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CHAPTER IX
THEIR SLUMBERS DISTURBED

“All aboard for the High Sierras!” called Stacy Brown, swinging to his saddle a few minutes later. The others, one by one, mounted and sat awaiting the order to start.

Woo Smith had gone on ahead. Scorning the use of a pony to ride, he had trotted on, shooing the pack-horses along, the departure of the Overlanders having been deferred until about an hour after he had left them. Woo said that he would make camp at a good place and have supper ready upon their arrival.

The Overlanders finally started away, waving their hands to the curious natives, and soon reached the trail that led towards the High Country. The trail was an old one, but so seldom used that it could hardly be dignified by the name of trail. Woo plainly was familiar with it, for he had reached it by the most direct course, marking the beginning of it by breaking over branches of bushes, a trick that he had learned from white men with whom he had explored the mountains at some previous time.

Very good time was made that day, and when about eighteen miles from Gardner they saw the smoke of Woo’s camp-fire. Half an hour later they reached it and found that the guide had selected an ideal camping place. There was water and good feed for the horses. Woo already had turned out the pack-horses, which were grazing out of sight of the camp, and the cowbells on two of them could be heard tinkling in the distance.

“I reckon I drew a prize,” declared Hippy pompously, referring to Woo.

“Time will tell,” answered Emma Dean.

“I agree with you,” answered Elfreda Briggs. “One shouldn’t jump at conclusions, as Grace Harlowe says.”

Saddles were quickly removed, and, before doing anything else, the men of the party washed the backs of the ponies to prevent the animals becoming saddle-sore. By the time they had finished and turned out the ponies to browse, the guide had supper ready for them. The air was hot and motionless, for they were not yet high enough in the mountains to catch the cool breezes from the snow-clad tops, and all felt the heat.

The Chinaman had prepared a supper that won golden words of praise from the girls of the Overland party, and Stacy and Hippy ate until it seemed as if they must pop open. The flapjacks fairly melted in the mouths of the Riders and the coffee they pronounced to be delicious.

“Won’t it be fine not to have to do any cooking on this trip?” smiled Emma.

“Yes. I feel as if a great load had been lifted from my shoulders,” agreed Stacy. “I did most of the cooking for our Pony Rider outfit. Ordinarily I would rather cook than do most anything that I know of.”

“I am sincerely glad that you are not cooking for this party,” declared Emma Dean with emphasis.

“You are congratulating yourselves too early,” interjected Nora Wingate. “We are all going to do work just as we always have done.”

Grace and Elfreda agreed with her.

“You don’t mean that we’ve got to get up in the dewy morning and rustle grub for the outfit, do you?” demanded Chunky.

“Yes, of course,” answered Grace.

“That is the fun of camping,” said Miss Briggs. “We should soon forget all we knew had we servants to do the work for us. He is an industrious fellow, though, I must say,” added Elfreda, glancing at Woo, who was busily at work washing dishes and singing “Hi-lee, hi-lo!”

“He is a song-bird, too,” observed Stacy.

“Woo, you must be saving of the provisions,” called Grace. “Remember we must make our supplies go a long way, for we shall not get any more for some time.”

“Don’t wolly till to-mollow. Hi-lee, hi-lo; hi-lee, hi-lo!” sang the guide.

“What’s that he says?” demanded Tom Gray.

“He says, ‘Don’t worry until to-morrow,’” interpreted Emma.

“Ha, ha!” laughed Chunky, and the Overland Riders joined in the laughter.

“You savvy plenty to-mollow. Me savvy glub to-mollow,” added Woo, chuckling to himself.

“He speaks hog Latin quite fluently, doesn’t he?” observed Stacy solemnly.

“You leave it to Smith. I found Smith, you know,” reminded Hippy Wingate pridefully.

“Hi-lee, hi-lo!” sang the Chinaman, continuing with his work, while the Overlanders, having finished their supper, gathered about the campfire, and forgot the heat of the California night in its cheerful glow. It seemed good to them to be out in the open once more, to be where they were obliged to depend almost wholly on their own resourcefulness for their food and lodging, if not for their lives, for they were going into perilous places, places fraught with dangers.

Woo, having completed his work, and having hung his frying-pans and other equipment to nails driven in a tree, sat down on his haunches by the fire, and, after composing himself, lost his long yellow fingers in the mysterious depths of his wide-flowing sleeves.

“Me savvy plenty fine night,” he observed, gazing blissfully up into the sky. “You savvy plenty fine night, too?” he asked, looking soulfully at Miss Briggs.

“I savvy the same as you do, Woo,” replied Elfreda soberly. “It is going to be a fine night for sleep, but I think the air will be cooler later on.”

Woo nodded wisely, and Stacy glanced up with quickened interest.

“Are we going to sleep on the ground?” he asked.

“Yes,” answered Tom Gray. “You ought to be used to that.”

“Are there snakes up here?” questioned the fat boy apprehensively.

“Me savvy plenty snake,” the guide informed them.

“What kind?” wondered Emma.

“Lattlers.”

“He means rattlers,” interpreted Grace Harlowe.

“Oh, wow!” muttered the fat boy. “I think I’ll climb a tree.”

“You will take pot luck on the ground with the rest of us,” answered Tom rather severely.

“Me savvy lattler in blanket once,” declared the guide. “Lattler sleep plenty in blanket. Go away in molning. Lattler no hurt Chinaman,” explained Woo.

Signs of uneasiness were observable among the girls of the Overland party, and in Stacy Brown as well. Tom declared that Woo was “drawing the long bow,” and said that he never had heard anything of the sort about the Sierra trails.

“I have,” announced Hippy. “There are snakes all about here, but we are not going to lose any sleep over it. Besides, Stacy is getting the wiggles.”

“Yes. For goodness sake, drop the subject. You folks give me the willyjiggs,” shivered Emma Dean.

“I’m not getting the wiggles,” protested Stacy. “I reckon I’m not afraid of anything that walks.”

“We were not speaking of that kind,” reminded Nora. “We were speaking of reptiles.”

“How long do you figure that it will take us to get into the High Country?” asked Grace by way of changing the subject.

“Me savvy eight days,” answered Woo. “You savvy mebby pony him no climb?”

“Yes, they can, too,” objected Stacy indignantly. “Our ponies can go where a bird can. Don’t you forget that.”

“Me savvy plenty snake, too,” added Woo.

“For goodness sake, stop that snake conversation,” cried Emma. “I shall surely dream about snakes if you go on that way.”

Smith grinned happily, then proceeded, with the utmost composure, to relate experiences with big rattlers in the Sierras. He told of waking up in the morning and finding one coiled in his blanket, under his arm, or, perhaps, nestled close to his neck for warmth from the chill night air of the higher altitudes, until Stacy was on the verge of a panic, and Emma Dean was shivering.

“Mr. Smith,” she said, after regarding him inquiringly for some moments. “Have you ever had any experience with transmigration of thought?” she asked.

“Tlans – tlans – ”

“Transmigration,” assisted Hippy.

“Tlansmiglation! Les. Me savvy. Me savvy one time big hunter shoot one in mountains. Woo savvy bad medicine and run away,” chuckled the Chinaman.

“I reckon that will be about all for you this evening, Emma,” observed Hippy Wingate, amid peals of laughter from the Overland girls.

Tom got out the bedding, consisting of a blanket apiece, and a tarpaulin for a cover, while Woo busied himself with cutting browse which he placed on the ground and laid blankets on it. It was not a particularly soft bed at that. While they were preparing their beds, Stacy poked about with a stick, covering a radius of several rods.

“What in the world are you doing?” demanded Nora Wingate.

“He is beating up the landscape to drive out the serpents,” answered Emma. “You are a tenderfoot, aren’t you?”

“I don’t like the fleas to get next to my skin,” explained the fat boy lamely. “They tell me that these California fleas are awful.”

“Were I as tough as you, I do not believe I should worry about a little thing like that,” retorted Emma.

Stacy made no reply, but poked the fire savagely, then piled on more wood, occupying all the time he could before preparing for bed, and the others had turned in long before he was ready.

“Stop that fussing and come to bed!” ordered Hippy.

“Yes, for goodness sake, do,” added Miss Briggs. “Woo Smith, aren’t you ready to turn in?”

“Les. Me savvy glub first.”

“You might fetch Uncle Hip and myself a bite to eat while you are on the food question,” suggested Stacy.

“No food until breakfast,” admonished Grace.

After idling about and grumbling for fifteen minutes more, Stacy finally crawled in under the tarpaulin, uttering dismal groans and complaints about the hardness of his bed. All were lying with feet towards the fire. The smoke and the blaze drove away insects, and the warmth was pleasant, even though the night was sultry, and it was not long after that when the Overlanders dropped off to sleep.

Woo, chuckling to himself and muttering, crept cautiously to the men’s side of the fire, surveyed the layout, then crawled in under the tarpaulin beside Stacy Brown. A few moments later, Hippy, who lay next to Stacy, was aroused by the fat boy’s mutterings. Stacy was dreaming about snakes. Hippy knew because he heard his fat nephew say, “Snakes!”

“I’ll teach that boy a lesson and make him dream of something worth while,” decided Hippy. Rising on one elbow, Lieutenant Wingate glanced over the row of heads just visible above the top of the tarpaulin. He could barely make out their features in the faint light, but when his gaze finally came to rest on the face of the sleeping Chinaman, Hippy Wingate was suddenly possessed of a brilliant idea. Woo lay flat on his back, both hands snugly tucked into the wide-flowing sleeves.

“I have it,” chuckled Hippy.

Reaching over Chunky very cautiously, he lifted the long black queue of the guide, held it for a moment, then softly dropped it across the face of the sleeping, snoring Stacy. Chunky muttered and stirred restlessly. Hippy waited, then began slowly drawing the queue over Stacy’s face.

The fat boy awakened suddenly, but he did not move at once, for he was fairly paralyzed with terror. Something cold and soft was wriggling over his face. Uttering a mighty yell, Stacy grabbed that wriggling queue, at the same time giving it a tug.

It was now Woo Smith’s turn to yell, and yell he did, as he struggled and fought to free himself.

Stacy, hurling the thing from him, leaped to his feet, howling lustily. He stepped on Woo and went over backwards, landing on Hippy’s stomach, struggling and fighting, and finally finishing up by fastening his fingers in Tom Gray’s hair.

The camp was instantly in an uproar, and none was more loud in his protestations than Hippy Wingate himself.

CHAPTER X
“BOOTS AND SADDLES”

“Stop that noise!” shouted Tom Gray.

Emma uttered a frightened cry and springing up, started to run.

“Come back! We are all right,” commanded Miss Briggs.

“Oh, what is it? Hippy, my darlin’, are you all right?” wailed Nora.

“Snakes! Snakes! Oh, wow!” howled Stacy Brown.

All hands had turned out in a hurry, and Woo Smith was dancing about chattering and fondling his head at the base of his queue.

“Snakes! Where?” cried Emma.

“It crawled right over my face,” declared Stacy. “I grabbed it and hurled it from me, and think I must have flung it against a tree and killed it. Uncle Hip, go see if you can find it.”

“You poor fish!” chortled Hippy Wingate.

“You – you must be a good thrower, for there isn’t a tree near where you slept,” declared Emma.

“That’s so, there isn’t,” admitted Chunky. “Well, anyhow, it must have been a stone that I threw the snake against.”

“What you did do, young man, was to fall on me with your full weight,” rebuked Hippy. “Oh, why did I ever ask you to come with us?”

“That’s what I have been wondering,” agreed Emma.

“Please, please quiet down, good people,” begged Grace laughingly. “Suppose we find out what actually did occur. Does anyone know?”

“Yes. I know. A great big snake crawled over me,” averred Stacy.

“With all due respect to you, Stacy Brown, I don’t believe it,” differed Elfreda.

“He ate too much and had the nightmare,” suggested Miss Dean.

“It wasn’t a mare. I tell you it was a snake,” insisted Stacy. “I guess I know what I am talking about, and don’t you try to make me believe anything different. I won’t! I know what I believe, and I believe what I know, and that’s the end of it.”

“Well, sir, what is the matter with you?” demanded Tom, facing the excited Chinaman.

“Mr. Smith has the willyjiggs, too,” answered Emma.

Woo chattered and caressed his head.

“Me savvy somebody pull queue. Me savvy head almost come off. Ouch!”

“Just a moment. Just a moment,” begged Grace. “You say someone pulled your queue?”

“Les.”

“This demands further investigation,” spoke up Hippy. “The question now before this tribunal is, who pulled the Chinaman’s queue. Emma Dean, did you pull Honorable Smith’s queue?”

“I did not,” retorted, Emma indignantly.

“All right, all right; don’t get all heated up about it. I take it that none of the other ladies tried to scalp our guide. How about you, Stacy?”

Stacy declared that he didn’t know anything about it, and cared less, and Tom Gray said the idea that he had done such a thing was preposterous.

“We will leave it to Smith,” announced Hippy. “Woo, did Mr. Brown try to pull your halter off?”

“Les, les. Me savvy him pull queue. Him neally pull head off. Woof!”

“I begin to understand. Ladies and gentlemen, the mystery is solved. The Honorable Woo Smith’s queue got on Stacy’s face and Stacy thought it was a snake. You see how easy it is to be carried away by one’s imagination. Stacy, if you raise further disturbance in this outfit I shall require you to roost by yourself. I, for one, at least, need my rest.”

“If Woo will get out I’ll keep quiet,” answered Stacy.

“Don’t wolly till to-mollow,” advised the Oriental, pawing about like an animal, in search of a suitable place on which to lie down and sleep.

No further disturbance occurred that night, though Stacy refused to turn in until he had seen Woo lie down at some distance from him, and at daybreak the Overlanders were aroused by the “Hi-lee, hi-lo!” of the guide, who was out gathering wood for the breakfast fire.

“Come, folks. Wash and get busy,” urged Hippy. “Who is the wrangler this morning?”

“It is Stacy’s turn, I believe,” replied Tom Gray.

“I don’t want to wrangle. I’m too sleepy and too cold,” protested the boy.

“That makes no difference. There is to be no shirking in this outfit,” answered Uncle Hippy.

The wrangler is the man who goes out in the morning to round up the horses. Following the custom in the mountains, the Overlanders had turned out all but two of the ponies, permitting the stock to graze where it pleased through the night. The pack animals had been hobbled. It now became Stacy Brown’s duty to find the animals, and drive the herd into camp.

“I don’t hear the cow bells. The animals must have gotten away quite a distance,” suggested Emma mischievously.

Stacy took all the time he could in getting ready, and, as a result, by the time he was ready to start, breakfast was nearly ready to be served.

“Don’t I eat first?” he questioned anxiously.

“Certainly not. Wranglers always go out for the horses before breakfast,” reminded Emma.

Chunky threw himself into the saddle and galloped away at a reckless pace, but his was a long chase, for the ponies had wandered some distance from camp. They were lying down in a glade and did not move or make a sound when the boy rode past them.

Stacy had followed their trail out, but, suddenly discovering that he had lost it, he turned about and went back to pick it up. This time he discovered the animals.

“So! There you are, eh?” he jeered, regarding the horses resentfully. “Thought you would play me a smart trick, did you? I’ll be even with you for that.”

After much floundering about, the white pack pony, Kitty, finally got up grunting and groaning dismally, then Stacy began removing the hobbles from their legs. Kitty gave him the most trouble, the white mare insisting on grabbing Chunky by the trousers every time he stooped to unfasten the hobbles. This continued until Stacy finally lost his patience, and, getting a switch, he gave Kitty a good sharp touching-up. Finally, having completed his task, he turned their heads towards camp and mounted his own saddle pony.

“Shoo! Go on, you lazy louts! Think I am going to eat cold grub, just out of consideration for you?”

It was shortly after that that the Overlanders in camp heard the tinkle of the bells on two of the pack animals, and when Stacy rode into camp the party was half way through breakfast. Slipping from his saddle, Stacy started at a run for breakfast, flinging a set of hobbles at the cook as he passed.

“Stacy! You are becoming a very violent young man,” smiled Grace.

“Becoming?” spoke up Emma Dean. “It is my opinion that he always has been. No one could acquire his manners in so short a time.”

“Association sometimes plays strange freaks with one,” retorted Stacy. “Say, Uncle Hip. That white mare is a terror. She actually hid so that I should not see her; then, when I finally found her, she tried to eat me up. The brown one is the laziest thing I ever saw. We ought to call her the Idler, she’s so lazy.”

“Good!” cried Elfreda. “Idler she shall be, with the permission of our Captain, Grace Harlowe.”

“How about the other one?” asked Stacy.

“The black?” questioned Tom.

“Yes. He is always stumbling and getting into difficulties,” said Chunky.

“We will name him Calamity,” said Grace.

“That is what I was going to name the Chinaman,” grumbled the fat boy.

“The wrangler always attends to the packing, you know,” reminded Elfreda after they had finished breakfast.

“This wrangler doesn’t,” answered Chunky.

“Of course, in view of the fact that this is our first morning out, and that you are still a little green – ” teased Miss Briggs.

“His natural color,” interjected Emma.

“I will help you,” finished Hippy. “By the way, you need not throw the diamond hitch around the packs this morning. Kitty has a soft pack, and the square hitch will answer very well, provided you make it good and tight.”

“Oh, I’ll make it tight, all right. I’ll lash it so tightly that the old horse won’t be able to breathe. I owe her a grudge, anyway,” declared Stacy. “Did you folks know that I learned a new hitch at Gardner?”

“Impossible!” exclaimed Emma.

“It is called ‘The Lone Packer,’” continued Stacy, unheeding the interruption. “It is even harder to learn to tie than is the diamond hitch. For a load of small articles it is supposed to be the best in use. The particular feature about it is that it pulls the pack away from the animal’s sides and prevents chafing.”

“Here, here! That isn’t the way to throw a square hitch,” objected Hippy, hurrying over to Stacy who was laboring with the white mare’s pack, Kitty standing with all four feet braced, groaning dismally. “What have you done to her?”

“I? Nothing. She thinks she’s smart.”

Hippy regarded the pack animal keenly, then, stepping up, he placed his hat on top of her pack. The mare flinched and groaned. It was a test that Hippy had seen practiced on lazy horses in France during the war.

“So that’s it, eh?” he chuckled. “She is soldiering, but never mind. We will take all that out of her.”

“That is what I told Kitty this morning. I promised her that she should get all that was coming to her. Stand up, you lazy-bones!” commanded Stacy sharply, at the same time giving the mare a slap on the stomach. Kitty instantly retaliated by taking a chunk out of the boy’s sleeve, and a wee bit of skin with it.

Stacy howled and jerked away. His face flushed, and he raised a hand to strike back.

“Don’t do that!” rebuked Grace. “Never, never strike a horse on the head! It is a sure way to spoil an animal. And never punish a horse when you are in anger. Should an animal need punishing, punish him humanely, but trim him so thoroughly that you never may be called upon to repeat the performance.”

“But, she bit me,” protested Stacy.

“Forget it!” laughed Grace.

“I should say that the poor beast is already sufficiently punished after biting Stacy Brown,” observed Emma meekly.

“Be firm, but gentle,” continued Grace. “Kitty is in just the right mood to be spoiled by rough treatment.”

Stacy was not over-gentle. He jerked the white mare about, shook his fist in her face and announced in a loud tone what he would do to her did she ever again try to make a meal out of his arm.

In the meantime Hippy, with an interested group of Overland girls observing, was putting the final touches to the packing, making the lead-ropes fast, using a knot that he had learned, by which, in case of trouble, one can reach from his saddle and jerk the pack free by a single pull on a loose end of a rope.

All was now ready for the start. Woo Smith, with a final look backward, started ahead singing blithely. Hippy whistled “Boots and Saddles.” The Overland ponies knew the signal, but of course the pack-horses did not, though they soon would learn that it was the command to get under way. When a short distance from camp, the pack animals straggled off and sought their own trails near the one that was followed by the riders, Hippy now and then shouting to Woo to keep them up, for the Idler was lagging behind, though she had started out in the lead of the pack-horses. Woo Smith’s “Hi-lee, hi-lo!” sung in the Oriental’s shrill, knife-edge voice kept time for the plodding ponies, that were now climbing up a steep grade. The Overland party were well started on their way to the high places of this wild, rugged country, where genuine adventure awaited them.