THE HOMING PIGEON.
"What are we turning aside for, Ned?" and as Jimmy asked this question
he laid a hand on the arm of the scout master, having pushed up from
behind, leading the pack animal that had been given over to his charge
after his own was lost.
"Why," replied Ned, readily enough, "you see, Amos lives over among
those trees, where there's a little stream, and he hinted pretty
broadly that, while we were passing, he'd like us to meet up with his
mother."
"Oh! that's all right," Jimmy asserted. "I've taken quite a liking for
the kid and a little rest will do the bunch good, anyway. One thing
I've made up my mind about, Ned, and I don't care who hears me say it."
"All right, pitch in, and let's get the glad news, Jimmy," remarked
Jack, from a point near by.
"Never again for me to start our on a trip afoot while I'm here in this
hot country!" Jimmy declared solemnly, holding up his hand, as though
he were in the witness box. "What sillies we were not to have thought
of that instead of putting our good cash into that bunco automobile
that played out before it even got decently started."
"It seems that we've all learned our little lesson," Ned admitted, "and
after this we ride, if we go at all. Cars may do very well, where there
are half-way decent roads; but out on the sandy desert and on the
plains give me a broncho every time.
"But say, are you fellows noticing how jolly this scenery is around
here?" Harry wanted to know just then, from the rear. "Look at that
sage brush on the slope of that low hill over to the right. It must be
breast high to a horse, and seems like I could smell its fragrance away
off here. How gray it looks, except where the wind waves it and then it
seems nearly purple."
"Yes," added Ned, "and this must be what they call rattlesnake weed,
though I don't know what it's got to do with the crawlers. You can see
the grasshoppers jumping in that lush stuff where the ground's moist.
And there's a king bird sitting on that high weed yonder."
"Listen to the gophers whistling a warning to their kind, when they see
us coming," remarked Jack. "Yes, Harry, you're right, this is worth
looking at. Why, I wouldn't be surprised now, if at night-time, you
could hear the drowsy chirp of the crickets and the shrill rattle of
katydids around here. A bigger contrast to what we went through in that
desert you couldn't imagine."
"It's sure all to the good," asserted Jimmy, "and I don't blame that
mother of Amos for pitching her dugout in this particular region. But
mebbe she'll be sorry the boy didn't fetch any game home with him."
"Oh! Amos says he means to start out again in a different direction and
knows where he's pretty sure to get an antelope, anyhow," Jack remarked.
They were now approaching the trees in which some sort of human
habitation evidently had been constructed, for smoke was seen curling
lazily upward.
It proved to be one of those half-dugout, half-building which is to be
found in many parts of the Wild West where lumber is scarce. As there
was practically no winter weather in this part of the country, it
answered all purposes, though far from a thing of beauty.
Still, that mother of Amos' had brightened things up more or less, so
that it could be seen the hand of a woman was around. A small garden
lay back of the house, surrounded by a wire fence to keep animals from
devouring the precious green stuff which was grown there.
Several dogs started toward them with yelps and deep-throated barking;
and Jimmy unconsciously reached out a hand for the Marlin that was
fastened to the pack of his burro. Jimmy's dislike for wolves was
shared by dogs of all kinds. He said it must have been born in him,
since he could not remember ever having had any desperate adventure
with canine foes while a kid.
Amos, however, threw oil on the troubled waters and, at the sound of
his voice, the fury of the dogs changed instantly to a noisy greeting.
They jumped up and fawned on the kid in a way that told how much they
loved him. And, doubtless, instinct told each beast that those in
company of the young master must also be friends; for, when Ned
whistled and snapped his fingers, one of the dogs immediately started
to approach, wagging his tail in a neighborly way.
A small-sized woman had come out of the dugout and stood there with a
hand shading her eyes, as though to see who might be approaching. Ned
noticed that she carried a shotgun in her other hand, and it struck him
that a woman who might often be left at home alone in this strange
country had need of knowing how to use some sort of firearm.
She looked very meek and did not seem to have very much snap and go
about her. When Amos introduced the boys and told what a great favor
they had done him, she went around shaking hands in an odd way; but
evidently Mrs. Adams differed from the vast majority of her sex, for
she did not seem to have much to say.
"Gee! what a shame!" Jimmy muttered in Ned's ear.
"What is?" asked the scout master, also in a whisper.
"That's always the way it goes," continued the observing Jimmy, "seems
like there never was a shrinking little woman, as timid as they make
'em, but what she had to go and link herself with some big bully of a
blustering man. Opposites seem to attract in this world; you've seen a
speck of a girl pick out the tallest feller she could find, and the
other way, too."
"Yes, it does look like that, Jimmy," admitted Ned, as he tried to
discover some trace of spunk about the little woman, and utterly failed.
"Chances are," Jimmy continued, in his reflective way, "that when this
bad man of a Hy Adams, the worst case along the whole border, they say,
gets on one of his tearin' fits, he just makes Rome howl. And say, I
can just see that poor timid little thing cowering down like a scared
puppy when it hears its master raging. But, then, mebbe Amos he hangs
around to sort of protect his maw; though it don't seem as if a small
chap like him could do much along that line."
"If he does, he didn't think it right to do any boasting that I can
remember," Ned replied, again studying the mistress of the dugout, but
without much success.
Mrs. Adams insisted on their resting a short while and taking a cup of
coffee with her. Apparently, she had some means of her own, for there
seemed to be plenty to do with in the place; and when the boys saw the
bunks used for sleeping they pronounced them not at all bad. Indeed
Jimmy promptly began yawning; and, if any one had invited him to test
one of the bunks, the chances are he would have only too willingly
complied.
There was little said during the meal, at least by the mother of Amos.
Perhaps, as Jimmy suggested in an aside to Ned, the weight of her
troubles in being mated to a human hurricane like Hy Adams had taken
all the life out of her, and hence she evinced but little interest in
whatever happened.
Amos, as if to cover up this lack of conversational gifts on the part
of his mother, kept the boys busy telling some of their past
adventures. And, finally, Ned advised that they had better be getting
ready to pull out, as considerable territory remained to be covered
before they could expect to reach the cattle ranch buildings.
"You'll sure look us up before long, Amos?" he said to the lad, as they
shook hands at parting.
"I should say yes," added impulsive Jimmy; "because I'd hate to think I
wasn't goin' to see you again."
Amos looked serious.
"I did promise you, didn't I?" he observed slowly, "and when I says a
thing I nigh always keep my word; but I kinder reckon as how I mightn't
be welcome over to the Double Cross Ranch."
"You mean, because you have the hard luck to be connected with a bad
man like Hy Adams?" Harry remarked. "But don't bother about a little
thing like that. My two uncles are the kind of men who judge a fellow
by what he's done himself, and not by his relations. Why, we had a bad
egg in our family once, and seems to me he was hung or something of the
kind. But that's no reason I ought to be, is it?"
"Er, I don't know about that," muttered Jimmy, with a sparkle in his
fun-loving blue eyes.
The good-byes were said, and the scouts started again toward the
southeast. Amos had given them full directions, so that there was no
possibility of their going wrong. And as the day was far cooler than
many they had experienced of late, all of them were feeling in fine
spirits.
They watched the buzzards lazily wheeling around high up in the
heavens, apparently bent on finding out where they could get their next
meal.
"What a fine view they must have of the plain up there," Harry happened
to remark; "makes me think of when we went up with those aviators, who
had the dirigible balloon near the border of Death Valley and were
experimenting in dropping bombs down, just like will be done in the
next big war between the Nations, when battleships must give way to
aeroplanes and submarines."
"Watch that hawk, will you!" cried Jack, "see how he is chasing after
that bird! I declare, it looks like he'd sure get his dinner."
"How I hate hawks!" exclaimed Jimmy, hotly, as he reached for his gun,
"they're the pirates of the air, and just duck down on poor little
birds whenever they feel like having a bite. Hey! he got the innocent
that rush, didn't he? Oh! wouldn't I just like to get a shot at the
murderer, though!"
Jimmy, of course, forgot this was the daily business of the hawk and
that he only slew when he was hungry and not for pleasure. He also
forgot that many men who call themselves _sportsmen_ persist in killing
game or game fish long after they have reached the limit of disposing
of the same for food and even throw the victims of their cruelty aside
in heaps--the more shame to their claim to manhood.
"Well, perhaps you may have a chance to play the noble role of
avenger," chuckled Jack, "that is, if you can shoot straight; because
you notice the hawk has now flown with his prey to that dead treetop
and alighted there. Jimmy, get your gun and show us what you can do."
"Just what I will," replied the other promptly.
It was a pretty long shot for Jimmy. He seemed to doubt his ability to
do the needful, without having some sort of rest for his gun.
"Jack, will you do me a favor?" he asked.
"Sure I will, Jimmy; just name it," was the reply.
"Be my gun rest, won't you now; because I'd like to do for that pirate
the worst kind, but 'tis thinkin' I am that it's a bit too far for me.
What I've gone through lately has made me hand a little unsteady, like."
Jack was accommodating enough to back up in front of the intended
sharpshooter and arrange himself in such fashion that Jimmy could rest
his rifle on one of his shoulders.
"There you are," he remarked, placing fingers in both ears, so that the
report might not deafen him. "I'll hold as steady as Gibraltar Rock,
Jimmy, so if you miss you mustn't go and lay the blame on me, hear?"
"Easy now, and I'm off!" muttered the other, as he took aim.
The sharp report sounded a couple of seconds later.
"Bully for you, Jimmy!" shouted Jack, immediately.
"Did I get him?" cried the delighted marksman.
"Did you!" echoed Harry, "look at him circling down to the ground right
now! You knocked him galley-west, I should say, if I was on a boat now.
Go and get your game, Jimmy, and let's see the old buccaneer."
"Bring in the dinner he caught, too," remarked Ned, "I'm curious to see
what it is; because it didn't look like any wild bird around here."
"And be careful how you handle the hawk, if he's only winged," warned
Jack, "for they can fight like all get-out, and the first thing he'll
try to get at will be your eyes. Knock him on the head, Jimmy, before
you handle him."
"Shucks! tell me somethin' I don't know!" laughed the other, starting
off, gun in hand, toward the trees growing along the same stream that
passed the door of Hy Adams' dugout, some three miles away.
He came back after a little while carrying a dead hawk.
"It was a fine shot, for a fact!" admitted Jack, as he took the bird
into his hands, the better to see where the bullet had struck.
"What's that you've got besides, Jimmy?" asked Harry.
"Me to the foolish house if it don't make me think of a pet pigeon I
used to have long ago," Jimmy ventured.
"It _is_ a pigeon," said Ned, as he handled the dead bird that had been
chased and captured by the hungry hawk.
"What's that, Ned; a tame pigeon out here on the plains?" Jack
questioned.
"Well, there are no wild pigeons any more, all gone," Ned explained,
"and this bird is a passenger pigeon or a carrier. You can see from the
odd shape of its bill."
"What they call a homing pigeon, you mean, don't you, Ned?" asked Harry.
"Just that," was the reply, "and here, as sure as you live, there's a
message tied with a thread to his leg, right now. Why, somebody must
have been experimenting sending a message back home by this air post."
"Blast that old hawk, he spoiled the whole game!" muttered Jimmy,
wrathfully.
"But stop and think, Jimmy," Harry told him, "if it hadn't been for the
hawk you shot, we wouldn't have known about this thing at all. But
there's Ned opening the little piece of tissue paper on which the
message is written. Tell us about it, Ned, won't you?"
The scout master was staring at the thin piece of paper he had smoothed
out, as though it contained certain information that interested him
deeply.
And as the other three scouts gathered around him, eagerly waiting
until he took them more fully into his confidence, they seemed to feel
as though the very air was charged with a fresh supply of mystery.