Frontier Boys on the Coast Part 7

"The American does not care for the aroma of your Mexican coffee," he said coolly.

The Mexican merely gave a peculiar hitch to his shoulder, spat on the ground and turned away apparently mortally offended as he, no doubt, was. That part of his scheme had been blocked by the craftiness of Juarez, but the Captain might make good where his spy had failed.

The Mexican sat back in the shadow on a rock smoking a cigarette, while the boys ate their supper of beans, meat, bread and coffee. He was the skeleton at the feast as it were, not only his malignant humor made itself felt, but there was a sense of depression that they could not shake off, try as they would.

This was so unusual that they could not account for it. As a rule, they were jolly and even when danger was impending, they felt a certain confidence and a.s.surance, but not so tonight.

"What makes us feel so on the b.u.m tonight, do you suppose?" asked Tom.

"Maybe this canyon is haunted," proposed Jo, who had an imaginative streak in him.

"I tell you the way I figure it," said Jim. "We are not used to camping in a hollow like this, for before this we have always selected a place that we could defend, and though there is no particular danger from outlaws or Indians in these mountains, we can't shake off our old habits."

"I believe there is something in that," acquiesced Jo.

"It's that rat over there," said Juarez loudly.

The Mexican laughed coolly and insolently, and lighted another cigarette. This would have maddened an excitable person, but Juarez was in a stoical mood and he contented himself with flinging a bone that he had been gnawing at, carelessly over his shoulder, almost striking the Mexican in the face.

This set that peppery individual wild and he tore around considerably, tearing his hair, stamping his feet and sputtering with maledictions at the insult that had been offered him.

"I am no dog that you can throw a bone to," and he sizzled off into a string of unpleasant remarks.

"Here you, Manuello," roared Jim, rising to his feet and standing over the Mexican, "not another yelp out of you."

Manuello had a respect for this big American lad much as he despised his simplicity and he sobered down. Besides he had not finished his work for the night. He had failed to get the sleeping drug to the boys in the coffee and now he must be ready to help his master, Captain Broom of the Sea Eagle, in some other way.

There was a person whom he feared and admired absolutely and he had been a most useful spy and agent for the Skipper in certain nefarious plots.

It was well for the little hunchback that no one knew of his share in the betraying of old Juan Sebastian some years before.

"You will have the first watch, Jo," ordered Jim. "It is now nine o'clock. I will relieve you at eleven and stand guard until two. Juarez from two until five and Tom can have the short watch."

According to this arrangement, Jim and Juarez would be on guard during the danger hours.

How many times in the past had the boys stood guard over their camp. Was this to be the last guard? There were the old Kansas days, when they had to be on the watch against horse thieves. Then came the dangerous crisis in their Colorado experiences, when they had to guard against the wiles of the Indians. And most exciting of all, perhaps, the night in old Mexico when they camped on the trail of the outlaws. I wonder if Jo, the first on duty, thought of these old times that night. Probably not, his mind being fully occupied with the business in hand.

CHAPTER IX

THE ATTACK

So the three boys rolled into their blankets with the saddles for pillows and dropped immediately to sleep as they were very tired from the long, hard ride. They lay at different points around the fire, which was allowed to die down as the fog seemed like a warm gray blanket over the whole landscape.

Jo sat on a log by the slowly dying fire, with his rifle on his knees looking into the darkness and not far from him lay the Mexican a mere dark lump on the ground, apparently asleep, but keeping a wary eye on all around. Imperceptibly he crept nearer to where Jo was sitting, but he did not have the weapon he would have preferred in his hand, the stiletto, which was as natural to him as the fangs to a rattlesnake.

But it did not suit the long-headed Captain Broom to have the boys killed. He wanted their life as well as their money, but in a different sense than the adage has it. From what he had heard of them, they were boys of unusual mettle and varied acquirements. If caught young, he could train them to good purpose. If they proved worthless, he would hold them for ransom.

So Captain Broom had told Manuello briefly and to the point that there was to be no rib-sticking and the Mexican would have thought as soon of disobeying the commands of the Evil One as of going contrary to the instructions of the Captain. So as he crept towards Jo, he held not a poniard in his clenched hand, but a heavy weapon like a black-jack, made of leather with a weight at the end.

Jo, however, spoiled his first attempt, for when the greaser had got within striking distance, Jo got up and went down to the pool to get a drink. If it had not been so dark, when they arrived, the boys would have seen tracks around the pool that would have aroused their suspicions. But everything seemed to work against them this time.

Jo stooped down at the brink and scarcely put his thirsty lips to the water when some instinct of warning made him look quickly around and he saw a small dark object directly back of him.

"Pardon, Senor, for startling you;" it was the voice of the dwarf, "but I, too, was very thirsty. It is in the air."

"You needn't have been so quiet about it," said Jo, crossly. This little rat always had a way of baffling and irritating him, because he did not have Jim's force, which could beat down the dwarf when occasion demanded it, or the stoicism of Juarez, which blocked the hunchback.

"I came softly, Senor," said the Mexican, imperturbably, "because I did not wish to disturb the slumbers of the Senors who are resting."

"Get down and drink, then," said Jo, who, though he realized that the Mexican was up to some hidden deviltry, did not know how to meet him.

Jim and Juarez would have knocked him out of the camp if they had discovered him trailing them, with a warning that he would be shot if he put in an appearance again.

While the Mexican was pretending to drink, Jo satisfied his thirst at a point of the pool where he would be safe from a sudden attack by the hunchback. For Jo was not a fool by any means. Then he got to his feet and with the Mexican ahead of him, he saw to that, he made his way back to the camp.

Scarcely had Jo seated himself upon the rock again than he heard a stick snap upon the mountain side above the horses, so he got to his feet to investigate.

"You can stay where you are, Manuello," said Jo. "I don't need your company this time." The Mexican laughed softly to himself.

"I hope the Senor Americano will not get lonesome," he said.

Jo made a careful search in the direction of the sound but found no sign of a human being lurking among the trees. Though he felt exceedingly nervous, he was unable to account therefor or give a reason.

Very quietly he went the rounds, so as not to awake the boys, who, however, were sleeping heavily. He found the horses all right standing with drooping heads as though dozing, Jo's black with his neck over Tom's bay, as these horses were great chums. But Caliente and Juarez's roan were not sociable and kept strictly to themselves.

Then Jo returned to the rock where he had been sitting. He stirred the dying fire so that it sent up a feeble spurt of flame by the aid of which he looked at his watch. It lacked a few minutes of ten. The Mexican had taken up his old place on the ground watching for his chance. He was anxious that the attack should take place during Jo's watch for he had his doubts in regard to Juarez or the redoubtable Jim proving easy victims.

All this time, Captain Bill Broom and his crew had been keeping watch upon their intended victims from the top of the cliff above the pool.

They could see every move from the time the Frontier Boys had arrived until they lay down near the smouldering fire.

"They are a husky lot," was the Captain's first comment. "That tall fellar, I guess, is a horse tamer and Injun fighter."

Some time later when the altercation occurred about the coffee and Juarez expressed his opinion about the Mexican, the Captain could scarcely keep from haw-hawing right out.

"Them fellars have got some dis'pline," commented the saturnine mate.

"You're right they hev," said the Captain.

"That lad don't know how to handle my pet rattlesnake," was the Captain's comment when the Mexican trailed Jo to the drinking pool.

After Jo had returned from making his rounds and had resumed his guard again, the Captain decided that the time had come for action.

"Now, lads," he ordered, "pull off your shoes and the first man that makes a sound will get his neck cracked. Knock 'em out, if necessary, but no killing this time."

Then they started, the Captain in the lead, and old Pete bringing up the rear. They had had a good many hours in that vicinity and had made a path from their hiding place to the soft dust trail. So they moved in their sock feet without a sound. There was an oppressive stillness in that dark canyon under the heavy blanket of fog.

Already it had began to lower and as the sailors advanced with snail-like slowness the heavy white fog settled down, filling the canyon with its white opaqueness. You could not see five feet in front, and the moisture beaded itself upon the eyebrows and mustaches of the men.