“Py shimineddy,” Fritz fluttered, “dis iss gedding vorse as I can tell! Vat iss habbening mit me? Iss it a shpook sandvich? Sooch now-you-see-him-und-now-you-don’t pitzness I don’t like.” Fritz, just then, had an illuminating idea which not only calmed his fears but aroused his wrath. “I bed my life id iss dot greaser feller playing some chokes mit me. I set some draps, und ven I catch him, I preak him in doo, so hellup me!”
With another sandwich Fritz baited his trap. Laying the sandwich on the bowlder’s top, he sank down until his eyes were level with it and the rest of his body hidden in gloom; then, lifting his hands ready to make a grab, he waited.
Pat, pat came a mysterious sound from the other side of the bowlder. That must be Silva, Fritz thought, coming up on his hands and knees.
“Now, I bet you someding for nodding,” Fritz chuckled, “I get him!”
Something reared up out of the darkness on the other side of the bowlder. Fritz grabbed, and his hands closed on an object that felt like a buffalo robe and squirmed like an eel. Another moment and Fritz had an armful, for the object plunged straight at him over the bowlder.
“Hellup! hellup!” he howled, as he tumbled backward and began rolling over and over. “Hellup, I say, oder I vas a gone Dutchman!”
Then, for several moments, Fritz was altogether too busy for words. The thing in his arms clawed, and snapped, and snarled. Fritz continued to roll with it, sometimes underneath, sometimes on top. He was too scared to let go, and too scared to hold on; and while he floundered and plunged about among the rocks, the boys began to run out of the tents, wondering what the nation was the matter. At last, locating the excitement in the cañon, they began racing over the edge of the flat. As it happened, Merriwell was in the lead.
[CHAPTER XXIX.]
THE COLONEL CALLS.
When Merriwell was close to the spot where the rolling, tumbling, and howling was going on, a blot of shadow darted through the sifting moonlight and was swallowed up in the gloom of the lower gulch. As the shadow disappeared, a long, quavering coyote yelp floated back on the night wind.