voices of Agua Caliente were before them.
CHAPTER V.
THE RUSTLERS AT WORK
"Jack!"
"Um-um-um-huh!" from Jack Merrill, as he turned over in his cot.
"Listen! There it is again – What is it?"
Ralph Stetson sat bolt upright in bed, listening with all his might to the strange and shivery sound which had awakened him. It was shortly after midnight, following the evening of the boys' arrival, and both were sleeping – or rather had been sleeping – in a room set aside for them in one wing of the low, straggly ranch house in the foothills of the Sierra de la Hacheta.
"Wow-wow-wow!" came the cry once more from somewhere among the dreary, moonlit hills outside.
"Oh, that!" said the ranch-raised boy, with a laugh. "That's coyotes!"
"Oh," rejoined Ralph wisely. "Coyotes, eh?" But he did not lie down again. Instead, he listened more intently than before. Presently came another howl from some distance off.
"They're conversational beasts, aren't they?" inquired Ralph.
"What do you mean?" sleepily muttered Jack.
"Why, some friend of the one I just heard is answering him. Hark!"
Jack Merrill became suddenly interested as he heard the second howl. His eyes grew round as he listened intently, and he, too, sat up in his bed.
"Say," he remarked, "that is funny. And hark! there's another one – off there to the south."
"What do you suppose they are up to?"
"I've no idea, but I tell you what – if you like, we'll take the rifle and sneak out and see. What do you say?"
"Um – well, it's a bit chilly to go coyote hunting, but I should like to get one. Professor Wintergreen said at supper last night that he would like to have the hide of one of the beasts for his collection. Let's go!"
"All right. Just slip on a few clothes. The magazine of my rifle's full. Don't make a racket getting out of the house, though. I don't just know how dad would take it."
"But he'll hear the rifle if we shoot one."
"That's so; but it will be too late then."
Silently as cats, the two boys got out of bed and dressed, an operation which was performed by slipping on trousers, shirts and boots over their pajamas. Then, with their sombrero hats on, they were ready to creep outside. The moon had been up for an hour, and was shining down in a radiant flood, illuminating the heaving surface of the foothills as if they had been a silver sea.
"Which way will we go?" whispered Ralph, as they stole along in the dark shadow of the low timber house like two culprits.
"Over there. Down toward the corral. The chicken house is down there, and those four-footed thieves are fond of chicken au naturel."
Taking advantage of every bit of shadow that offered, the two lads crept toward the corral, a big inclosure about half an acre in extent, in the center of which stood a fenced haystack. The horses of the ranch were generally turned loose in it to browse about at their will. Usually not more than enough for the use of the ranch-house family were kept there, the rest being driven in from the "remuda" as required.
"Say, it's silent, isn't it?" whispered Ralph, as they crawled along behind a big stack of wild-oat hay.
"Well, you didn't expect to find a roaring city in the heart of the foothills of the Hachetas, did you?" inquired Jack, with vast sarcasm. "Hush! Now I think I saw something!"
"Where?"
"Off there to the south. It was slipping along among the hills. There, there it is again!"
Ralph strained his eyes into the darkness, but could see nothing of the object Jack had indicated. It had gone as utterly as if it had not been there.
Suddenly the wild howls that had awakened Ralph broke out once more. This time they came quite close at hand, and neither boy could repress a start at the sound. It gave an impression of an outburst of demoniac mirth.
"Wow! ow-ow-ow-ow-ow!"
The cry was immediately echoed from the direction in which Jack had declared he had seen a gray shadow flitting in and out. The next instant both boys gave an involuntary shout of surprise, which they hastily checked, realizing that they were face to face with a stern necessity for silence.
Outlined as clearly against the moonlight as if it had been cut from black paper, the figure of a horseman had momentarily appeared, and then as abruptly vanished.
At the same instant there came a wild disturbance of hoofs in the corral, and before the boys' astonished eyes four more horsemen dashed from it and swept off toward the south. Behind them there trailed half a dozen of the animals which had been feeding or sleeping in the corral. To the neck of each was attached a lariat, and they followed their captors at breakneck speed.
"Horse thieves!" shouted Jack, springing to his feet and giving the alarm by firing a volley of bullets after the retreating rustlers.
Instantly the sleeping ranch galvanized into active life. Lights flashed here and there, and from the bunkhouse on a hillside below the main house there poured a strangely assorted score of hastily aroused cowboys. Some of them were trouserless, but all carried their revolvers.
"What's the matter? What is it?" shouted Mr. Merrill's voice.
"Dad, it's horse thieves!" shouted Jack.
"Some of Black Ramon's bunch, for a bet!" roared Bud Wilson, emerging with a lantern and vaulting into the corral.
"Oh, the dirty scoundrels!" he broke out the next instant.
"What is it? What have they done, Bud?" cried Jack, who realized from the usually impassive vaquero's tone that something very much was amiss.
"Why, they've taken the pick of the bunch! Look here, Firewater's gone, my calico, and – "
"But they've left some horses. Quick! Let's get after them. We can overtake them!" urged Mr. Merrill, who had hastily thrown on some clothes, and, followed by the professor, was now down at the corral.
"We can't," wailed Bud; "the precious rascals have hamstrung all the horses they didn't want."
A chorus of furious voices broke out at this. Black Ramon, if it were he or his band that had made the midnight raid, had planned it cleverly. It would be hours before fresh horses could be rounded up from the "remuda," and the poor animals remaining had been crippled fatally. Few minds but that of a Mexican could have conceived of such a fiendish act. The unfortunate animals, uncomplainingly, as is the manner of horses, were lying about the corral, looking up at the men about with mute agony in their large eyes.
"Oh, blazes! if I could get my hands on that greaser!" roared Bud Wilson.
"Steady now, Bud, steady!" said Mr. Merrill, though his own frame trembled with rage at the needless brutality of the raiders. "Hard words will do no good now."
"Let's keep quiet a minute. Maybe we can hear the clatter of their hoofs," said one of the cowboys, a young chap who had come to the ranch from a peaceful California range not long before.
"Not much chance of that," said Bud Wilson bitterly. "Those chaps had the hoofs of their own mounts and the ones they stole all muffled – you can bet your Sunday sombrero on that."
"That's why they made so little noise when they led them off," said Ralph. But in the general agitation no one paid any attention to him.
Everybody was rushing about asking questions, giving orders, hastening this way and that with lanterns. Even the Chinese cook was out with a frying pan in his hand, seemingly under the impression that it was up to him to cook something.
It was Mr. Merrill who first found his head.
"Silence!" he cried in a stern, ringing voice. "You, Bud, select two men and put these poor brutes here out of their pain."
"If it's all the same to you, boss, will you give that job to some one else?" said Bud, with a queer little break