A MIDNIGHT RAID.
THE Spaniards sharing the sick man's tent willingly complied with
Charley's request and moved their belongings to the other tents in
which there was plenty of room for them. With Walter's assistance the
lad cleaned the tent out thoroughly and tied back the flaps at both
ends to permit the free circulation of air. Rama was made to go to bed
on a second cot and given a dose of the same medicine given the other.
This done, Charley called the balance of the graders and ground men
together and gave them a large bottle of carbolic acid and a box of
salve, instructing them how to use both. It was now getting dark, and
after a hasty supper the boys with their two Spaniards repaired to the
guard line. Before night, however, Walter had climbed a small tree and
taken a survey of the country. Much to his disappointment, he had seen
smoke rising from the convicts' old camping place, showing that the
gunmen had returned to their old haunts.
"I wonder how they manage to find our camp so easy at night," the lad
remarked, as he and his chum met on their rounds. "When McCarty and I
were out hunting that time we could not see this camp from theirs, and
after we camped in the thicket we could not see their camp, although we
were not over half a mile away. The white mist blotted out everything."
"That digging light way up on the machine's boom guides them," Charley
answered. "The mist is densest close to the ground. The further up one
goes the thinner it gets; consequently they can see that light even
when they can't see our campfire."
"Simple enough, after all," Walter commented. "It's the simple things
that puzzle one the most sometimes."
"Which reminds me of what Mr. Bruce hinted," Charley said, "that the
solution of our mystery was in plain sight all the time, but hanged if
I haven't puzzled over it till I made my head swim and can't make it
out."
"Same here," Walter said. "I hope he is right and can make an end to
this trouble, but I doubt it."
"Well, we will know in a few days. He promised to be out again within a
week."
The lads turned back on their patrol and the conversation ceased.
The hours slipped slowly away while the four guards kept up their slow,
weary, monotonous pacing back and forth. Three times Charley slipped
in and administered doses of quinine. On the last trip he passed by the
cook tent and, striking a match, glanced at the clock inside.
"It's just midnight," he said as he rejoined his chum. "That seems
to be the favorite time for their devilment. I suppose we can look
for trouble any minute now." He had hardly finished when there came
the sharp crack of rifles from about the machine. "Good," Charley
exclaimed, "they haven't all got silent guns this time. Those reports
will give our men an idea where to shoot."
"Hadn't we better go out there?" Walter asked.
"No, we may have our hands full here," his chum replied. "Besides, the
engineer will whistle if he wants us. Gee, look at that!"
The swinging platform of the machine was turning around and around at
great speed and from it burst forth little jets of flame as the machine
men answered the enemy's fire.
"Good boy, McCarty," Walter exclaimed. "I guess they will have a job
hitting any of your men." He ducked as a bullet whizzed close by him.
"Watch out!" Charley cried, "they have got the camp surrounded, too."
"Shoot wherever you see a flash, then step to one side so they won't
locate your position."
The Captain, Chris and the two engineers came running from the camp
half dressed with their guns in their hands. By the time they reached
the line, the rifles of both defenders and attackers were crackling
merrily and the bullets were whining back and forth. For half an
hour the firing continued on both sides, then the attacking party
slowly withdrew, firing as they retired. The attempt on the machine
had quickly been silenced, and McCarty was digging again as though
nothing had happened. Lanterns were lit and the defenders took stock
of the damage done. Captain Westfield had a scratch on the leg where a
bullet had grazed, one of the Spaniards had lost a finger tip, and a
cow staked out within the line had been killed. Whether the enemy had
suffered from their fire they could not tell.
"I doubt if they were hurt much," Charley observed. "I think they did
most of their fighting from behind trees. We want to take a lesson from
them on that. To-morrow we will have to fix up some kind of protection
to get behind when the fun begins. I do not expect we will get off as
lucky next time as we did this. I believe they were trying to scare us
this time more than anything else."
Satisfied that the trouble was over for the night, the Captain and his
companions returned to bed while the lads resumed their weary round of
sentinel duty. Nothing more occurred to disturb them, and they were
heartily glad when day at last came. As soon as it grew light enough
to see well, the two lads went out and examined the place from which
their enemies had fired. They found nothing, however, but a few drops
of blood on the grass beside a tree. "Some one got barked a little
here," Charley observed. "It wasn't anything serious, however, or there
would be more blood around."
The boys had just finished breakfast when one of the Spaniards came in
from the machine.
"Boss, McCarty want you to come out to the machine," he said to Charley.
"I wonder what the trouble is now," said the boy wearily, as he arose
and put on his hat. "Want to walk out with me, Walt?"
"Sure," his chum assented.
"What's the matter?" Charley asked of the white-faced Spaniard who
accompanied them back.
The Spaniard hastily crossed himself. "God knows," he said with a
shudder. "It's blood that we wash in and blood that we drink. May the
Blessed Virgin forgive us."
As they were near the machine, the lads did not question him further,
but hastened on to where McCarty was standing a little ways beyond the
road.
"What's the matter?" Charley asked the engineer.
"You can see for yourself," was the reply. "Look at that little brook
over there where we have been getting our water. Last night it was just
ordinary sweet, pure, cold water, but just look at it now."
The two lads stepped over to the tiny brook McCarty pointed out. It was
only a few feet wide and three or four inches in depth, except where
the machine men had dug a hole a couple of feet deep to make possible
the dipping up of a few bucketfuls at a time. The boy's eyes opened
wide with wonder and surprise, for the waters of the little rill were
red like blood.
"Queer, isn't it?" said McCarty. "Hanged if I can account for it."
"I have seen brooks of that color where the water flowed over red bay
tree roots," Walter volunteered.
"That color does not come from bay roots," objected the other. "You
want to remember that it was all right and colorless yesterday. We got
a fresh pail of water about two hours ago. Of course we did not notice
the color then because it was dark, but one of the men went to get a
drink a while ago and I thought he would throw a fit when he saw the
color of the stuff he had been drinking. Bossie washed his face and
hands in the brook a couple of hours ago and just look at him now." The
lads glanced at the Spaniard, whose frightened face was a bright red.
"They want to quit," McCarty continued in a low voice. "This, coming
after all the other mystery, has scared them out of their wits. Unless
you can hit upon some reasonable explanation of this thing and do it
quick, I am afraid the whole gang will quit. They have been crossing
themselves and muttering prayers to the Virgin for the last hour."
A glance at the three frightened Spaniards convinced the two lads that
McCarty was not exaggerating the seriousness of the situation.
"Keep them here until I come back," Charley told him softly. "Come on,
Walt, I am going to follow that rill up to its source."
They had not far to go. A couple of hundred yards from the machine
they found the rill's source among a clump of willows. Here a little
spring bubbled up from the ground. Near its mouth, fastened tightly
to a stake, was an object that caused the boy to utter exclamations
of surprise and relief. It was a muslin bag capable of holding eight
or ten pounds and it was stained a bright red. It had been cunningly
placed in a narrow part of the rill and the dirt banked up on both
sides so that all the water from the spring would have to pass through
or over it.
"Don't touch it," Charley said. "Go bring the machine men here. I want
to make this an object lesson to them."
While Walter was gone on this errand, the lad gathered up several
pasteboard packages that lay scattered around on the ground. He noted
with satisfaction that the directions on them were printed in Spanish
as well as English.
In a few minutes Walter was back with the wondering Spaniards. Relief
began to replace the look of fright on their faces as Charley silently
pointed out to them the red stained bag and, untying it from the stake,
undid the string closing its mouth and shook out on the ground a mass
of water-soaked red powder. He picked up three of the packages he
had collected and gave one to each of the Spaniards. "Read," he said
shortly. The Spaniards burst out laughing as they grasped the cause of
the thing that had so frightened them.
"Our enemies want to stop us from building this road," Charley said
in Spanish. "They are fools. They think by firing off their guns in
the air at night, starting fires in the grass, and coloring water red
with dyes, that they can frighten away the brave, noble sons of Spain.
Surely they are fools."
"They are fools," agreed Bossie, now completely recovered from his
fright. "They might frighten children, but Spaniards never. No other
race is as brave and fearless as the sons of Spain."