CHAPTER XX.
HERR MULLER GETS A CHILLY BATH.
"Shake a le-e-eg!"
Rather later than usual the following morning the lengthy form of Calreared itself upright in its blankets and uttered the waking cry. Fromthe boys there came only a sleepy response in rejoinder. They were allpretty well tired out with the adventures and strains of the day beforeand had no inclination to arise from their slumbers. Even Nat, usuallythe first to "tumble up," didn't seem in any hurry to crawl out of hiswarm nest.
Winking to himself, Cal picked up two buckets and started for thelittle lake. He soon filled them with the clear, cold snow-water, andstarted back with long strides across the little meadow.
"Here's where it rains for forty days and forty nights," he grinned, aspoising a bucket for a moment he let fly its contents.
S-l-o-u-s-h!
What a torrent of icy fluid dashed over the recumbent form of HerrVon Schiller Muller! The Teuton leaped up as if a tarantula had beenconcealed in his bed clothes, but before he could utter the yell thathis fat face was framing Cal was on him in one flying leap and hadclapped a big brown hand over his mouth.
"Shut up," he warned, "if you want to have some fun with the others."
He pointed to the pail which was still half full. Herr Muller instantlycomprehended. Dashing the water out of his eyes he prepared to watchthe others get their dose, on the principle, I suppose, that miseryloves company.
S-l-o-u-s-h!
This time Ding-dong and Joe got the icy shower bath, and sputteringand protesting hugely, they leaped erect. But the water in their eyesblinded them and although they struck out savagely, their blows onlypunctured the surrounding atmosphere.
"Here, hold this bucket!" ordered Cal, handing the empty pail to theconvulsed Dutchman.
"Oh-ho-ho-ho dees iss too much!" gasped Herr Muller, doubling himselfup with merriment, "I must mage me a picdgure of him."
In the meantime Cal had dashed the contents of the other bucket overNat, who also sprang up full of wrath at the unexpected immersion.
"Take this, too," ordered Cal, handing the other empty bucket to HerrMuller. Tears were rolling down the German's fat cheeks. He was bentdouble with vociferous mirth as he shook.
"Dees iss der best choke I haf seen since I hadt der measles!" hechuckled.
Shouts of anger rang from the boys' throats as they rushed about,shaking off water like so many dogs after a swim. Suddenly their eyesfell on Herr Muller doubled with laughter and holding the two buckets.From time to time, in the excess of his merriment he flourished themabout.
"Oh-ho-ho-ho, I dink me I die ef I dodn't laughing stop it."
"Hey, fellows!" hailed Nat, taking in the scene, "there's the chap thatdid it."
"That Dutchman?--Wow!"
With a whoop the three descended on the laughter-stricken Teuton, andbefore he could utter a word of expostulation, they had seized himup and were off to the little lake at lightning speed, bearing hisstruggling form.
"Help! Murder! Poys, I don't do idt. It voss dot Cal vot vatered you!"
The cries came from the German's lips in an agonizing stream ofentreaty and expostulation. But the boys, wet and irritated, were in nomood for mercy. To use an expressive term, though a slangy one, theyhad caught Herr Muller "with the goods on."
Through the alders they dashed, and then----
Splash!
Head over heels Herr Muller floundered in the icy water, choking andsputtering, as he came to the surface, like a grampus--or, at leastin the manner, we are led to believe, grampuses or grampi conductthemselves.
As his pudgy form struck out for the shore the boys' anger gave wayto yells of merriment at the comical sight he presented, his scantypajamas clinging tightly about his rotund form.
"Say, fellows, here comes Venus from the bath!" shouted Nat.
"First time I heard of a Dutch Venus!" chortled Joe.
"Poys, you haf made it a misdake," expostulated Herr Muller, standing,with what dignity he could command, on the brink of the little lake.His teeth were chattering as if they were executing a clog dance.
"D-dod-d-dot C-c-c-c-al he do-done idt. If you don'd pelieve me,--Loog!"
He pointed back to the camp and there was Cal rolling about on thegrass and indulging in other antics of amusement.
"Wow!" yelled Nat, "we'll duck him, too."
At full speed they set off for the camp once more, Cal rising to hisfeet as they grew near. He looked unusually large and muscular somehow.
"W-w-w-w-w-where w-w-w-w-will we t-t-t-t-tackle him?" inquiredDing-dong, who seemed quite willing to yield his foremost place in theparade of punishment.
"I guess," said Nat slowly and judiciously, "I guess we'll--leave Cal'spunishment to some other time."
Breakfast that morning was a merry meal, and old Bismark, who hadnaturally been tethered in a post perfectly free from loco weed, camein for several lumps of sugar as reward for his signal service of theday before. All were agreed that if the old horse had not wanderedalong so opportunely that Nat might have been in a bad fix.
"I wonder if they'd have dared to kill me?" said Nat, drawing Cal asidewhile the others were busy striking camp and washing dishes.
"Wall," drawled Cal, "I may be wrong, but I don't think somehow thatyou'd hev had much appetite fer breakfast this mornin'."
"I'm inclined to agree with you," said Nat, repressing a shudder as herecalled the tones of the colonel's voice.
"And that reminds me," said Cal, "that our best plan is to get on termy mine as quick as we can. It ain't much of a place. You know there'smighty little mining down here nowadays but what is done by the bigcompanies with stamp mills and hundreds of thousands invested. But Ireckon we kin be safe there while we think up some plan to get thesefellows in a prison where they belong."
"That's my idea exactly," said Nat, "I'm pretty sure that now they areaware that we know the location of their fort that they'll try to getafter us in every way they can."
"Right you are, boy. Their very existence in these mountains depends ontheir checkmating us some way. I think the sooner we get out of herethe better."
"How soon can we get to the mine?" asked Nat.
"Got your map?"
"Yes."
"Let's see it."
Nat dipped down into his pocket and drew out his folder map of theSierra region. It was necessarily imperfect, but Cal, after muchcogitation, darted down his thumb on a point some distance to thenorthwest of where they were camped.
"It's about thar," he declared, "right in that thar canyon."
"How soon can we get there?"
"With luck, in two days, I should say. We can camp there while one ofus rides off and gets the sheriff and a posse. I tell you it'll be abig feather in our caps to land those fellows where they belong. Thescallywags have made themselves the terror of this region for a longtime."
"Well, don't let's holler till we're out of the wood," advised Nat.
By this time the auto was ready and the others awaited their comingwith some impatience.
"Are we all right?" asked Nat looking back at the tonneau and thencasting a comprehensive eye about. Bismark, hitched behind as usual,was snorting impatiently and pawing the ground in quite a fiery manner.
"Let 'er go," cried Cal.
Chug-chu-g-chug!
Nat threw on the power and off moved the auto, soon leaving behind thecamp on the knoll which had been the scene of so many anxieties andamusing incidents.
As they rode along Nat explained to the others the plan of campaign. Itwas hailed with much joy and Joe and Ding-dong immediately began askingquestions. Cal explained that his mine was located in a canyon whichhad once been the scene of much mining activity, but like many camps inthe Sierras, those who once worked it--the argonauts--had long sincedeparted. Only a little graveyard with wooden head-boards on the hillabove the camp remained to tell of them. Cal had taken up a claim therein the heyday of the gold workings and from time to time used to visitit and work ab
out the claim a little. He had never gotten much gold outof it, but it yielded him a living, he said.
"Anybody else up there?" asked Nat.
"Only a few Chinks," rejoined Cal.
"I don't like 'em," said Joe briefly, "yellow-skinned, mysteriouscusses."
"M-m-m-my mother had a C-c-c-c-chinese c-c-c-c-cook--phwit!--once," putin Ding-dong, "but we had to fire him."
"Why?" inquired Cal with some show of interest.
"We could never tell whether he was sus-s-s-singing over his work ormoaning in agony," rejoined Ding-dong.
"Say, is that meant for a joke?" asked Nat amid a deadly silence.
"N-n-no, it's a f-f-fact," solemnly rejoined Ding-dong.
"That feller must hev bin a cousin to the short-haired Chinaman whocouldn't be an actor," grinned Cal.
"What is this, a catch?" asked Joe suspiciously.
"No," Cal assured him.
"Oh, all right, I'll bite," said Nat with a laugh, "why couldn't theshort-haired Chinaman be an actor?"
"Pecoss he voss a voshman, I subbose," suggested Herr Muller.
"Oh, no," said Cal, "because he'd always miss his queue."
"Reminds me of the fellow who thought he was of royal blood every timehe watered his wife's rubber plant which grew in a porcelain pot,"grinned Nat.
"I'll bite this time," volunteered Joe, "How was that, Mister Bones?"
"Well, he said that when he irrigated it, he rained over china,"grinned Nat, speeding the car up a little grade.
"If this rare and refined vein of humor is about exhausted," said Joewith some dignity after the laugh this caused had subsided, "I wouldlike to draw the attention of the company to that smoke right ahead ofus."
"Is that smoke? I thought it was dust," said Nat, squinting along thetrack ahead of them.
The column of bluish, brownish vapor to which Joe had drawn attentioncould now be seen quite distinctly, pouring steadily upward abovethe crest of a ridge of mountains beyond them. Although they weretravelling at a considerable height they could not make out what wascausing it, but Cal's face grew grave. He said nothing, however, butif the others had noticed him they would have seen that his keen eyesnever left the column which, as they neared it, appeared to grow largerin size until it towered above its surroundings like a vaporous giantor the funnel of a whirlwind.