HERR MULLER GETS A CHILLY BATH.
"Shake a le-e-eg!"
Rather later than usual the following morning the lengthy form of Cal
reared itself upright in its blankets and uttered the waking cry. From
the boys there came only a sleepy response in rejoinder. They were all
pretty well tired out with the adventures and strains of the day before
and had no inclination to arise from their slumbers. Even Nat, usually
the first to "tumble up," didn't seem in any hurry to crawl out of his
warm nest.
Winking to himself, Cal picked up two buckets and started for the
little lake. He soon filled them with the clear, cold snow-water, and
started back with long strides across the little meadow.
"Here's where it rains for forty days and forty nights," he grinned, as
poising a bucket for a moment he let fly its contents.
S-l-o-u-s-h!
What a torrent of icy fluid dashed over the recumbent form of Herr
Von Schiller Muller! The Teuton leaped up as if a tarantula had been
concealed in his bed clothes, but before he could utter the yell that
his fat face was framing Cal was on him in one flying leap and had
clapped a big brown hand over his mouth.
"Shut up," he warned, "if you want to have some fun with the others."
He pointed to the pail which was still half full. Herr Muller instantly
comprehended. Dashing the water out of his eyes he prepared to watch
the others get their dose, on the principle, I suppose, that misery
loves company.
S-l-o-u-s-h!
This time Ding-dong and Joe got the icy shower bath, and sputtering
and protesting hugely, they leaped erect. But the water in their eyes
blinded them and although they struck out savagely, their blows only
punctured the surrounding atmosphere.
"Here, hold this bucket!" ordered Cal, handing the empty pail to the
convulsed Dutchman.
"Oh-ho-ho-ho dees iss too much!" gasped Herr Muller, doubling himself
up with merriment, "I must mage me a picdgure of him."
In the meantime Cal had dashed the contents of the other bucket over
Nat, who also sprang up full of wrath at the unexpected immersion.
"Take this, too," ordered Cal, handing the other empty bucket to Herr
Muller. Tears were rolling down the German's fat cheeks. He was bent
double with vociferous mirth as he shook.
"Dees iss der best choke I haf seen since I hadt der measles!" he
chuckled.
Shouts of anger rang from the boys' throats as they rushed about,
shaking off water like so many dogs after a swim. Suddenly their eyes
fell on Herr Muller doubled with laughter and holding the two buckets.
From time to time, in the excess of his merriment he flourished them
about.
"Oh-ho-ho-ho, I dink me I die ef I dodn't laughing stop it."
"Hey, fellows!" hailed Nat, taking in the scene, "there's the chap that
did it."
"That Dutchman?--Wow!"
With a whoop the three descended on the laughter-stricken Teuton, and
before he could utter a word of expostulation, they had seized him
up and were off to the little lake at lightning speed, bearing his
struggling form.
"Help! Murder! Poys, I don't do idt. It voss dot Cal vot vatered you!"
The cries came from the German's lips in an agonizing stream of
entreaty and expostulation. But the boys, wet and irritated, were in no
mood for mercy. To use an expressive term, though a slangy one, they
had caught Herr Muller "with the goods on."
Through the alders they dashed, and then----
Splash!
Head over heels Herr Muller floundered in the icy water, choking and
sputtering, as he came to the surface, like a grampus--or, at least
in the manner, we are led to believe, grampuses or grampi conduct
themselves.
As his pudgy form struck out for the shore the boys' anger gave way
to yells of merriment at the comical sight he presented, his scanty
pajamas clinging tightly about his rotund form.
"Say, fellows, here comes Venus from the bath!" shouted Nat.
"First time I heard of a Dutch Venus!" chortled Joe.
"Poys, you haf made it a misdake," expostulated Herr Muller, standing,
with what dignity he could command, on the brink of the little lake.
His teeth were chattering as if they were executing a clog dance.
"D-dod-d-dot C-c-c-c-al he do-done idt. If you don'd pelieve me,--Loog!"
He pointed back to the camp and there was Cal rolling about on the
grass and indulging in other antics of amusement.
"Wow!" yelled Nat, "we'll duck him, too."
At full speed they set off for the camp once more, Cal rising to his
feet as they grew near. He looked unusually large and muscular somehow.
"W-w-w-w-w-where w-w-w-w-will we t-t-t-t-tackle him?" inquired
Ding-dong, who seemed quite willing to yield his foremost place in the
parade of punishment.
"I guess," said Nat slowly and judiciously, "I guess we'll--leave Cal's
punishment to some other time."
Breakfast that morning was a merry meal, and old Bismark, who had
naturally been tethered in a post perfectly free from loco weed, came
in for several lumps of sugar as reward for his signal service of the
day before. All were agreed that if the old horse had not wandered
along so opportunely that Nat might have been in a bad fix.
"I wonder if they'd have dared to kill me?" said Nat, drawing Cal aside
while the others were busy striking camp and washing dishes.
"Wall," drawled Cal, "I may be wrong, but I don't think somehow that
you'd hev had much appetite fer breakfast this mornin'."
"I'm inclined to agree with you," said Nat, repressing a shudder as he
recalled the tones of the colonel's voice.
"And that reminds me," said Cal, "that our best plan is to get on ter
my mine as quick as we can. It ain't much of a place. You know there's
mighty little mining down here nowadays but what is done by the big
companies with stamp mills and hundreds of thousands invested. But I
reckon we kin be safe there while we think up some plan to get these
fellows in a prison where they belong."
"That's my idea exactly," said Nat, "I'm pretty sure that now they are
aware that we know the location of their fort that they'll try to get
after us in every way they can."
"Right you are, boy. Their very existence in these mountains depends on
their checkmating us some way. I think the sooner we get out of here
the better."
"How soon can we get to the mine?" asked Nat.
"Got your map?"
"Yes."
"Let's see it."
Nat dipped down into his pocket and drew out his folder map of the
Sierra region. It was necessarily imperfect, but Cal, after much
cogitation, darted down his thumb on a point some distance to the
northwest of where they were camped.
"It's about thar," he declared, "right in that thar canyon."
"How soon can we get there?"
"With luck, in two days, I should say. We can camp there while one of
us rides off and gets the sheriff and a posse. I tell you it'll be a
big feather in our caps to land those fellows where they belong. The
scallywags have made themselves the terror of this region for a long
time."
"Well, don't let's holler till we're out of the wood," advised Nat.
By this time the auto was ready and the others awaited their coming
with some impatience.
"Are we all right?" asked Nat looking back at the tonneau and then
casting a comprehensive eye about. Bismark, hitched behind as usual,
was snorting impatiently and pawing the ground in quite a fiery manner.
"Let 'er go," cried Cal.
Chug-chu-g-chug!
Nat threw on the power and off moved the auto, soon leaving behind the
camp on the knoll which had been the scene of so many anxieties and
amusing incidents.
As they rode along Nat explained to the others the plan of campaign. It
was hailed with much joy and Joe and Ding-dong immediately began asking
questions. Cal explained that his mine was located in a canyon which
had once been the scene of much mining activity, but like many camps in
the Sierras, those who once worked it--the argonauts--had long since
departed. Only a little graveyard with wooden head-boards on the hill
above the camp remained to tell of them. Cal had taken up a claim there
in the heyday of the gold workings and from time to time used to visit
it and work about the claim a little. He had never gotten much gold out
of it, but it yielded him a living, he said.
"Anybody else up there?" asked Nat.
"Only a few Chinks," rejoined Cal.
"I don't like 'em," said Joe briefly, "yellow-skinned, mysterious
cusses."
"M-m-m-my mother had a C-c-c-c-chinese c-c-c-c-cook--phwit!--once," put
in Ding-dong, "but we had to fire him."
"Why?" inquired Cal with some show of interest.
"We could never tell whether he was sus-s-s-singing over his work or
moaning in agony," rejoined Ding-dong.
"Say, is that meant for a joke?" asked Nat amid a deadly silence.
"N-n-no, it's a f-f-fact," solemnly rejoined Ding-dong.
"That feller must hev bin a cousin to the short-haired Chinaman who
couldn't be an actor," grinned Cal.
"What is this, a catch?" asked Joe suspiciously.
"No," Cal assured him.
"Oh, all right, I'll bite," said Nat with a laugh, "why couldn't the
short-haired Chinaman be an actor?"
"Pecoss he voss a voshman, I subbose," suggested Herr Muller.
"Oh, no," said Cal, "because he'd always miss his queue."
"Reminds me of the fellow who thought he was of royal blood every time
he watered his wife's rubber plant which grew in a porcelain pot,"
grinned Nat.
"I'll bite this time," volunteered Joe, "How was that, Mister Bones?"
"Well, he said that when he irrigated it, he rained over china,"
grinned Nat, speeding the car up a little grade.
"If this rare and refined vein of humor is about exhausted," said Joe
with some dignity after the laugh this caused had subsided, "I would
like to draw the attention of the company to that smoke right ahead of
us."
"Is that smoke? I thought it was dust," said Nat, squinting along the
track ahead of them.
The column of bluish, brownish vapor to which Joe had drawn attention
could now be seen quite distinctly, pouring steadily upward above
the crest of a ridge of mountains beyond them. Although they were
travelling at a considerable height they could not make out what was
causing it, but Cal's face grew grave. He said nothing, however, but
if the others had noticed him they would have seen that his keen eyes
never left the column which, as they neared it, appeared to grow larger
in size until it towered above its surroundings like a vaporous giant
or the funnel of a whirlwind.