“Nonsense!”
“I tell you I did!”
At that instant Tom flashed a pocket electric lamp he had taken from beneath his pillow and in the gleam of it he and Ned saw fluttering about the tent some dark, shadow-like form, at the sight of which Tom’s chum cried:
“There it is! That’s the shadow! Look out!”
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and he held up his hands instinctively to shield his face.
“Shadow!” yelled Tom, unconsciously adding to the din that seemed to pervade every part of the camp. “That isn’t a shadow. It’s substance. It’s a monster bat, and here goes for a strike at it!”
He caught up his camera tripod which was near his cot, and made a swing with it at the creature that had flown into the tent through an opening it had made for itself.
“Look out!” yelled Ned. “If it’s a vampire it’ll — — ”
“It won’t do anything to me!” shouted Tom, as he struck the creature, knocking it into the corner of the tent with a thud that told it must be completely stunned, if not killed. “But what’s it all about, anyhow?” Tom asked. “What’s the row?”
From without the tent came the Indian cries of:
“Oshtoo! Oshtoo!”
Mingled with them were calls of Jacinto, partly in Spanish, partly in the Indian tongue and partly in English.
“It is a raid by vampire bats!” was all Tom and Ned could distinguish. “We shall have to light fires to keep them away, if we can succeed.
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Every one grab up a club and strike hard!”
“Come on!” cried Tom, getting on some clothes by the light of his gleaming electric light which he had set on his cot.
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