The Pony Rider Boys in the Alkali Part 13

Tom Parry nodded.

"He's right. He killed the animal the first shot----"

"Then--then----" stammered Ned.

"There were two of them. Master Stacy killed one and you the other, and for your gratification I'll say that they are a very difficult animal to kill. One might try a hundred times and never hit one."

"If one knows how to shoot, it isn't," spoke up Stacy pompously.

"Which you certainly do," laughed the guide.

"May we take them back to camp and skin them?" asked Ned.

"You may take them in, of course; but I would not advise you to skin the brutes. The skins are not worth anything in the first place, and in the second, we should be unable to keep them all the way across the desert, I am afraid."

"You mean they would spoil?" questioned Ned.

"Yes."

"Then we'll take them down to show to the Professor. After that we'll bury them."

"Not necessary at all," smiled the guide. "The buzzards will attend to that part of the work. They'll be around in the morning. You'll see them."

"But how will the buzzards know?" asked Walter.

"That I cannot say. They do know. Instinct, I suppose. All animals and birds have the instinct necessary for their kind, yet it is all a mystery to us."

Very proudly the lads dragged their trophies to camp, where, after heaping fresh sage brush on the fire, the youngsters stretched the carca.s.ses out full length that Professor Zepplin might see.

"Very fine, young men. You say they were howling and woke you up?"

"Yes; didn't you hear them!" answered Stacy loudly.

"Indeed I did not. The first thing I heard was the report of a rifle, and then, in a few seconds, another. I couldn't imagine what was going on. When I tumbled out and found the camp deserted, I was alarmed. I feared you boys had gotten into other and more serious trouble. You should not take the guns out without either myself or the guide being with you."

"He was with us," interrupted Chunky.

"Then that was all right."

"But we didn't know he was with us, Professor," Tad Butler hastened to explain. "So we were in the wrong, even if he was along. However, it has turned out all right, and we've bagged two coyotes. Wish we could take their pictures. Why didn't we think to bring a camera with us?"

"I think I can supply that," laughed the guide. "I always carry one with me. In the morning I'll take your pictures. I got a new camera in Eureka yesterday, having lost my old one in the blow-out we had the other night."

The boys gave three cheers and a tiger for Tom Parry.

CHAPTER VII

CHUNKY COMES TO GRIEF

Breakfast was cooked in the cool of the early dawn, long before the sun had pushed its burning course up above the desert sands. Though the boys had but little sleep, they tumbled out at the guide's first hail, full of joyous enthusiasm for what lay before them that day.

Stacy Brown emerged from his tent rubbing his eyes. The lads uttered a shout when they saw him.

"Look at him!" yelled Ned. "Look at Chunky's eye!"

The right eye was surrounded by a black ring, the eyelid being of the same dark shade, where the end of the telescope on his rifle had kicked him.

"Young man, you are a sight to behold," smiled the Professor.

"I don't care. I got the coyote," retorted Stacy, with a grin.

"And the gun got him," added Walter.

"Judging from your appearance, I should say that the b.u.t.t of your rifle was almost as dangerous as the other end," laughed Tad.

"Come and get it!" called the guide.

The lads never had to be called twice for meals, and they were in their places at the breakfast table with a bound.

"Do you know, I'm beginning to like the sage brush taste in the food,"

said Walter.

Stacy made up a face.

"I should think you would be ashamed to sit down to a meal with that countenance of yours, Chunky," declared Ned.

"I might with some company."

"See here, Chunky Brown. Do you mean----"

"I mean that my face will get over what ails it, but yours won't," was the fat boy's keen-edged retort.

"All of which goes to prove," announced Tad wisely, "that you never can tell, by the looks of a toad, how far it will jump. I guess you'd better let Chunky alone after this. He's perfectly able to take care of himself, Ned."

Ned subsided and devoted his further attention to his breakfast. The meal finished, all hands set briskly to work to strike camp. In half an hour the burros were loaded ready for the day's journey. The boys set off singing.

"I don't see how you can tell where you are going," said the Professor.

"There is no sun and you have no compa.s.s."

"We are traveling almost due southwest. I never use a compa.s.s. It is not necessary."

"There, I knew I had forgotten to get something," announced Tad.

"Forgotten what?" questioned Walter.

"To get a compa.s.s."