yaquentes have been following us ever since we left the border. Maybe not though. Maybe just since yesterday. Or was it yesterday? When did this happen?”
Lance came slowly to a sitting position. A flash of pain shot through his head. “Oooo!” He winced. “What I would give for a drink of water. Where am I anyway?”
His right hand, still exploring, suddenly encountered a small can of water. That brought further memories. This wasn’t the first time Lance had regained consciousness. He recollected now finding that water before. It had been pitch dark then. The water had had a queer, bitter taste, and Lance had swallowed only a little, fearing it might be drugged.
“By cripes!” Lance grunted, “it was drugged too. I remember starting to slip off right after the first sip. Somebody must be figuring to keep me unconscious. Why?” Fearing that thirst might induce him to drink even the remainder of the drugged water, Lance quickly emptied the can onto the floor upon which he lay. “That’s settled, anyway,” he said grimly. “I may go out thirsty, but I’ll know what’s going on anyway…. Who in the dev il brought me here anyway? Those Yaquentes, I suppose. But what is the idea?”
He gained his feet, took a single staggering step, then another. A wave of dizziness swept through him. After a moment his head cleared, and he commenced to feel better. He took a few more steps and suddenly encountered a rock wall. It was too dark to see, but his fingers told him the wall was built of flat blocks of stone smoothly set together. He took more steps. There were three more walls. He paced off the distance. Overhead, far overhead, he could see a faint, grayish square of light.
“Looks to me like I’m at the bottom of a pit,” Lance muttered. “Offhand, I’d guess it’s about ten feet square and thirty or forty deep. This is certainly one hell of a fix. I wonder what happened to Katherine—and the others.”
For a moment he felt horribly afraid. Something of panic took possession of his senses. Frantically he strove to scramble up the side of the nearest wall. It wouldn’t work. He couldn’t find a projection on which his fingers could seize, let alone a foothold. The walls were too smooth for that. Perspiration rolled from his forehead; his entire body was soaked with sweat. His fingernails were broken; the skin at the end of his fingers felt raw and scraped. Finally, exhausted, he sank back to the floor of the pit.
Only then did he come to his senses. “Lance Tolliver,” he told himself disgustedly, “only a damn fool would lose his head that-a-way. Get a hold on yourself. You’re still alive. If those Yaquentes had wanted you dead they’d killed you long ago. That means they want you alive. They put you down here for safekeeping. That means somebody will come back for me sometime. If they want me they’ll have to pull me out. Once I’m out of this hole, then we’ll face the next problem.”
He smiled in the darkness and pulled himself to a sitting position. His gun had been taken, but an examination of his pockets showed nothing else had been touched. They’d even left his cartridge belt about his waist. He found his sack of Durham and papers and matches. Once he’d commenced to inhale tobacco smoke he felt immeasurably better. He held the lighted match to examine the walls. Then he struck more matches. He laughed at himself. “You jug-headed idiot, Tolliver, trying to climb a wall of glass wouldn’t be much worse than those. Let this be a lesson to you. Hereafter, when you get in a tight, stop and think things over before you let yourself be stampeded into such damn fool actions.” He felt around and found his sombrero.
When the first cigarette was finished he rolled and lighted another. He was halfway through a third smoke when he heard a slight sound overhead. Peering up through the gloom, he thought he could make out a head peering down into the pit. Then he heard a voice. There was a queer hollow, ringing sound to the tones as though they’d been spoken in a stone-vaulted chamber.
“Yeah, I’m still here,” Lance called back. “Who is it?”
There was no answer. Lance called out again. Something struck the side of his head and fell away. Lance put out one hand and grasped the end of a rawhide lariat. Now he caught the idea. “Just a minute, I’ll be with you.”
Knotting the lariat tightly about his shoulders, beneath his arms, he commenced to climb. At the same instant the unseen benefactor above started to haul on the rope. Halfway up, the rawhide changed to hemp. Lance judged it had been necessary to knot two ropes together. He was making fast time now, moving hand over hand.
A few moments later Lance’s hands encountered the edge of the pit. He hauled himself out and scrambled to his feet, quickly unknotting the rope about his shoulders and prepared to fight if need be. It was lighter up here. Lance looked at his rescuer. The Yaquente looked familiar. He was in loose cotton garments. Beneath the big straw sombrero was a stolid brown face with two cruel, healing scars across the nose and high cheekbones. Suddenly there came the flash of white teeth in the brown features. Only then did Lance remember the Yaquente he had saved from the quirting at Chiricahua Herrick’s hands.
“Horatio!” Lance exclaimed. He shoved out one hand, and the Indian grasped it. Next he handed Lance his six-shooter. Gratefully Lance shoved the gun into his holster.
“It is bes’”—the Yaquente struggled with the words—“you go ’way queeck—pronto! Savvy?”
“Savvy.” Lance nodded. “Gosh, Horatio, I sure owe you a lot. What happened to my friends? Where are they?”
“Nozzing is ’appen. No kill. You find friends Three-Cross Rancho. You go ’way queeck now.”
“Right. I’ll get moving.”
Still he didn’t start. While the Yaquente waited uneasily beside him Lance glanced around. His eyes widened in amazement. He was standing in a huge vaulted chamber built of oblong-shaped blocks of granite. Here and there massive stone pillars supported the ceiling. The walls were covered with elaborate frescoes in faded pigments. Certain patterns in mosaic work carried a frieze around the chamber. A design depicting a snake seemed to dominate the decorations.
“Say,” Lance exclaimed, “what is this place?”
The Yaquente frowned. “You go ’way queeck. Many men soon come. I be kill’, you find here. You help me. Me help you. Go ’way queeck!”
