CHAPTER XIV

WOO'S EYES ARE KEEN

The air was becoming chilly, the Overland Riders now being at an altitude of nearly eight thousand feet, and still upward bound.

A week had elapsed since they left the "Lazy J" ranch, and during all that time they had sighted no game except some grouse that they had shot at but failed to bring down. Provisions were at a low ebb and all knew that they were nearly face to face with a serious situation.

Hippy Wingate was pondering deeply when they pulled up for luncheon one noon. He was wondering what he was going to give his party for supper, for Hippy was the official game-hunter of the Overland party, and they had come to rely on his resourcefulness to provide food for them. Stacy Brown was even more deeply interested in this matter than was "Uncle Hip," but for a somewhat different reason.

"What do we eat to-day?" he asked in a tone that he tried to make sound light-hearted.

Some one laughed.

"Oh, it's not because I'm hungry," hastily explained Chunky. "I just wanted to know so as not to have to open all the packs unless we are going to have a spread."

"Ours is more likely to be a snack than a spread," suggested Grace laughingly.

"What is it going to be, Hippy?" questioned Nora.

"Raisins and hard tack, my dear."

"You don't mean it?" gasped the fat boy.

"I reckon that will be about it if I don't see some game to shoot at," replied Hippy a little soberly.

"Raisins and hard tack for a man with an appetite like mine," groaned Stacy. "You might as well feed a bricklayer on angel food and expect him to smack his lips and pat his stomach with heavenly satisfaction. This is too much, and too much is enough."

"If you folks will camp here I will go out and see if I cannot scare up some game," suggested Hippy.

"I do not believe you will find anything worth while at this altitude," said Tom Gray. "It is a condition that I have feared we should meet. I--"

"You no savvy game?" interjected the Chinaman.

"No, Smith," replied Hippy. "We savvy plenty appetite, but we no savvy anything with which to satisfy it. If I could sight a deer--"

"Me savvy deer. Me show buck in lelet," cried Woo, gesticulating excitedly.

"What kind of heathen talk is that?" wondered Emma.

"'Buck in lelet!'" mocked Stacy.

Hippy was eyeing the guide inquiringly, knowing very well that Woo had something in mind.

"Buck in lelet," repeated the Chinaman, indicating the horns on a deer's head, with his hands.

"I understand," nodded Tom Gray. "What he is trying to say is, 'buck in velvet.'"

"Ha, ha! The further they go the worse they are. First it was Emma Dean whose wheels went wrong; now it is my Uncle Hip and Captain Gray," jeered Stacy. "Is it the altitude that has gone to _your_ head?"

"No, it has not," retorted Lieutenant Wingate. "Woo has more sense than all of us together. At this season of the year the bucks 'carry their antlers in velvet.'"

"Oh, pooh! That is a fine fairy tale to feed hungry people with. Folks back east might swallow it, but not up here among the high and lofty peaks of the Sierras. Tell me something that I can swallow," laughed Stacy.

"Stacy, if you will hold your horses I will try to explain," rebuked Tom. "At this season of the year the antlers of the bucks are very tender, and that condition is called 'carrying the antlers in velvet.' In those circumstances the bucks frequent the high rocky peaks that their tender horns may not be torn off in contact with tough bushes and trees. Later on you will find the bucks on the lower ranges. Then, as the antlers become hard, almost as hard as iron, the bucks take to the dense thickets."

Stacy Brown mopped his forehead.

"Emma, why don't you transmigrate a little? Send a little thought wave out and see if you can't get in touch with a nice fat buck all dressed up in velvet," he suggested.

Emma Dean elevated her nose, but made no reply. She was at that moment more interested in the guide, who was running his yellow fingers about his wrists inside the wide sleeves, and chuckling to himself at a rapid-fire rate.

"Me savvy! Hi-lee, hi-lo; hi--"

"What were you going to say?" urged Hippy.

"You savvy buck in lelet?"

Lieutenant Wingate shook his head.

"Me savvy buck."

"You do? Where?"

The guide pointed his long, bony finger towards the rocks on the other side of a narrow pass in the mountains. The mountain there was covered with brownish grass and some spindling saplings. Lieutenant Wingate looked until his eyes ached, then turned to Smith.

"Woo, you must be mistaken," he said.

The guide took the stick that he used to beat up the trail ahead on his march each day, laid it across a rock, and, after sighting it, beckoned to Lieutenant Wingate to look over it.

"You savvy?" he questioned eagerly.

"No, I don't, Woo."

"Mebby you savvy to-mollow," replied the Chinaman disgustedly.

The Overland Riders snickered, and even Hippy grinned appreciatively.

"I reckon you are not far from right, Woo. I--" Hippy paused abruptly. Out of that mass of brown something began to grow into his vision, to stand out until everything else appeared to have disappeared.

"You savvy nicee piecee buck?" chuckled the guide.

Hippy reached a cautious hand behind him.

"My rifle. Quick!" he whispered. "Woo is right. There lays a fine big fellow behind that bush over yonder. I don't know whether he sees us or not. It is a dead sure shot, too. Don't make a sound," urged lieutenant Wingate as his rifle was cautiously laid in his outstretched hand.

Placing it across the rock where Woo had laid the stick for him to sight over, Hippy took careful aim a little below the base of the antlers of the buck. His automatic rifle belched forth a deafening roar that went rolling and echoing from peak to peak.

At the same instant, what appeared to be a dull brown and white ball leaped into the air and went bounding away in tremendous leaps. Hippy's rifle went to his shoulder and he fired again, but the shot only served to hasten the speed of the fine large buck that Woo Smith had discovered. Hippy had missed a "sure shot" as well as a long shot.

"Uncle Hip never misses what he shoots at," quoted Emma a little maliciously.

"Why don't you use your pea-shooter?" scoffed Stacy. "Dead Shot Hip made a mess of it that time."

"He did," admitted Hippy, "and Stacy Brown missed a fine fat meal. Laugh at me all you like, folks. I deserve it, but I don't understand how I could miss that shot."

"Don't wolly till to-mollow," advised the guide wisely.

"May I look at your rifle?" asked Grace.

Lieutenant Wingate handed it to her and Grace gave it a critical inspection, then held it out to Hippy.

"Look it over carefully. I think you will discover why you missed," she suggested.

Hippy intuitively glanced at the sights, and shot a quick look of inquiry at Chunky, but Chunky's face was woodeny in its lack of expression. Without another word, Lieutenant Wingate set up a mark, placed his rifle on the rock, marking its exact position, and, taking careful aim, fired. The bullet shot under by more than a foot, whereas it should have shot over the mark, the rifle being originally sighted for a much longer distance. Several cartridges were expended in resighting the weapon and adjusting the open sight, which he found had been changed from its former position.

"There, now! Show me another deer. I don't believe I shall miss the next one."

"You savvy sight no good," chuckled the Chinaman.

Lieutenant Wingate nodded.

"Stacy, come here. I would hold converse with thee," he ordered.

Stacy complied, but with evident reluctance, and, obeying a gesture from Hippy, seated himself on a slab of granite beside his Uncle Hip.

"Why did you fool with the sights on my rifle?" demanded Lieutenant Wingate sharply.

"I--I--I--"

"Don't quibble. Whenever you put on a wooden face I know that you have been up to monkey-shines. Why did you do it?"

"I--I--I just wanted to get even with you, Uncle Hip," stammered the fat boy.

"For what?"

"You--you pinked my pony with a peashooter and made me come a cropper in a rose bush. Don't you deny it. You know you did," added Chunky, adopting his most savage tone.

Hippy Wingate chuckled.

"That is it, eh?"

"Yes."

"When did you change them--change the open sights?"

"I did it when you were after water last night."

"Shake, pard!" cried Hippy, extending an impulsive hand. "We are quits now, aren't we?"

"Yes, we are dear friends. We're more than that--we love each other most to death," declared Stacy fervently.

"Oh, fiddlesticks!" exclaimed Emma Dean. "You make me weary."

"But, Stacy, the next time you wish to get even with a fellow, please do not tamper with his weapons, especially in a country like this," warned Lieutenant Wingate. "It is a dangerous thing to do. Suppose I had met up with a cinnamon bear at close range, for instance--what do you think would have happened?"

"I reckon there would have been a sprinting match between you and the cinnamon," observed Stacy in a tone that brought a shout of laughter from the Overland girls.

"You are partly right," agreed Hippy laughingly, "but don't do anything like that again, will you?"

Stacy promised that he would not, but the probabilities are that he forgot the promise within five minutes after he had made it, for at that instant Woo Smith uttered a sudden exclamation that drew the instant attention of the Overland Riders.

"Me savvy buck! Me savvy buck in lelet," chuckled the Chinaman excitedly.

Hippy was on his feet in an instant.

"Where, where?"

"You savvy him white lock?"

"Yes, I see the white rock. Sure enough; there he is!"

When the automatic roared a moment later, a brown ball was seen to leap into the air, but, instead of bounding away, it straightened out and took a long, curving leap, crashed into the dwarfed bushes, then whipped over on its back.

"I got him!" shouted Lieutenant Wingate triumphantly.

"Great shot!" cried Elfreda Briggs enthusiastically.

"Hi-lee, hi-lo; hi-lee, hi-lo!" sang the guide, hopping about delightedly, his queue wriggling in the air with serpent-like movements. This time no one appeared to be irritated by Woo's singing, for Lieutenant Wingate's shot meant food in plenty for the Overland Riders.