The Motor Rangers Through the Sierras Page 6

  CHAPTER VI.

  SOME RASCALS GET A SCARE.

  Everybody in the hotel at Lariat had long retired to bed, when threeyouthful forms stole toward the stable which had been turned into atemporary garage for the Motor Rangers' big car. From their bed-roomwindow, the boys had, a few moments before, watched Al. Jeffries strideoff down the trail to meet his cronies for the second time and informthem that the time was ripe to put up their attempted trick on the lads.

  The doughty Al., on his return to the hotel after the conference atwhich the lads were eavesdroppers, had found nothing to excite hissuspicion. The boys were all seated on the porch and apparently had notmoved since he had last seen them. Al. had even sat around with them awhile, trying to pump them, but of course, after what they knew of him,they did not give him much information. Nat had formed an idea thatthe man was a sort of agent for the gang of the famous Morello. Thatis, he hung about towns and picked up any information he could aboutshipments of specie from the mines, or of wealthy travellers who mightbe going through. In this surmise we may say that Nat was correct.

  But to return to the three lads whom we left at the beginning of thechapter stealthily slipping across the moonlit space between the hoteland the stable. All three had changed their boots for soft moccasins,in which they made next to no noise at all as they moved. Each lad,moreover, carried under his arm a small bundle. Their clothingconsisted of trousers and shirts. Their broad-brimmed sombreros hadbeen doffed with their coats. The Motor Rangers were, so to speak,stripped for action. And it was to be action of a lively kind as theevent was to show.

  On their arrival at the stable the boys slipped into an empty stallalongside their car, and undoing their bundles, hastily donned what wasin them. Then Nat uncorked a bottle, while a strong odor filled theair. It was a pungent sort of reek, and from the bottle could be seen afaint greenish light glowing.

  Their preparations completed, the Motor Rangers crouched behind thewooden wall of the stall, awaiting the next move on the program.

  "And for heaven's sake sit on that sneeze!" Joe admonished Ding-dong.

  Before very long the boys could hear cautious footsteps approaching thebarn, and the sound of low whispering.

  "The auto's right in here," they caught, in Jeffries' voice. "Say, whata laugh we'll have on those kids in the morning."

  "They laugh best who laugh last," thought Nat to himself, clutchingmore tightly a small gleaming thing he had in his hand.

  "This is pie to me," they could hear Dayton whispering, in a cautiousundertone, "I told those kids I'd get even on them for driving me outof Lower California, and here's where I do it."

  Nat gritted his teeth as he listened.

  "You're going to get something that you don't expect," he mutteredsoftly to himself.

  The next instant the barn door framed three figures. Behind them weretwo ponies. The feet of the little animals were swathed in sacks sothat they made no noise at all.

  "Pretty foxy," whispered Joe, "they've padded the ponies' hoofs."

  "Hush!" ordered Nat, "don't say a word or make a move till I give thesignal."

  "There's the car," whispered Jeffries, as they drew closer and theshadow of the place enclosed them, blotting out their outlines.

  "Seems a shame to run it over a cliff, don't it?" put in Dayton'sfellow pony rider.

  "That's the only thing to do with it," said Dayton abruptly, "I want togive those kids a lesson they won't forget."

  "So, you rascals," thought Nat, "you were going to run the car over acliff were you? Oh, how I'd like to get my hands on you for just fiveminutes."

  "Go on, Dayton. Climb into the thing and start her up," said Jeffries.

  "Hope them kids don't wake up," put in Dayton's companion.

  "They're off as sound as tops," Al. assured him, "I listened at theirdoor after I came out, and they were snoring away like so many bucksaws."

  With the ease born of familiarity with motor vehicles, Dayton climbedinto the driver's seat and bent over the steering wheel.

  Presently there came a sharp click!

  "Now!" whispered Nat.

  As he gave the word, from behind the wooden partition upreared threeterrifying objects. Their faces glared greenly and their white formsseemed to be shrouded in graveyard clothes.

  In unison they uttered a dismal cry.

  "Be-ware! Oh be-ware of the car of the Motor Ranger boys!"

  "Wow!" yelled Dayton's companion.

  As he gave the alarmed cry he fairly reeled back against the oppositestall and fell with a crash. At the same instant, an old claybank muletethered in there awoke, and resenting the man's sudden intrusion, letfly with his hind hoofs. This shot the ruffian's form full tilt intothat of Al. Jeffries, who was making at top speed for the door, and thetwo fell, in a rolling, cursing, struggling, clawing heap on the stablefloor.

  "Lemme up!" yelled Al. Jeffries, in mortal terror of the grim sheetedforms behind him.

  "Lemme go!" shouted Dayton's companion, roaring half in fear and halfin pain at the reminiscences of the mule's hoofs he carried.

  But the startling apparitions, while at their first appearance they hadmade Dayton recoil, only fooled him for an instant. Springing erectfrom his first shock of amazement and alarm he gave an angry shout.

  "Get up there you fools."

  "Oh the ghosts! The ghosts with the green faces," bawled Al. Jeffries.

  "Ghosts!" roared Dayton angrily, "they're no ghosts. Get up and knocktheir heads off."

  Suiting the action to the word he leaped from the car and chargedfuriously at Nat. The boy's fist shot out and landed with a crash onthe point of his jaw, but although Dayton reeled under the force of theblow he recovered instantly and charged furiously again on the sheetedform.

  In the meantime, Al. Jeffries and the other man had rolled apart andperceived the state of affairs. The noise of the impact of Nat's fistshowed conclusively that it was no ghostly hand that had struck theblow, and the fact rallied their fleeting courage. As furiously as hadDayton, they charged upon the boys. The rip and tear of sheets, and thesound of blows given and received, mingled with the angry exclamationsof the men and the quick, panting breath of the boys.

  Suddenly, Nat levelled the little bright glinting thing he had clutchedin his hand as they crouched behind the wooden partition. He pressed atrigger on its underside and a hissing sound followed.

  "Sfiz-z-z-z-z-z!"

  At the same instant the air became surcharged with a pungent odor. Itseemed to fill the atmosphere and made nostrils and eyes smart.

  "Ammonia!" shouted Al. Jeffries, staggering backward and dabbingdesperately at his face where the full force of Nat's charge hadexpended itself. As upon the other occasion, when the ammonia pistolshad been used, the rout of the enemy was complete. With muffledimprecations and exclamations of pain, the three reeled, half blinded,out of the barn.

  At the same instant the boys heard windows thrown up and the sharpreport of a revolver.

  "Fire! Thieves! Murder!" came from one window, in the landlord's voice,following the discharge of the pistol.

  "Get to the ponies," roared Dayton, "we'll have the whole hornets' nestabout our ears in a minute."

  The others needed no urging. Grabbing Al. Jeffries by the arm, Dayton'scompanion, who was only partially blinded, made for his little steed.But Dayton, who had hardly received any of the aromatic discharge,suddenly whipped about and snatched a revolver from his side. Beforethe boys could dodge the man fired at them.

  Nat felt the bullets fan the air by his ear, but fortunately, the manfired so quickly and the excitement and confusion was such, that in themoonlight he missed his aim.

  "I'll make you smart for this some day!" he yelled, as fearful oflingering any longer he swung himself into his saddle. He drove homethe spurs and with a squeal and a bound the little animal carried himout of the region of the hotel.

  As for Dayton's companion he was already a good distance off with Al.Jeffries clinging behind him on his saddle.


  Joe had made for the auto and seized a rifle from the rack in thetonneau as Dayton galloped off, but Nat sharply told him to put it down.

  "We have scared the rascals off, and that's enough," he said.

  In a few minutes the Motor Rangers were surrounded by everybody in thehotel, including Cal and the postmaster. They were warmly congratulatedon their success by all hands, and much laughter greeted theiraccount of the amusing panic into which the rascals had been thrownby the sudden appearance of the glowing-faced ghosts, followed by thedischarge of the "mule battery."

  "How did yer git the green glowing paint?" asked Cal interestedly.

  "Why, we took the liberty of soaking two or three bundles of Californiamatches in the tooth glass," explained Nat, "and then we had a finearticle of phosphorus paint."

  "Wall if you ain't the beatingest," was the landlord's admiringcontribution.

  In the midst of the explanations, congratulations and angrydenunciation of Al. Jeffries and his companions, a sudden piping voicewas heard.

  "Yust von moment blease. Vait! Nod a mofe!--Ah goot, I haf you!"

  It was the little German, whom, the boys had discovered, was namedHans Von Schiller Muller. He had sprung out of bed in the midst of theexcitement and instantly decided it would make a good subject for hiscamera. He presented a queer figure as he stood there, in pajamasseveral sizes too small for him and striped with vivid pink and green.The shrinkage had been the work of a Chinese laundryman in the SanJoaquin Valley.

  "Say," exclaimed Joe, "you don't expect to get a picture out of that doyou?"

  "Chess. Sure. Vy nodt?"

  "Well, because in the first place you had no light," said Joe.

  "Ach! Donnerblitzen, miserable vot I am. I shouldn't have got id aflash-light, aind't it. Hold on! Vait a minute. I get him."

  "Better defer it till to-morrow," said Nat, who like the rest, wasbeginning to shiver in the keen air of the mountains, "it's too cold towait for all your preparations."

  And so, when Herr Muller returned to the fatherland there was onepicture he did not have, and that was a portrait of the Motor Rangersas they appeared immediately after routing three notorious members ofCol. Morello's band of outlaws.