[CHAPTER V.]
THE RUSTLERS AT WORK.
"Jack!"
"Um-um-um-huh!" from Jack Merrill, as he turned over in his cot.
"Listen! There it is again—— What is it?"
Ralph Stetson sat bolt upright in bed, listening with all his might to the strange and shivery sound which had awakened him. It was shortly after midnight, following the evening of the boys' arrival, and both were sleeping—or rather had been sleeping—in a room set aside for them in one wing of the low, straggly ranch house in the foothills of the Sierra de la Hacheta.
"Wow-wow-wow!" came the cry once more from somewhere among the dreary, moonlit hills outside.
"Oh, that!" said the ranch-raised boy, with a laugh. "That's coyotes!"