An Ear for Danger

Jupe’s.

The burro was grazing farther and farther from the fire. The rancher glanced uneasily at her. “You’d better tether her for the night,” he warned Jupe. He managed a fake smile. “We don’t want her wandering back to the ranch again.”

Jupe hoisted himself to his feet. He had hardly noticed it while he was riding, but his legs were now so stiff he could hardly stand up. He walked over to Blondie like a man on stilts and gave her a pat on the rump. “You’ll stick with me, right Blondie?” he said.

“Just the same, I’d feel safer if you tied her up,” Dusty grumbled. “Go on, tether her to a tree.”

Jupe turned and faced him. He shook his head.

“No,” he said. “She might want a drink of water in the night.”

“She’s already had all the water she needs.”

It was a showdown. Jupe knew it and he wasn’t going to give in.

“You want her tied up, do it yourself,” he said. “If she’ll let you touch her.”

His eyes met the rancher’s for a long moment. Blondie might be the boss on the trail. But Jupe was the boss here now.

“Okay,” Dusty agreed at last, crawling into his sleeping bag. “I guess she’ll stick around as long as you’re here.”

“Why?” Jupe asked curtly. “Why do you think she’s so attached to me?”

“Quién sabe, as the Mexicans say.” The rancher turned over on his side and closed his eyes. “Who knows?”

Jupe hobbled back to the fire. Bob winked at him as he passed.

Jupe eased himself into his sleeping bag. Soon all four of them were asleep.

It was still dark when Jupe woke up. The fire had gone out and for a moment he was too sleepy to understand what had wakened him. Then he heard it again.

A protesting braying.

Blondie.

He scrambled stiffly out of his sleeping bag and felt his way between the trees to the spring.

As he entered the clearing he saw a streak of light. It moved up and down and around in circles. At first all he could see in the waving light beam was Blondie. She had reared up on her hind legs and was plunging wildly.

Then the light stilled for a moment and he saw the figure of a woman. She was holding a flashlight in one hand and tugging on the burro’s rope with the other, trying to drag Blondie away into the trees.

Blondie brayed again. She reared still higher, ready to stamp on this stranger who was pulling at the rope around her neck.

Jupe knew how the burro dealt with rattlesnakes. He was more scared for the woman than he was for Blondie.

“Let her go,” he shouted.

Running forward, he tried to calm the little burro. “Blondie. Steady, Blondie,” he called in a soothing voice. Instantly the woman dropped the rope. Released, Blondie settled back on four legs. She turned to Jupe. He stroked her nose, looking at the woman.

The flashlight went out.

In the sudden darkness Jupe heard the sound of running. The woman had plunged away into the night. The next moment Pete and Bob joined Jupe in the clearing.

“What’s going on?” Bob asked. “Blondie woke me up.”

“Someone just tried to steal her,” Jupe explained. “A woman. ”

“Uh — oh,” Pete said. “That blonde again. The one who tried to drown you. Is she after burros now?”

“No.” Jupe shook his head. “I only saw her for a second in the flashlight. But I’d know her anywhere. She was that Mexican woman from the bus. The one with the purple shawl and the long black pigtails.”

10 Stranger in the Night

The next two days were like the first. Hour by hour, mile by mile, they traveled deeper into the Sierra Madre. The mountains seemed to go on forever. As soon as they climbed to the top of one rise, they would see another one ahead.

Narrow valleys separated the ranges. For a few miles the Three Investigators would be surrounded by pine trees. Then, as they climbed again above the tree line, they would have to clamber up bare rocky gulleys until they were over another range.

“Lucky for us it’s summer,” Pete said as he and Bob scrambled over the rocks. “In winter we’d be up to our necks in snow.”

“Doesn’t sound that bad to me,” Bob grunted. He was dripping with sweat.

Their day began as soon as the sun rose. They ate hot beans and rice for breakfast, cold beans and rice for lunch, hot beans and rice for dinner. It was boring and it was starchy but Jupe’s guilt meter was on low. He was determined to solve this case and see where Blondie was leading them. Everything else — even watching carbohydrates — was on hold. Anyway, he never wanted more than one serving of Dusty’s glop.

Three or four times a day Blondie would stop to graze. The Three Investigators welcomed these halts. It gave them a chance to stretch out and rest. It also gave Dusty and his horse a chance to catch up. Although the rancher fed his horse plenty of oats, she seemed to get more tired each day. Sometimes she lagged a mile behind Pete and Bob.

At one of these rest stops, the Three Investigators lounged in the grass while Blondie munched.

“I want to know why these women have it in for us,” Bob said. “First a blonde tries to deep-six Jupiter and then a brunette tries to steal our burro.”

“Maybe the Mexican woman’s burro went lame,” Pete guessed, “and she needed something to carry her stuff.”

Bob didn’t buy it. “You’d think a Mexican would be sharper about burros. She’d know that you can’t drag one off against its will.”

“I wonder,” said Jupe, “if she really wanted the burro for herself. My hunch is she just didn’t want us to have her.”

“Huh?” Pete said.

But Jupe had no more to say. The guys moved on.

Every evening before sunset Blondie found a place with water and firewood where they could camp for the night. They never saw another human being. Now and then they did see adobe huts with thatched roofs in the distance. But if anyone lived in them, they never showed themselves.

After the second day, Jupe’s legs lost their stiffness. They developed muscles he never knew he had. On the third morning he made a wonderful discovery. His leather belt was too loose for him! He had to take it in a notch.