Sagebrush pointed out that by leaving the car here in shelter of the shed, they could then shoulder packs and cover the last three miles to Pinecate Cañon on foot. The Professor took one look at the duffle in the rear of the car, and threw in the gears.
“Not by a blamed sight!” he said cheerfully. “Looks like Hassayamp’s car has gone ahead, so we’ll do likewise. Did I mention that Hassayamp is bringing Miss Gilman out today to look over the cañon for a chicken-ranch site?”
“Dad blame it!” groaned Sagebrush. “Then I’m goin’ to take my pick and go look over the north end o’ the mesa. You can pester around that female if ye like, Perfesser, but not me. Send up a smoke when they’re gone and I’ll come in.”
“Agreed,” and Tompkins laughed as he sent the car ahead in the faint tracks left by the other flivver.
CHAPTER V
Noon was passed and over. Tompkins, ensconced in a niche of the cañon, was delightedly observing the scene before him. Sagebrush was gone. The flivver was laid up out of sight a half-mile away in a thicket of cactus and piñon.
It was peaceful here in the cañon, and hot. Tompkins lay shaded by an overhanging rock which concealed him and enjoyed himself while he waited. He was a third of the way up the cañon, which wound upward for another mile before opening on the mesa. Here it was fairly wide, and the sun had excellent chances to radiate from the boulders, and the spring life of the place was warmed into activity. Patches of cacti and jack-pine abounded. No water was in sight, but Tompkins had a water-bag within reach.
He lay perfectly quiet, watching a trade-rat whose nest lay in a cranny of the rocks just to one side, and a young coyote which was vainly endeavoring to investigate the rat and nest. It was obvious that this particular rat had migrated from the desert below, for while his nest was composed of pebbles and sticks and all manner of queer objects, it was protected after the peculiar fashion of his desert brethren. Two runways entered the nest, itself nearly out of sight under the rocks; and about these runways, laid with mathematical precision, were hundreds of terrible opuntia joints.
To Tompkins, as to every other naturalist, it was an unsolved mystery how the pack-rat, with delicate and unprotected paws, could handle these joints of cactus. No other living creature can face the cholla cactus, whose spines, as the Indians declare, jump at one, inflicting acute agony; even the rattler avoids it gingerly. Here for a space of ten feet around the nest were heaped the matted cholla joints, while the pack-rat who owned the establishment sat out in full sight and insulted the hovering coyote with angry taunts.
That the coyote was young and hungry was obvious, or he would not have attempted to molest so well-entrenched a rat. Oblivious to the presence of Tompkins, who sat perfectly motionless, he charged again and again on those defenses. Each time his courage failed at the last moment and he would draw off, snarling and snapping in futile rage, before his nose touched the cholla.