Читать книгу The Desert Patrol - Roy J. Snell - Страница 6

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A half hour later, in the camp that was hidden away beneath the overhanging boughs of great, spreading pine trees, Curlie lay warmly wrapped in blankets beneath a pup-tent. His faithful and trusted partner, Clyde Hopkins, lay at his side. Clyde was already asleep. Curlie was not. His experiences of the night had been enough to banish sleep. Twice within an hour he had leveled a rifle and shot at a fellow human being. Once during that same hour he had barely escaped death by a Mexican’s keen-bladed knife. What boy, under these conditions, would have fallen asleep at once?

“I seem to have gotten the full force of the attack,” he thought to himself. “None of the other boys appear to have had any exciting experiences.” For a moment there lurked in the back of his brain a suspicion that all was not well, that the wily Ambrosio had somehow come to know that he was a member of the Secret Service of the Air and that he was in this camp to discover the real motives of the men who lived in this mountain fastness with the avowed purpose of catching wild ponies. Had he been posted in this dangerous position that he might be killed by the Mexicans? Had the whole affair of the raid been a hoax? He had seen but two Mexicans. Had they been hired to pull a fake raid and kill him?

These questions set his hair on end. Why, if his suspicions were true, then he was not for a single moment safe in this camp. His life was in constant danger.

For a short space of time, so overwrought were his feelings at these thoughts, he felt that he must rise and flee. A calmer counsel held him at his post. Beside him was one honest and brave fellow whom he could trust. One such was a match for three rascals. Besides, there was little danger that Ambrosio really knew anything of his mission in camp.

Had Curlie not been kept awake by these thoughts, he would surely have forced himself to stay awake, for he had a piece of secret work which he wished very much to do. Now, at night, when the gleaming, prying eyes of Ambrosio were not about, was the opportune time. As soon as he could feel sure that the others were asleep, he would be up and doing. In the meantime there was space for thought.

Doubtless you have been wondering what was Curlie’s real position in this strange camp. It will take but a few words to make the matter clear. Having received the Whisperer’s message regarding mysterious affairs that were about to come off up on the mountain, he had at once gone to the ranch where Clyde Hopkins was to be found and had easily persuaded him to go along on a trip into the mountain country with the purpose of joining, if possible, the band of men who were planning to trap wild horses. The joining of the band had been absurdly easy. The trap, to be built of heavy poles, was scarcely begun. Since, as the Whisperer had hinted, the men of the band were not fond of hard work, Curlie and Clyde had been let in for a lion’s share of it. They had laughed this off and had professed to be greatly interested in the game of wild horse hunting. And, indeed, so they were. Neither of them had ever participated in such a hunt and a wild, racing game it had proved to be.

In the last three days they had trapped nineteen little yellow and brown ponies, real wild horses of the mountains. But, to Curlie’s surprise, while the greater part of their band was engaged in this business, two or three others were always away at night and were constantly returning with from two to three fine, handsome colts, which were, it is true, quite as unbranded as the yellow ponies, but of a far superior breed. They promised in a year or two to make horses of some value and, though they came beyond doubt off the open range, gave evidence of having been watched and cared for.

When Ambrosio caught Curlie looking at these in surprise, he hastened to assure him that they had been bought by members of his party to fill out a car of horses. This Curlie did not believe. He felt sure that they were being stolen from the ranges at night. He could not, however, prove it. Some of the party might have money or credit to buy colts, but if this were true he had no evidence of it. It was this circumstance that had made him certain that his presence as a member of the Secret Service was greatly needed right here. So he was biding his time. Just what moves he would make when the time was ripe, he had not as yet decided.

Just at this time there had come into their camp vague rumors of danger. The rumors soon took the shape of an anticipated raid upon the corral by a band of outlaw Mexicans. That meant that Ambrosio and his band must fight for the horses they had gotten by what seemed questionable methods, or must give them up to ancient enemies, rival raiders. This, they had informed Curlie, they were not willing to do. Then they had asked him if he and his pal Clyde would stay by them and help fight their battles.

To this question he had made an evasive answer. He wanted time to think it over. It had been a trying moment for him. It was one thing to run wild horses in the forest with a band of men who appeared to be of doubtful character, and whose actions he was watching as a member of the service; it was quite another to join them in a battle with some enemy. Suppose they were lying to him? What if, instead of an attack from rival raiders, this were a raid led by deputy marshals, who had caught up with Ambrosio and his men and were determined to bring them to justice. Where would he, Curlie, be then? He would show up fine lifting his rifle in defense of lawless men when the officers of the law were on their track.

Long had he pondered the problem. Many were the questions he had asked of the treacherous Ambrosio. At last he had become convinced that the lawless leader was telling the truth. He had then promised that, should the raid come, he would do his part in defense of the camp. Indeed, this was the only thing he could do. He was there to gather evidence against the band with whom he was for the moment associated. The horses in the corral were the best of evidence. If he were to permit these horses to be driven away into the barren hills to the south by a band of lawless Mexicans, his evidence would vanish and his case be lost. It was up to him to fight. And fight he did. It had not been much of a raid. He had a suspicion that it was but the forerunner of a real raid which might come off the next night, or two or three nights later, a raid in which many Mexicans would take part and much blood be shed. During the present night, he felt that he had conducted himself in a manner such as could but reflect honor upon himself, and might help to shield him from any possible suspicion which might lurk in the mind of the wary Ambrosio as to his real reason for being in camp.

“And now,” he yawned, as he finished thinking these things through, “now for a little work that will put me in touch with the outside world.”

Gliding noiselessly out of the tent, he dodged from tree to tree until he came to one larger and taller than all the rest. Here for a moment he stood gazing upward. Gleaming from one of the upper branches of this tree to those of one to the right, were three parallel wires, the aerials of a radiophone. These were Ambrosio’s wires, not Curlie’s. In Ambrosio’s tent there was a fairly powerful portable sending and receiving set. By the aid of this equipment he was able to keep in touch with many points, not alone in the United States but also in Mexico. In the back room of many a pool hall and drinking place of doubtful repute there were radio sets for sending and receiving messages which might well have been coveted by institutions of greater reputation. Many times these were operated in secret. Any message that might come from Ambrosio there on the mountain would be quickly and surely dispatched from these secret stations.

Curlie knew all this, though he knew little enough about the location of these stations. “Here’s where I go in for a little wire-tapping on my own,” he whispered to himself, as after glancing about and listening for a moment to make doubly sure he was not observed, he felt of a coil of wire in his pocket, then, catching the lower limb of a giant fir tree, swung up to lose himself from view in the dark depth of needle-laden boughs.

Ambrosio’s aerials were not attached to the tree which he was climbing, but to the next one at the right. After climbing to the level of these aerials, Curlie began creeping out upon a broad-spreading limb that touched the tips of the one across from it. This was dangerous business. Suspended in midair some seventy feet from the ground, he was in immediate danger of being crashed to earth. Once the bough cracked ominously. For an instant his heart was in his mouth. Then, reassured, he again ventured out a foot or two. Ambrosio’s aerial was now all but within his grasp. Reaching unsteadily to the branch above him, he balanced himself as with the other hand he tried for a grasp at the aerial. The first and second attempts were futile and left him breathless. The third was successful. He was able to draw the wires toward him a distance of a foot or two. Having done this, he twined his feet about the branch he was on and, loosing his hold upon the upper branch, he began a breathless juggling that might enable him to attach a wire to the aerials. For full five minutes he struggled. During all this time there was a question whether he would succeed in keeping his balance or would go plunging to earth.

At last with a deep sigh of relief and whispered, “Ah! There!” he loosened his grip upon the aerials, allowed them to settle back to normal position, then unrolling a wire after him, proceeded to creep back to a place of safety in a crotch of the tree. The wire he uncoiled was dark brown in color and blended perfectly with the bark of the tree. At this height it could not be detected from the ground.

“But if Ambrosio takes his aerials down before I disconnect my tapping wire,” he breathed, “then, man, oh, man!”

“Ho, well,” he sighed, “in this little game you have to take chances. And, after all, you don’t take them so much for yourself as you do for others, for the innocent ones who suffer if the selfish evaders of the law are not brought to bay and punished. There is some satisfaction in that.”

As he crept down the tree he unwound the wire, taking great care to conceal it, in so far as it was possible, behind clinging moss and loose strips of bark. Once upon the ground, he thrust the wire beneath the bed of needles and in this manner brought it to his tent. Hidden beneath the dry depths of needles beneath his bed was a miniature, peanut bulb listening-in set of considerable power.

“Now,” he whispered, with a sigh of satisfaction, as he hooked the wire to his instruments, “I am in a position to listen in on any little message which may come to our crafty friend Ambrosio, and I can catch any message which may be whispered to me, providing I am listening at the right time. There’s some comfort in being connected up with the outside world once more. If only the gang doesn’t get onto it I hope to get considerable excitement out of it, and if they do, why then I’ll get a lot of excitement out of it of an entirely different sort.”

Having delivered this bit of philosophy to the night air, he rolled himself in his blankets and settled back for three winks before dawn.

“It’s a fairly exciting life,” he told himself dreamily, “exciting and quite entertaining. I’d like—”

Just here he drifted off to the land of dreams and was unconscious of the old world’s doings until Clyde prodded him in the ribs and informed him that it was broad day and that things were doing; that this was to be the most exciting chase of all, for on this day Old Baldie was to be brought down the canyon and delivered to the corral.

“Maybe so,” Curlie muttered sleepily, “but I gotta be showed. Old Baldie is foxy, foxy as a horse could be made.”