WOLF AND PANTHER AFTER BEAR.
When the rocket flared across the sky Jimmie rushed into the tent where
the drummer was sleeping and shook him savagely.
"Get up an' blow out the gas!" he cried, as the boy gasped and sat up,
rubbing his eyes. "Get up!"
"This must be the Fourth of July," the drummer grunted, as another
rocket, this time a blue one, flashed across the zenith. "What's doing?"
"They're bombardin' us with red an' blue fire," whispered Jimmie! "Get
up. I'm goin' out to see what's comin' off here. Want to go?"
"Of course I want to go," replied Peter. "I didn't come down here to
sleep my head off, did I? Shall I take my drum?"
Jimmie sat down on the ground and chuckled.
"You an' your drum!" he exclaimed, being careful to speak in a tone
which would not reach the ears of the guards.
"That is a fine drum," urged Peter, the drummer.
"What do you want to lug it around for, then?" demanded Jimmie. "They
won't let you beat on it."
"That's what I came down here for--to drum," was the impatient reply.
"Think I came down here to get my hair cut?"
"You may get it cut off under your chin before you get back to the
Great White Way," Jimmie said. "This is no joke."
"I haven't had a chance to drum since I got here," complained the boy.
"The time you heard me is the only one. That's rotten!"
"Why did they let you drum then?" asked Jimmie.
"I just rolled it out before they could stop me."
"I was wondering," Jimmie said, with a sly smile, "if these secret
service men went sleuthing with a brass band ahead of them."
"Indeed they don't!" declared the drummer, in defense of his friends.
"They found me broke and lost and picked me up, which was mighty good
of them. Say," he added, with a slight scowl on his face, "this is a
fine, large country to get lost in."
"I should think so," agreed Jimmie. "I wasn't lost, but I hadn't any
more money than--than--than a--a--a rabbit when I found Fremont and Ned
at El Paso. And my clothes looked like they'd come out of a ragbag.
Wore 'em out reclinin' in my side-door Pullman."
"You're fixed up all right now for clothes," observed the drummer,
looking the boy's well-dressed, muscular figure over with approving
eyes.
"George Fremont bought these," said Jimmie, looking down at his suit.
"All right, ain't it? I'm goin' to pay him back when I get to working
again. I don't want anybody to give me anything."
"Lieutenant Gordon's son is a patrol leader at Washington," the drummer
said, after a thoughtful pause, "and I suppose that's the reason he
helped me out. I reckon a Boy Scout can find friends in any part of
the world, if he is deserving of them. I found a Mexican boy, over
here in the hills, who belongs to a patrol he calls the Owl. We may
meet him if we remain about here very long."
"A Boy Scout who is on the square won't have trouble in getting
through," Jimmie observed, "but we've got to be moving. I imagine the
guards want us to remain here, so we'll have to sneak off if we leave
camp. The guards seem to think we couldn't find our way back. We'll
show 'em."
Without further words the boys crept out of the tent, waited until the
guards were at the other end of the little valley, and dashed away into
a shadowy place behind a rock, which they had no difficulty in leaving,
presently, without being seen.
Once away from the tents, they turned toward the high peak from which
the rockets had been sent up. The way was steep and rough, and it was
hard climbing, and more than once they stopped to rest. It was, as has
been said, a brilliant moonlit night, and, from the elevation where the
boys were, the valley below lay like a silver-land of promise.
"It is a beautiful country," the drummer said, as they paused to rest
on a small shelf in the rock. "It is a rich and fertile country, too,
one of the most desirable in the world, but I'm afraid the people don't
get much out of life here."
"They are selfish and cruel," Jimmie said, "and no nation of that
stripe ever prospered. What they need here is less strong drink and
more school-houses--more real freedom and less mere show of republican
government. We read up on Mexico in the Wolf Patrol when this trouble
broke out. We always do that--keep track of what's going on in the
world, I mean."
"I know something about the country, too," the drummer said, looking in
admiration down on the beautiful valley below, bathed in the sweet
moonlight, "and sometimes I wonder that the people are as decent as
they are. Although they have never had much of a show, and although
they come, many of them, of rude ancestors, the people of Mexico
compare favorably with those of other countries."
The boys climbed on again, mounting higher and higher, their aim being
to gain the very top of the ridge. After half an hour's hard work they
stopped and sat down, to look over the valley again.
"There are no written records of the origin of these people," the
drummer said, almost as if thinking aloud. "No one knows the origin of
the people. Cortez found them here when he arrived with his brutal
soldiers. All that is known is that the inhabitants came from the
North."
"Twice the country was populated from the North," Jimmie put in, the
readings at the Wolf Patrol club coming back to his mind. "Now I wonder
why, in reading history, we always find that invaders came from the
North?"
"I've read," the drummer went on, quite enthusiastic over the subject
in hand, "that the present North Polar regions were tropical in
temperature and in animal and vegetable life, a long time ago."
"Yes, they find there, skeletons of animals which now exist only in the
tropics," said Jimmie, "and tropical trees deep under the ice. The
earth, they say, shifted in its orbit and it grew cold up there. I
guess that is why we read of people always coming down from the North."
"They had to get out of the North," the drummer mused, "because during
the Glacial period an ice-cap miles in thickness covered the world down
as far as the dividing line between the British possessions and the
United States. That is the way California and Mexico and Central
America were populated, anyhow."
"You mean that the immediate ancestors of the people of those countries
came from the North," Jimmie criticized. "For all we know, the people
who lived before them came from the South. They left no records to
show that they ever existed, but the earth was not bare of animal life
back of the period our scientists figure from."
"The first ones came from the East, by way of Iceland, Greenland, and
Baffinland; from the Eastern continent, and about the vicinity of the
Caspian sea, and so kept on South on this continent as the climate grew
colder. But we were talking of the people of Mexico. I wanted to show
you that they have never been favored as the people of our country
have, and that they've got years of national childhood to go through
yet before they become a great people."
"Go on and tell me about it," urged Jimmie. "We may learn as much
about what's going on here by sitting on this plateau as we could by
climbing our heads off."
The boys listened a moment, but there were no suspicious sounds about.
The mountain lay as silent under the moon as if no human foot had ever
pressed its surface. There were lights far down in the valley, but
none on the slopes in view.
"About as far back as the books go in Mexican history," the drummer
began, "is the seventh century, even when England wasn't much. About
that time the Toltecs came out of the North and took possession of the
valley where the City of Mexico now is. They were industrious,
peaceful and skilled in many of the arts. They kept their records in
hieroglyphics.
"They had a year made up of eighteen months of twenty days each, the
other five and a fraction being chucked into the calendar any old way.
They knew about the stars and eclipses, and built great cities.
"When they build their temples, it is said, they found ruins of other
temples beneath them. And the ones who built the temples, the ruins of
which the Toltecs found, doubtless found ruins of temples when they
began to dig. It is wonderful. The ages and ages that have gone by,
with new civilizations growing up and dying out."
"I feel like I was in a land older than the solar system," said Jimmie.
"What became of the Toltecs?"
"They were crowded out by the Aztecs somewhere about the twelfth
century. The Aztecs were warlike and cruel. It is said that they
murdered twenty thousand victims a year on the altars of their gods.
They were able people, too, but murderous in all their instincts. They
were cultivated to a degree far above the other peoples of the North
American continent at that time, but they lacked the feelings of
humanity as expressed to-day.
"They built temples--mounds of clay faced with brick, surmounted by
great towers where the priests dwelt. It was at the summits of these
mounds, on a sacrificial stone, before all the people who could get in
view, that the victims of their religious frenzy were slain.
"Then Cortes came, in fifteen hundred and something, and the deluge of
blood began. If you have read up on the subject at all, you doubtless
know how merciless the Spaniards were in their attitude toward the
Aztecs. They killed them by thousands, in open battle and by
treacherous means, and they tortured Aztec priests to force them to
reveal the places where the vessels of gold used in worship were hidden.
"It is easy to see where the modern Mexican gets his ideas of
amusement, as shown in the bull fight. The Aztec-Spanish blood is
still in his veins. Of course there are cultured and refined Mexicans,
but the great mass of the people are pretty primitive. Outside the
cities, in many instances, old tribal relations continue, and the
people are unsettled in habitation as well as in spirit, selfish and
cruel, too.
"One revolution after another--brought about by unscrupulous leaders in
the hope of personal gain--has devastated the country. It seems easy
to stir up a revolution in Mexico, for the people are volcanic in
temperament, like the earth under their feet, and their eruptions do
not always follow usual lines, either, but break out in unexpected
places and for unheard of reasons--just as the volcanoes refuse to
follow the central mountain chains, but break out in undreamed of
localities."
"It requires a strong hand to rule such a people," Jimmie mused. "I
guess Diaz has troubles of his own."
"There is no doubt of it," the drummer continued. "In future years
Mexico will become one of the garden spots of the world. It is clear
why one people after another selected the Valley of Mexico for their
abiding place. But blood will tell for evil as well as for good, and
the bad strain here must be thinned down. The hills are rich in
minerals, and the valleys are fertile, and all the land needs is a race
of steady, patient workers--fewer bull fights and less pulque and more
days' work."
As the drummer ceased speaking, Jimmie laid a warning hand on his
shoulder and bent his head forward in a listening attitude.
"Listen!" he said. "There are men talking just over that slope."