“Chow! What’s wrong?” Tom asked, jumping up. The cook’s face had turned sickly pale.
VOODOO STEW 37
“Th-there in the pot, boss!” Chow quavered. “T-t-take a look yourself!”
Tom peered into the stewpot and gasped. Inside, in place of the expected steaming mulligan, lay a small clay voodoo figure! It was molded in the shape of a cowboy, with an enormous paunch and ten-gallon hat. The figure was stuck full of pins!
“B-b-brand my grubsack, it’s me!” Chow wailed, as Tom pulled out the tiny voodoo doll. “Them p-pins mean I’m marked fer d-d-death!”
The roly-poly cook was trembling like an aspen in a high wind.
“Now, hold it, Chow!” Tom said calmly. “Don’t come all unglued. Maybe someone’s pulling your leg.”
“Pulling his leg?” said a third voice. Bud Barclay walked into the office wearing an innocent smile. “Who would do such a thing to a fearless Texan like Chow?”
The cook stared at Bud, openmouthed for a moment, then exploded into wrath.
“Buddy boy! You’re the varmint what done it!” he howled. “Shoulda knowed you was up to somethin’ when you came sneakin’ ‘round the galley!”
Bud ducked, half expecting Chow to hurl a plate at him. But the cook quickly recovered his good humor as the boys collapsed with laughter.
“Reckon you got a right to laugh,” Chow conceded with a chuckle. “Who’d want to hoodoo a good ole honest Texas trail cook anyhow?”
38 REPELATRON SKYWAY
The two boys were just finishing lunch when Tom received a call from the main gate. A visitor named Darcy Creel, a freelance zoo collector and journalist, was asking to see Tom.