Chapter XVIII: The Party with the Heliograph

A hard tramp through the hills over rough ground brought Buffalo Bill and his companions, after a time, in sight of a tall cliff of red sandstone, which had at one side a projecting shelf some distance above the earth.

Upon this shelf stood a youthful fellow, scarcely more than a boy in years, and by him was the heliograph. When he sighted Buffalo Bill’s party he leaped off the shelf and slid rapidly down the side of the cliff to the ground. In another minute he came running out from the foot of the cliff, and with him ran a young man dressed in semimilitary clothing.

“We saw your heliographic flashes on the side of the white rock off there, and I was fortunately able to read the message,” said Buffalo Bill, addressing them. “So we came at once.”

The scout discovered that these senders of the message had not meant it for him, but for some missing members of the heliographic party, who had become separated from them the day before.

These two—the youth and the young man—were young Tom Lawler, who had charge of the burro train, and Lieutenant Butler, second in command, of an expedition which had been recently sent out from Klamath to make railway surveys.

“We thought this was the section where we were to do our work,” said Butler, “but I confess that a week ago, when the hazy atmosphere began, we got lost. When we followed our compass we were led here; but this morning I found that our compass is utterly unreliable. It points east, instead of north. When the sun rose the compass was pointing right at it. I was wondering if some electrical storm on the sun could have affected it?”

Yet the thing that now most concerned Lieutenant Butler and young Tom Lawler was that the sister of Major Fernald, the commander of the expedition, was missing, and had been gone for many hours. She had set out for a little walk through the hills, and had not returned. They had hunted for her, and Major Fernald and all his men, with the exception of these two, were out searching for her now.

“We have a considerable party,” said Butler. “We have surveyors and chainmen and a hunter or two whose business it is to shoot game for us, and we have been out two weeks. We haven’t accomplished anything, except to get lost; and now, since the singular disappearance of Miss Fernald, the whole expedition is demoralized. When I flashed that message on that rock we saw you, but at the distance you were we thought you members of our party. It was a hit-and-miss chance, and couldn’t be done often, yet it worked this time.”

Buffalo Bill and his companions made explanations, so that soon both parties had all needed information. The scout told of the discovery of a girl’s tracks, and of the strange tracks following hers, and of what had been inferred.

“This is important,” said Butler. “Those tracks were no doubt made by Miss Fernald. She came in this general direction, you say, but you lost the tracks after they left the sand? We must search for them there again. I wish Major Fernald were here. He and his party have been gone all night, and I’ve no idea where they are. We shifted our position after their departure, and, though we left marks for them to follow, they may not even find their way back to them. What you say about the magnetic hill which has made the compasses useless, and worse, is interesting. Probably they don’t know about that yet. No doubt we are many miles from the spot where we supposed ourselves to be. Even you don’t know just where we are?”

Fritz Henselman had put down the heavy hand bag.

“Vat iss?” he said. “Vonce I seen a sugar barrel, mit flies yoost flying to id from efery tirection. Here id iss de same vay. Dot magnedic hill iss de sugar barrel, unt ve are de flies; it draw us, unt here ve iss. Uff id keep on drawing beobles, ve vill haf more as a rigimend uff men in dis blace peety qvick.”

Professor Bounderby had produced his notebook, and was making notes for his lecture.

“Every phenomenon has a perfectly natural and reasonable cause,” he said, as he scribbled away, speaking as if to his notebook. “We have seen why our compasses acted, so queerly, and why flashes of light hit that white rock in so strange a way. If we continue, we shall discover how it happens that an orang-utan is here in Mexico, and why it chose to capture the young lady. I will just set down here that her name is Miss Fernald, that she is the sister of the commander of this surveying party, which came to make surveys for a railroad, and that she is a young lady whose love of adventure led her to accompany her brother in this expedition. Now she is lost, perhaps in great danger, maybe even dead; and we are to learn as soon as possible the facts.”

He read over what he had written, tucked away the pencil, and dropped the book into his pocket.

“Cody,” he said, taking the eyeglasses from his nose, “my servant and I are at your disposal. We came to make geological researches, but human nature and human needs are more interesting and important than cold stone; hence we stand ready to help you to the extent of our ability.”

The lieutenant and his companion scrambled up to the rocky shelf and brought down the heliograph and other things there.

“We have not a burro left,” said Butler. “When we came here we had a large burro train, and Mr. Lawler had charge of it. The burros were scattered a week ago in a violent night storm, and we couldn’t recover them. Since that time we have been wandering, led astray by our compasses.”

Buffalo Bill volunteered to guide Butler and Lawler to the sandy area where the tracks of the young woman had been found, for they were certain the footprints were those of Miss Emily Fernald, the sister of their commander.

Before departing from the red cliff, Lieutenant Butler wrote out a statement of what he had done and discovered, and what he now purposed to do, which he affixed to a stick thrust into a crevice in the cliff, where it could not fail to reach the eyes of Fernald’s party on their return.

Once more the attempt was to be made to find out what had become of the girl and her captor.

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