At that fateful moment, Fuzzy-Wuzz caught sight of them. One pounce and the fat cub had the snake writhing between his jaws. Then the snake had wriggled away and was making for his hole, the chipmunk forgotten.
“That certainly squares the matter of the pine nuts,” Chuck told his partner when he was safe back home. For the cinnamon cub had certainly played the rôle of Fate, though without realizing it. For him the snake had only meant a bit of sport.
CHAPTER XVII
BUCKY, THE BURRO
FUZZY-WUZZ had learned to ride a burro away back there when the Ranger had rescued him from drowning.
He had traveled on top of the pack as the Ranger went his rounds. After awhile he learned to leap to the little donkey’s back whenever he wanted to ride. The burro never minded.
She was mighty useful to the Ranger, was the donkey, for she could carry a pack over the narrowest mountain trail. No matter how rocky and dangerous it was, she never missed her footing. (A horse sometimes slipped and fell over the canyon wall.) She also possessed the ability to go without water when it was necessary. Her compact little hoofs were just built for rocky trails, and her ancestors had lived in Egypt and the dry mountainous regions of Mexico, where a good drink every night after the day’s work is over, often has to suffice. That makes a burro especially useful during the long California dry season.
Then, too, a pack burro can live, and fatten on the dry grass and leaves she can find for herself during the months when no rain falls. That is more than a horse can do. The Ranger kept a couple of saddle horses, which he had to treat with especial care, but for the long trips into the back country, or down to the settlement and back for supplies, he relied on his burros.
Jack and Bucky, as he called them, had even carried the furniture of the cabin twenty miles on their backs. And so obedient were they that one day, when the Ranger wanted to send supplies home but could not leave the settlement himself for several days yet, he simply gave the shaggy little animals a slap and pointed their noses along the home trail, and they went back all alone.
But they had one fault. They were as stubborn as could be. If they made up their minds to stop, no amount of urging, nor beating, even, could make them change their minds. If the Ranger accidentally put too heavy a pack on their backs, or one that didn’t fit comfortably, they would simply lie down, or else leap into the air with bowed backs and buck it off.