CHAPTER XV.
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.
CHAPTER XVI.
IN THE ENEMY'S COUNTRY
"Don't shoot!" Rob called out hastily, fearing that Lopez might think it his duty, as the guardian of the little party, to open fire on the Regulars; and this was not in accordance with the designs of the Boy Scouts, who were bound to exhaust every peaceful effort before proceeding to any violence.
Andy had by this time come to his senses, and started to crawl over to where he had stacked his rifle. Shooting at coyotes was one thing, however, and being compelled to fire upon human beings quite another; and the boy looked pretty white "about the gills," as Merritt afterward put it, as he clutched his weapon. But he had also heard what the patrol leader said, and did not make any hostile demonstration, beyond pulling back the hammer of his gun with his trembling thumb.
Of course, if the two Mexican soldiers made any attempt to run off their mounts, Rob knew very well that they could not stand for that; since to be forced to foot it all the way to Chihuahua, across burning desert sands, and rough hilly country, was a prospect that did not appeal to him at all.
Fortunately the pair of cavalrymen did not dream of attacking nearly three times their number. They just took it out in staring, and possibly saying things back and forth. Then, as though they had decided that retreat was the best play, since they were plainly outnumbered, suddenly both men wheeled their horses and went galloping swiftly away, sitting their saddles with that grace that seems to be a natural heritage of all Mexicans.
"Good riddance of bad rubbage!" called out Merritt; though the boy was undoubtedly relieved to see the cavalrymen depart without a fight.
Whether the men heard what he said or not, they turned and shook their fists in the direction of the scouts; and from the threatening gestures that followed this action it was plainly to be seen that they did not mean this to be the last time they expected to meet the little party.
Rob turned to Lopez when the pair had vanished from view, and he could no longer catch the heavy thud of their horses' hoofs on the hard ground.
He found the guide frowning, and this fact told Rob what to expect.
"That spells trouble for us, doesn't it, Lopez?" he asked; while Tubby, Merritt and Andy hung upon what was passing between guide and patrol leader.
The Mexican shrugged his shoulders.
"If they can make it so, we will be followed, young señor," he remarked. "You saw for yourself they were Federal cavalrymen, the same that General Salazar he have send out to cut the railroad between Chihuahua and the river. All men who fight for Huerta hate Yankee gringoes; and they see these uniforms, so they understand you are Americano soldiers. That is bad!"
"So that's the way the land lies!" remarked Merritt. "Well, we do not intend taking off these good old suits and wearing anything else, not if we know it. But see here, Lopez, what if those fellows should take a notion to sneak around on us, and try a shot from the rear?"
"Not much chance of that, with all these thickets around, which Lopez calls the chaparral," Rob told him; "but I'll just wander off a bit, and see if I can glimpse them going. If that fails, I'll keep watch while the rest of you eat breakfast. Get busy, Andy and Tubby, so we'll have that agony over in a hurry."
"Agony!" repeated Tubby indignantly. "Well, I like that, now, don't you, Andy? As if eating could ever be a task!"
Passing out of the hidden camp, Rob found a place where he could get an uninterrupted view of the lower country. And it was not long before he discovered two mounted men, whom he easily recognized as their unbidden visitors, spurring away as fast as their horses could take them. When the scout saw them look back several times, he no longer doubted that they were positively the men he had come to watch.
It made Rob a trifle uneasy to note the fact that the cavalrymen had departed in almost a southerly direction; because that might indicate future trouble for the little expedition.
When he showed up in camp again breakfast was just ready.
"Hello! changed your mind about not wanting to eat, have you, Rob?" hailed Tubby.
"Oh! you mistook what I said," replied the other laughingly, as he threw himself down, selected a pannikin, and proceeded to slide several slices of fried bacon out of the skillet. Then as he accepted the tin cup of fragrant coffee which Merritt hastened to pour for him, he added, "Guess I like to eat when I'm hungry as well as anybody."
"But you draw the line there, don't you, Rob?" demanded Andy. "You don't want to eat any old time, whether you're hungry or not, like some fellows we know?"
"Yes, we know a few, Andy," Tubby hastened to thrust in, realizing that this was meant for his especial benefit; "and I notice that you're copying after me in great shape, so that soon I'll have to take a back seat."
"But what about those two cavalrymen, Rob?" asked Merritt, more deeply interested in seeking information along these lines than in learning which of the two disputing scouts could boast of the greater appetite.
"They've kicked the dust of this part of the country from their boots, and are riding pellmell away to the south," Rob answered. "I reckon there must be a big bunch of hard riders over there somewhere. All I hope is that we don't run foul of them during the day and find ourselves pursued."
Tubby, at that, forgot all about his controversy with Andy.
"What, us chased by a lot of greaser cavalry?" he exclaimed. "Jiminy crickets! I hope that don't happen! I am not in the best shape going to do any tall riding; though if I'm hard pushed, you'll find me sticking to my horse like a mustard plaster. Mebbe you'll have to take a crow-bar next time, Rob, to pry me loose from my saddle."
"Well, let's get through eating as soon as we can," Rob told him; "because this isn't any time to take things easy."
"Huh! always rushing me when I just get settled down to enjoy a little bite of grub which I've helped cook," grumbled Tubby. But seeing that the others were making haste, he set his jaws to working at double pace; and when no one was looking he even managed to slip some of the hard tack into his pocket. If they did force him to shorten his breakfast hour to ten minutes, he wanted something to set his teeth into during the long hours that must elapse before they found another chance to break their fast.
The horses were soon saddled and packed, so that the camp in the thicket could be abandoned. Of course, as usual, they had to wait for Tubby, because something was always wrong with his bridle, or else the girth needed shortening so that his saddle would not turn with him as it had threatened to do many times the day before.
Finally the start was made.
The morning was fresh and clear; and while the day might turn out to be hot enough toward noon to "fry an egg on a stone in the sun," as Andy expressed it, the boys certainly enjoyed that first hour's gallop. Tubby, who soon found his former troubles coming back, did not have unalloyed pleasure, although he did not complain.
It was a fine stretch of country, and yet Rob knew that they were really not far from the dreary desert. At times, when they had a chance to look off to one side, they could see a vast level territory with not a single tree to break its monotony, nothing but the dry sand that each wind would send scurrying along to form new hillocks and valleys.
But they had also discovered something else that pleased them more. This was an occasional glimpse of the railroad that ran between Chihuahua and Juarez, being long known as the Mexican Central. In other days, before revolutions came again to vex Uncle Sam's southern neighbor, it had run without interruption all the way from the Rio Grande to Mexico City, many hundreds of miles.
For some time past this road had been first in the hands of the rebels, and then in the possession of the Federals. As each in turn tried to destroy as much of the track and rolling stock as possible before vacating, it can be understood that conditions were pretty bad all along the road at this time.
It was the intention of Rob later on in the day to seek this line of rusty rails and keep following it south. He anticipated meeting with a party of Villa's men, perhaps before dark set in. Making friends with them, he would demand to be taken into the presence of the commanding general, whether he happened to be in far-off Chihuahua, or at some point nearer by. He might even be chasing the marauding bands of Federals that were playing fast and loose with the railroad, on which he depended to move his men and munitions of war from Juarez south, on the way to Mexico City.
They kept on riding constantly for several hours. Even Merritt and Andy felt the strain, which must have been unusually severe on poor Tubby; but no one heard the gamey fat scout give even a groan. Often, when Rob would turn his head to look over his shoulder, he could not help but see the look of "never-say-die" that was imprinted on Tubby's glowing face, and notice how he kept mopping his streaming forehead.
But they were covering considerable distance, and that was a great comfort. Tubby had much more at stake than any one of his three chums, and he must, as the boys always said, "grin and bear it." In fact, there was nothing else that could be done, since going back now was out of the question; nor would Tubby have allowed any one to mention such a thing to him.
Once when Rob dropped back to ask him how he felt, Tubby knew that the leader was really solicitous about his welfare and had not made the inquiry merely in fun.
"I can stand it, Rob!" was all he said between his closely shut teeth; and knowing Tubby as well as he did, Rob felt sure that the fat boy would hold out, unless he actually fell from his saddle.
At noon they halted in order to rest the horses, and at the same time themselves have a bite. Again did Rob have to assist Tubby to alight, though the other began to frisk around shortly, as though grimly determined on showing them all that he had only been stiff from sitting so long, and was far from being done up.
It took a whole lot of grit for Tubby to mount when the time came to make a fresh start; but he seemed to feel that curious eyes were watching all he did; so summoning his reserve strength, he clambered into his saddle, and tried to look as happy as though he did not feel that he was sitting on an inverted pincushion.
Just one hour later they noticed a dense smoke rising ahead, which Lopez, on being asked, told them could only come from some burning bridge. That would seem to indicate that they must now be getting into the danger zone where Regulars and rebels were engaged in a game of tag, one side doing the chasing now, and the other presently turning the tables on them.
The little party had come down to more level ground and were heading for the railroad, when Rob, chancing to look back, meaning to see how Tubby was coming along, made a discovery that gave him an unpleasant feeling.
"We're being pursued, boys!" he called out, thinking it best that all of them should know the truth at once, however unpleasant it might prove.
Of course there was an immediate craning of necks, and startled exclamations from the other chums.
"Two dozen, if there's a man!" cried Merritt.
"And Mexican Regulars, too, for they wear uniforms, which the rebels don't!" added Andy. "Looks like we might be in for a lively run, doesn't it, Rob? And with our horses anything but fresh into the bargain!"
"Ginger snaps and pop guns!" Tubby was heard to say; "that settles my hash all right!"