Rob did not know whether it was half an hour that he had been lost in slumber, or five times that long, when he was rudely disturbed by some one kicking his shins. And at the same time he became conscious of a low whispering voice saying:
"Rob, oh! Rob, are you awake? What under the sun is making that queer noise?"
It was Andy calling; and becoming conscious that there were some strange noises rising on the night air close by at the same time, Rob raised his head the better to listen.
Andy"s question must have been overheard by Merritt, for he at once let them know he was awake and on the alert; but as for Tubby, he only wheezed, and breathed harder than ever; for he was a thousand miles away in his dreams.
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 senors; 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 a.s.sured 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 b.u.t.ton, 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 n.o.bler 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 a.s.sured 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 circ.u.mstances. For that is what a patrol leader is expected to do when he has been elevated to his important position.