ANDY SCATTERS THE SERENADERS.
The first thing that Rob noticed was that it did not seem nearly as dark
and gloomy as when he had lain down. Could it be he had slept the whole
night through, and that daylight was at hand? He settled this mystery
with his first glance upward; for there he discovered that a pale
fragment of a once proud moon had arisen in the east, and was looking
mournfully down upon their hidden camp.
Next he made out the form of Lopez, the Mexican guide, who was sitting
with his back against a tree, as though that might be his favorite way
of sleeping. But he was very much awake now, for he moved even as Rob
took notice of his presence.
The queer chorus of sounds continued to arise from various points near
by. Rob made up his mind that they must be actually surrounded by some
species of animal that certainly sang away off the proper key, for they
made a noise that jarred on his ear terribly.
"Hear 'em, don't you, Rob?" continued Andy, who doubtless must have been
observing the movements of the acting scout master all this while by the
aid of that friendly moonlight.
"Do I? Well, I'd have to be pretty deaf not to, Andy," Rob replied.
"What do you reckon it can be? I never in all my life heard such an
awful lot of discord," continued the other scout apprehensively.
"I'm only giving a wide guess," Rob told him; "but I should think only a
pack of wolves could make a racket like that; or perhaps now, coyotes."
"How about that, Lopez?" Merritt struck in; and the guide, chuckling,
replied:
"Last is what it is, young señors; kiote make much noise when hungry. It
is our food they scent. Kiote happen to have a very keen nose. No
trouble, no danger as long as they hang around. Too much coward to sneak
in; and long as we hear kiote sing, we know no spy can be near, or they
run away."
"Sing!" burst out Andy with a snort; "is that what they call it down
here? Mebbe some folks like that sort of song, but let me tell you it
grates on my ears like the screeching of a pack of cats at night. Sing!
Whoo-ee! are you joshing us poor tenderfeet, Lopez?"
"Oh! there's nothing like getting used to things, Andy," Rob assured
him, while at the same time he was in doubt whether he himself could go
to sleep again if all that noise kept up right along. "After a while,
when you've heard that chant nightly, you may think it's the finest
lullaby ever invented, and miss it the worst kind after you hike away
north."
"Don't you believe it, Rob," returned the other positively. "I wouldn't
mind being soothed to sleep by sweet sounds, like the thrumming of a
guitar or a mandolin; but excuse me from that caterwauling. Listen to it
rise and fall! That is just the way our old Tom used to sit on the back
fence and talk to the moon till I rigged up a wire along there and
connected it with our electric circuit. After that, when I woke and
heard him tuning up, all I had to do was to press the button, and
everything was still again. But he did always give one awful screech as
he lit out!"
"Well, suppose you rig up a switch and circuit here, so you can give
these singing coyotes some of the same medicine?" laughed Merritt.
"You know I can't do that," Andy admitted mournfully; "wish I could
right now; and let me tell you there'd be a heap of scatterin' out there
when the circuit was closed. But what's the matter with me sneaking out
and giving them a shot or two from my rifle? We didn't lug our guns all
this way just for ornament, did we? And surely they couldn't be used in
a nobler cause than to get us poor tired fellows decent sleep."
"How about that, Lopez?" asked Rob. "Do you think there would be any
danger of the shots betraying our camp to others who might happen to be
around?"
"The danger it is not much," came the reply; "and as for that, the
singing of the kiote pack, it tell that a camp must be here; so there is
no difference."
"That settles it, then," said Andy exultantly, as he began to unwrap
himself from his blanket and grope for his rifle; "and mebbe I won't
surprise a few of the noisy gents out there!"
"Don't go too far," Rob warned him, as he started to crawl away on his
hands and knees, trailing his gun after him.
"I won't," Andy whispered back, turning his head and then giving a
little flirt with one hand in his customary jolly way.
"No use trying to go to sleep till the circus ends, is there?" Merritt
demanded, as he shuffled around, trying to get into an easier position.
"Just what I'd made up my mind to myself," replied Rob, following suit.
"Look at Tubby here, sleeping as sweetly as an overgrown baby," the
corporal of the Eagle Patrol went on to say with a low laugh.
"Oh! Tubby is the best sleeper I ever knew," Rob assured him. "He often
talks as if he had been wakeful all the night, but it's a false alarm.
He can sleep through a pretty good thunder-storm, and then remark in
the morning that he thinks it must have rained a little during the
night. But wait and see if he hears the noise when Andy lets fly with
his repeating rifle!"
"Cracky! that's a fact. Chances are he'll just sit up and say the
mosquitoes are beginning to get bothersome, for he just heard one
singing near his ear; and then he'll call out to ask you for the dope to
rub on," Merritt remarked, humorously.
"Wait and see," said Rob; "and it can't be long coming now, because I
should think Andy must have crawled far enough to glimpse the circle of
mourners."
Hardly had Rob spoken than there came a loud report, instantly followed
by a series of yelps, that were drowned in snarls and howls as the other
coyotes took after their wounded comrade.
Both boys had their eyes focused on the mound that stood for the
sleeping Tubby. There was a sudden upheaval, and the blanket flew aside,
revealing the fat scout trying to scramble to his knees with every
symptom of alarm.
"Oh! what was that terrible noise?" he stammered. "Rob! Oh, Rob, are we
attacked by Injuns? Or was that thunder? Where am I at? Who's got a
torch lighted up there? Whatever does it all mean, anyway?"
"Keep cool, Tubby," said Rob, while Merritt laughed at a great rate,
although rather softly; "it's all right, no danger. The camp was
surrounded by a pack of coyotes, that's all; and their singing kept Andy
awake, so he asked permission to crawl out and knock a few of them over.
You heard him shoot, and he must have wounded a prowler, for the whole
pack took after it at a hot pace. That's all!"
"Oh, is it, Rob? Then, what's the sense of sitting up in the cold and
wasting time, when you might be getting forty winks?" With which remark
the fat boy cuddled down again under his blanket, and settled himself to
resume his interrupted slumbers.
Rob and Merritt laughed again and again over his matter-of-fact way; but
beyond a grunt or two, Tubby paid no attention to them. Presently Andy
came back, a satisfied grin resting on his good-natured face.
"Told you I'd pickle one silly old coyote, anyway," he remarked, as he
prepared to settle down again in his nest.
"We heard him call out, and then the whole pack seemed to chase away
after him. Was that the way, Andy?" Merritt asked.
"They all went spinning off in the direction of the desert there; and
the one I hit must have been ahead of the pack, because I could hear him
tooting up at a great rate. Sho! there must have been all of a dozen in
the lot! Bet you they don't come around here in a hurry again after that
lesson!"
But Andy was mistaken. In less than half an hour the howls started in
once more, at first from some distance, but gradually drawing closer,
until apparently the coyote concert band was again at the old stand,
appealing to Andy to try it once more, and provide them with some
further pickings.
Andy, however, refused to be tempted, for Rob, who was also awake, told
him he would have to sit up the balance of the night, since the animals
were bound to return time and again; nor would he be able to induce them
to stop their wailing, since, driven from the vicinity of the camp, they
would stand afar off and start a new chant.
All of the boys were glad when the first peep of dawn drove the coyotes
to their dens among the rocks in the hills, or some barranca near by.
Just as Rob had said, they would undoubtedly become more or less
accustomed to such nightly serenades in time, and pay little heed to the
howling. To one used to sleeping in the open, where wolves and coyotes
abound, the chorus comes to be a species of protection; and if it
suddenly ceased in the middle of the night he would immediately rouse
himself to investigate what had driven the pack away, for it must either
be a human enemy, or a jaguar.
The boys expected, after partaking of hot coffee and a light breakfast,
to resume their gallop toward the south. Andy busied himself in laying
the fire, which they had allowed the guide to do on the previous
evening, although any one of the boys knew as much about arranging this
as Lopez. He had had actual experience all his adventurous life; but,
then, they had practiced the art of building cooking fires as one of the
duties with which a scout should be familiar, and they knew just how to
get the best results.
Besides, the boys had learned something from the way Lopez selected
their camp site. They could guess why it was screened by thickets on
nearly all sides; and also why it lay in a slight depression, so that
the glow of the little blaze might not draw inquisitive strangers, as an
exposed light would.
They had learned long ago to keep their eyes open so as to see
everything that went on around them. Rob in particular was always on the
alert, and if he thought any of the others failed to grasp what a
certain thing meant, it was his habit to call their attention to the
circumstances. For that is what a patrol leader is expected to do when
he has been elevated to his important position.
Andy had just managed to get the cooking fire ready, and was asking
Tubby to bring him the frying-pan, because they expected to have a
rasher of bacon for breakfast, to go with the hardtack and coffee. At
that moment the horse of the guide, staked near by, began to snort and
prance, as well as give other indications of excitement. Lopez had been
in the act of rolling up his blanket into a small bundle that could
easily be carried behind his saddle. He seemed to know instinctively
what these riotous actions on the part of his mount stood for; because,
with an exclamation of alarm, he jumped for his gun that rested against
a tree trunk.
Rob did the same, ditto Merritt; while Andy continued to kneel there in
front of his little fire as though frozen stiff. As for Tubby, he
dropped the frying-pan in a panic and snatched up the camp hatchet.
Rob had already caught the sound of horses' hoofs near by; and even as
he turned his eyes in the quarter from which the sounds seemed to
spring, there came around the end of the thicket a couple of horsemen,
who, on discovering the camp with its surprised inmates, drew their
mounts in abruptly and sat there in their saddles staring hard.
Rob could see that the men were garbed in a sort of dirty white uniform;
and from this he quickly judged that they must be a couple of Salazar's
cavalrymen, sent out to burn bridges and demoralize the railroad
completely between Chihuahua and Juarez. As Federals were bound to look
upon all Americans as their bitter enemies, on account of the attitude
taken by the Washington authorities concerning President Huerta, the
patrol leader guessed that they were in for another experience.