Frontier Boys on the Coast Part 6

"By Gum," he exclaimed, "if here ain't a bovine cow looking at us. I ain't milked one for forty years, but I'm not afeard to try. 'Member, Pete, when we used to milk the cows back in old Connecticut on the farm.

After working in the hay all day, I'd go down in the side hill pasture, that was so steep that you had to hold on with your toes and your teeth to keep from sliding down to the brook."

"You bring it back to me just like it was a living picture," said Pete, his hard face softening under the gentle showers of memory.

"Then I'd drive the black and white one that was breechy, and the red mooley, the yaller and white that gave the richest milk. I'd drive them into the stanchions in the old barn, with the ground floor stoned up on the side, where it was sunk into the hill."

"But it was winter, Cap'n," said Pete, "that it was interesting doing the ch.o.r.es," and he blew reminiscently on his fingers, "snow two feet on the level and the sun a piece of blue ice in the sky. A condemned sight better place than Californey, where you don't feel no more alive than a enbalmed corpse."

The Captain began now a series of manoeuvres to get within range of one of the cows so that they might have fresh milk for breakfast. He managed it finally, and he certainly looked like a peaceful old farmer as with his gray head against a fat red cow's flank, he milked into a large tin cup. Pete selected a black mooley and soothed by the man's persuasive manner, she consented finally to give down a thin blue stream. But the saturnine mate was less successful as he knew much more about navigating a ship than he did about cows.

Finally after much awkward manoeuvring, he got a cow cornered and began operations upon the left side with the result that the cow landed upon him with her hoof and sent him sprawling on his back to the great delight of the Captain.

"Hurt bad, Bill?" inquired the Skipper with mock sympathy, "I'm afeard that you will never make a farmer."

"I never calkerlated to," replied the mate. "It ain't my line of business."

"Don't tell me that," said the Captain, "I can see that for myself. Come up here and I'll give you a drink."

They had scarcely finished their simple breakfast when Jack Cales gave a sudden alarm.

"Cap'n," he cried, "I see two men legging it our way. They are making straight for the hill."

"I guess they are coming to see why Manuello doesn't show up with the cows," remarked the Captain, "we don't want to stir up this hen roost as we've got other chicken to fry. So we'll git."

"Take the greaser?" inquired Jack.

"You and the mate fetch him," said the Captain.

Just as the two men were mounting the hill, the Captain and his crew made a swift sneak down the opposite slope, and were soon making their way through the bush towards the foot-hills. In a minute they heard the cries of the two men as they drove the herd of cows towards the home ranch for the morning milking. The sun had now risen above the eastern range just in front of them and was blazing down upon the plain and the sea beyond. There was something exhilarating in the air in spite of the heat.

"We don't need the company of that greaser any further," said Captain Broom, after they had made some headway up a canyon back of the ranch buildings. So they took some rope gra.s.s, tough as manilla, and tied him firmly, and, after having gagged him, they left him to be found later by some of his countrymen.

Then they toiled steadily up the trail of the canyon, until about noon they reached a pocket in the canyon where there was a pool of clear water fed by an invisible spring. Coming to meet them were four boys riding up the trail on the other side of the range.

CHAPTER VIII

THE CAMP IN THE POCKET

Under the guidance of the Mexican dwarf, the four boys came at last to a halt. It seemed as if the canyon down which they had been riding had come to an end for there was a wall of rock directly in front of them.

"Down there, Senor, is a pool of clear water," announced the Mexican.

"Glad to hear it, Manuel," said Jim heartily.

"Did you ever see a picture, Jim," put in Juarez significantly, "of a pool where the thirsty animals have to come to drink and before they get their noses in the water the hunter shoots them?"

But nothing of this dire nature happened and in a few minutes the famished animals were pumping the delicious water down their long, baked throats.

"My Gracious, but that tastes good!" cried Tom, drawing in a long, gasping breath, after he had been drinking steadily for about a minute.

"It makes my head swim."

"I should think it would," said Jo, sarcastically, "considering the amount you have drunk."

"You weren't far behind," grumbled Tom. "I thought that you were not going to leave enough for the horses."

"I don't especially like this place to camp in," said Jim. "We are not accustomed to get in a pocket like this. But it is too late to pull out tonight and the horses need a rest, so we will keep guard."

"Better drown the brown rat first," remarked Juarez to Jim. But the latter only shook his head and laughed.

The camp was made about twenty feet east of the spring in a small grove of slender trees backed by a high wall of steep granite, down which poured a waterfall in the rainy season.

The fire was built upon a flat rock in the centre of the grove where there was no danger of it catching in the gra.s.s and bushes which were dry as tinder. If once a mountain fire was started at the end of the dry season there would be no stopping it until it had devastated the whole country.

The light of the fire showed the usual cheery and active scene that goes with making camp. How many times the Frontier Boys had gone through these preparations it is impossible to say. They had camped on the plains of Kansas, in the mountains of Colorado, on the Mesas of New Mexico, the banks of the Colorado river, and the Pampas of Mexico. Now we find them in the coast range of California.

It was not an especially dangerous country in which they were camped, nothing to compare with parts of Colorado and Mexico, but never were they in greater danger than at the present moment and this camp promised to be their last together, except they had unusual luck.

There was a traitor in the company, and even now four pairs of hostile eyes were watching them as they moved in the light of the fire. The Captain of the Sea Eagle and his three trusty men were hidden in some bushes at the top of the pocket on the western side.

Juarez and Jim busied themselves first in looking after their horses.

Removing the saddles they rubbed down each animal thoroughly, clear to the fetlocks and then gave them a good feed of grain. Jo and Tom were on the supper committee and busying themselves making preparations for a square meal. Manuello, who had been with the boys on the other side of the range and was accustomed to help in odd ch.o.r.es about camp, now offered to aid in getting the supper.

"I will make the coffee with your permission, Senor Jo," he proposed.

"Do you savvy it all right, Manuello?" inquired Jo.

"Ah, yes, Senor. I can make such coffee as the Holy Father would be pleased to drink," he replied with fervor.

"Not too strong because it keeps me awake," protested Tom.

"No, no, Senor Thomas," replied Manuello with a sweeping bow, "the coffee I make is very soothing. It will give you a long, soft sleep."

There was an undertone of subtle irony that was entirely lost upon the two straightforward boys.

"That's a good fellow, Manuello," said Jo, cordially, and he handed the coffee pot filled with water to the Mexican, who went about the preparation of it with a deftness that showed that he knew what he was about. Not one of the boys saw him slip a white powder into the coffee pot. It quickly dissolved and the coffee began to bubble innocently enough under the eyes of the hunchback Manuello.

Juarez and Jim just then came back from looking after the horses which were fastened near the wall of rock. As soon as Juarez saw the Mexican watching over the coffee pot, his eyes narrowed with suspicion.

"Who made the coffee?" he asked Jo, bluntly.

"Manuello," replied Jo.

"The Senor will find the coffee truly delicious," said the hunchback with a bow, "only the Mexican knows how to keep its aroma when boiling it."

"Humph," grunted Juarez, and he went deliberately to the fire and lifted the coffee pot off and poured its contents on the ground.