Chapter XX: Herr Muller Gets a Chilly Bath

"Shake a le-e-eg!"

Rather later than usual the following morning the lengthy form of Cal reared itself upright in its blankets and uttered the waking cry. From the boys there came only a sleepy response in rejoinder. They were all pretty well tired out with the adventures and strains of the day before and had no inclination to arise from their slumbers. Even Nat, usually the first to "tumble up," didn't seem in any hurry to crawl out of his warm nest.

Winking to himself, Cal picked up two buckets and started for the little lake. He soon filled them with the clear, cold snow-water, and started back with long strides across the little meadow.

"Here's where it rains for forty days and forty nights," he grinned, as poising 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 Herr Von Schiller Muller! The Teuton leaped up as if a tarantula had been concealed in his bed clothes, but before he could utter the yell that his fat face was framing Cal was on him in one flying leap and had clapped 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 instantly comprehended. Dashing the water out of his eyes he prepared to watch the others get their dose, on the principle, I suppose, that misery loves company.

S-l-o-u-s-h!

This time Ding-dong and Joe got the icy shower bath, and sputtering and protesting hugely, they leaped erect. But the water in their eyes blinded them and although they struck out savagely, their blows only punctured the surrounding atmosphere.

"Here, hold this bucket!" ordered Cal, handing the empty pail to the convulsed Dutchman.

"Oh-ho-ho-ho dees iss too much!" gasped Herr Muller, doubling himself up with merriment, "I must mage me a picdgure of him."

In the meantime Cal had dashed the contents of the other bucket over Nat, who also sprang up full of wrath at the unexpected immersion.

"Take this, too," ordered Cal, handing the other empty bucket to Herr Muller. Tears were rolling down the German's fat cheeks. He was bent double with vociferous mirth as he shook.

"Dees iss der best choke I haf seen since I hadt der measles!" he chuckled.

Shouts of anger rang from the boys' throats as they rushed about, shaking off water like so many dogs after a swim. Suddenly their eyes fell on Herr Muller doubled with laughter and holding the two buckets. From time to time, in the excess of his merriment he flourished them about.

"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 that did it."

"That Dutchman?--Wow!"

With a whoop the three descended on the laughter-stricken Teuton, and before he could utter a word of expostulation, they had seized him up and were off to the little lake at lightning speed, bearing his struggling 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 of entreaty and expostulation. But the boys, wet and irritated, were in no mood for mercy. To use an expressive term, though a slangy one, they had 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 and sputtering, as he came to the surface, like a grampus--or, at least in the manner, we are led to believe, grampuses or grampi conduct themselves.

As his pudgy form struck out for the shore the boys' anger gave way to yells of merriment at the comical sight he presented, his scanty pajamas 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 the grass 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 his feet 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?" inquired Ding-dong, who seemed quite willing to yield his foremost place in the parade of punishment.

"I guess," said Nat slowly and judiciously, "I guess we'll--leave Cal's punishment to some other time."

Breakfast that morning was a merry meal, and old Bismark, who had naturally been tethered in a post perfectly free from loco weed, came in for several lumps of sugar as reward for his signal service of the day before. All were agreed that if the old horse had not wandered along 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 aside while the others were busy striking camp and washing dishes.

"Wall," drawled Cal, "I may be wrong, but I don't think somehow that you'd hev had much appetite fer breakfast this mornin'."

"I'm inclined to agree with you," said Nat, repressing a shudder as he recalled the tones of the colonel's voice.

"And that reminds me," said Cal, "that our best plan is to get on ter my mine as quick as we can. It ain't much of a place. You know there's mighty little mining down here nowadays but what is done by the big companies with stamp mills and hundreds of thousands invested. But I reckon we kin be safe there while we think up some plan to get these fellows in a prison where they belong."

"That's my idea exactly," said Nat, "I'm pretty sure that now they are aware that we know the location of their fort that they'll try to get after us in every way they can."

"Right you are, boy. Their very existence in these mountains depends on their checkmating us some way. I think the sooner we get out of here the 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 the Sierra region. It was necessarily imperfect, but Cal, after much cogitation, darted down his thumb on a point some distance to the northwest 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 of us rides off and gets the sheriff and a posse. I tell you it'll be a big feather in our caps to land those fellows where they belong. The scallywags have made themselves the terror of this region for a long time."

"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 coming with some impatience.

"Are we all right?" asked Nat looking back at the tonneau and then casting 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 the camp on the knoll which had been the scene of so many anxieties and amusing incidents.

As they rode along Nat explained to the others the plan of campaign. It was hailed with much joy and Joe and Ding-dong immediately began asking questions. Cal explained that his mine was located in a canyon which had once been the scene of much mining activity, but like many camps in the Sierras, those who once worked it--the argonauts--had long since departed. Only a little graveyard with wooden head-boards on the hill above the camp remained to tell of them. Cal had taken up a claim there in the heyday of the gold workings and from time to time used to visit it and work about the claim a little. He had never gotten much gold out of 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, mysterious cusses."

"M-m-m-my mother had a C-c-c-c-chinese c-c-c-c-cook--phwit!--once," put in 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 or moaning 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 who couldn'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 the short-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 time he 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 Joe with some dignity after the laugh this caused had subsided, "I would like to draw the attention of the company to that smoke right ahead of us."

"Is that smoke? I thought it was dust," said Nat, squinting along the track ahead of them.

The column of bluish, brownish vapor to which Joe had drawn attention could now be seen quite distinctly, pouring steadily upward above the crest of a ridge of mountains beyond them. Although they were travelling at a considerable height they could not make out what was causing it, but Cal's face grew grave. He said nothing, however, but if the others had noticed him they would have seen that his keen eyes never left the column which, as they neared it, appeared to grow larger in size until it towered above its surroundings like a vaporous giant or the funnel of a whirlwind.