"Hear 'em, don't you, Rob?" continued Andy, who doubtless must have been observing the movements of the acting scout master all this while by the aid of that friendly moonlight.
"Do I? Well, I'd have to be pretty deaf not to, Andy," Rob replied.
"What do you reckon it can be? I never in all my life heard such an awful lot of discord," continued the other scout apprehensively.
"I'm only giving a wide guess," Rob told him; "but I should think only a pack of wolves could make a racket like that; or perhaps now, coyotes."
"How about that, Lopez?" Merritt struck in; and the guide, chuckling, replied:
"Last is what it is, young señors; kiote make much noise when hungry. It is our food they scent. Kiote happen to have a very keen nose. No trouble, no danger as long as they hang around. Too much coward to sneak in; and long as we hear kiote sing, we know no spy can be near, or they run away."
"Sing!" burst out Andy with a snort; "is that what they call it down here? Mebbe some folks like that sort of song, but let me tell you it grates on my ears like the screeching of a pack of cats at night. Sing! Whoo-ee! are you joshing us poor tenderfeet, Lopez?"
"Oh! there's nothing like getting used to things, Andy," Rob assured him, while at the same time he was in doubt whether he himself could go to sleep again if all that noise kept up right along. "After a while, when you've heard that chant nightly, you may think it's the finest lullaby ever invented, and miss it the worst kind after you hike away north."
"Don't you believe it, Rob," returned the other positively. "I wouldn't mind being soothed to sleep by sweet sounds, like the thrumming of a guitar or a mandolin; but excuse me from that caterwauling. Listen to it rise and fall! That is just the way our old Tom used to sit on the back fence and talk to the moon till I rigged up a wire along there and connected it with our electric circuit. After that, when I woke and heard him tuning up, all I had to do was to press the button, and everything was still again. But he did always give one awful screech as he lit out!"
"Well, suppose you rig up a switch and circuit here, so you can give these singing coyotes some of the same medicine?" laughed Merritt.