CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT ON THE TRAIL OF A "BANDIT"
Up through the old trail the boy had broken his way, and into the newer,more open path he leaped, his feet winged with eagerness, and it was avery breathless lad who at last reached the trail's end and found thecold gray ashes that had been a camp-fire.
"He's gone!" he said aloud. "Whoever 'twas has gone on farther." Then,as he glanced among the near pines, he thought, "I might have known he'dbe gone by this time. A sheep-rustler, or a bandit, either, wouldn'tjust stay on a mountain-peak."
Truly disappointed, the boy climbed to the highest point, and, shadinghis eyes, looked in every direction.
The sun was high, the lake a deep emerald hue, with here and there thereflection of a fleecy white cloud slowly drifting across itsmirror-like surface, for not a breath of air was stirring. Then thelad's gaze swept the mountain-ranges beyond.
"Guess I'm not much good at catching sheep-rustlers," he commented, "butthen, I wouldn't think much of one, or a bandit either, who'd sit hereand wait to be caught."
The lad suddenly realized that he was very hungry. He sat on a rocknear, and looked meditatively about as he munched on the sandwich whichhe had taken from his pocket.
Suddenly he leaped to his feet, ran a little way toward the burned-outcamp-fire, and, kneeling, examined the ground. A footprint! It hadn'tbeen made by the soft leather shoe that Washoe Indians often wore.Rising, and still munching his bread and meat, he placed his own smallerfoot in the print.
"Whoever he is, he's a big fellow!" he said admiringly. "A reg'largiant." Then, having finished the bread, he drew a rosy apple from thedepth of another pocket where it had been bulging. The boy walked about,poking in the ashes; then suddenly, with a whoop of delight, he kneltdown, jammed the remaining piece of apple in his mouth to dispose of itspeedily, and with his freed hands drew forth a sheet of partly burned,much-blackened paper that had writing on it.
"Whizzle!" he ejaculated. "How I hope it's a clue."
He spread the paper on a flat boulder, and knelt to examine it closely.The fire and the smoke had done their best to make it hard for him todecipher the finely written words. It seemed to be the fragment of apersonal letter written to a relative, but not one reference was made toholding up a train or rustling sheep. At the very bottom, in a scorchedplace, the boy found something which caused him to leap to his feet andprance about as a wild Indian would, when celebrating a joyous occasion.
"Hurray! Hurray!" he fairly shouted, and the near peak echoed back thecry. Then, climbing again to the highest boulder, the lad once moreshaded his eyes, this time with an even greater eagerness to discoversome sign of a camp. At last, over on the next mountain which was soperilously steep that few attempted to scale it, and up near the top,the boy's eyes found what he sought--a camp-fire.
"Ginger!" he thought. "I don't know how he ever got there, whoever heis. Climbing that mountain is like trying to shin up the wall of a barn,but if he can do it, so can I, but 'twould take me a day, and it's toolate now."
The boy looked toward the west, and saw the sun was low in the horizon."I'd go to-morrow, but Dixie wouldn't like it if I cut school, and I'dought to stick at arithmetic if I'm going to be a civil engineer. ButI'll come up here Saturday before sun-up, and if that camp's over therethen, I'm going to head for it, and if it's who I think maybe 'tis--Aw--but, gee, it couldn't be. Well, it's somebody, and who it is I wantto find out."
"There wasn't anybody there," was the report he gave Miss Bayley thenext day. "Whoever it was made the fire had moved on." He said nothingof his plans, but it was very hard for the boy, yearning for adventure,to keep his mind on mathematics that week, and Saturday was a long timecoming.
But come it did, and hours before the sun was up Ken was on the trail,eager, expectant.
Again on the top of the trail where the burnt-out camp-fire had beendiscovered, Ken scrambled to the peak of the highest boulder, and, witha heart beating like a trip-hammer, he pulled his wide-brimmed hat overhis eyes to shade them from the glare of the sun that was rising in acloudless sky.
Would there be any sign of the camp on the mountains beyond, hewondered. Even as he looked he decided that whether there was or not, hewould not return to Woodford's without having further investigated.
At first the lad saw nothing but the dazzling golden light of the sunthat was slowly rising higher, driving the gloom from the canyons, but,as he continued to gaze, faint and far he saw a thin column of smokewavering uncertainly, and then suddenly drop down, to rise again amoment later, as though invigorated when fresh and more inflammable fuelhad been added to the fire.
The lad scrambled down from his peak of observation and danced about ashe shouted aloud, to the very evident astonishment of a squirrel nearby: "He's there! That is, somebody's there, and, oh, if it should be--But I mustn't get my heart set on that."
Then he looked again to make sure that he had not been imagining. Itmight be mist or haze, but there it was, unmistakably rising in astraight, unwavering dark line against the gleaming blue of the sky.Then, as the boy watched, a breeze, wafting across the lake, waved thecolumn of smoke.
"I feel sort o' like an Indian trying to read smoke-signals," he thoughtgleefully; "only, whoever made that fire isn't trying to send messagesto me. If it's a bandit hiding there, he wouldn't want any one to knowwhere he is even. Gee, he might be a dangerous character! Maybe I'dbetter steal up soft-like so that I can make a good getaway without hisknowin' I'm about, if--"
Then he chuckled as he started down the trail on the other side of thelow peak. "Dixie's the one in our family who is supposed to have'magination," he thought; "but this morning my head seems to be full ofqueer notions."
At first he started to sing, a glad shouting kind of song without wordsor meaning except that he was eager, excited, and happy. But suddenly hestopped as though fearing that some wanton wind would carry his voice tothe lone man who was probably then breakfasting.
Ken was following the trail that had been made by the Washoe Indiansfrom the canyon, when they went over to Lake Tahoe to fish, but at lastthe boy left it and broke through the sagebrush and other tangledgrowths and began climbing a trailless way toward the highest mountainnear Woodford's, which rose bare, gray, grim, lonely, forbidding.
There were times in the ascent when Ken came to a sheer wall, higherthan his head, and, to scale it, he took off his shoes, knotted thestrings, flung them over his shoulder, and then went up, clinging tocrevices with his toes and finger-tips.
It was lucky that Dixie, the little mother of them all, could not seejust then, the brother she so loved, for he was often in most perilouspositions, where a single slip would have sent him hurtling on thejagged rocks far below. But his desire to reach the goal of his dreamsgave him strength and skill, it would seem, and soon he reached thefirst small plateau and there he sat, the sun at its zenith assuring himthat it was noon. Taking the inevitable sandwich from his pocket, he ateit hungrily. Then he stretched out on the flat rock, conscious ofstrained muscles and glad of a moment's rest. But it wasn't long beforehe had leaped to his feet and rejoiced to find that, around theoutjutting rocks, there was a belt of scraggly low-growing pines. Tothese he could cling and make greater progress. How near was he to thecamp, he wondered. Suddenly he paused and listened intently.
A gunshot rang out so close to the boy that instinctively he dropped tothe ground, pressing close behind a boulder. What could it mean? Was henearer the camp than he had supposed? Had the bandit, or whoever was inhiding, seen him or heard him? This was possible, as but a moment beforehe had slipped, displacing some loose stones that had rattled noisilydown the mountain-side.
Or, if he had caused a motion among the dwarf pines to which he wasclinging, as he made the ascent, he might have been taken for a skulkingcoyote or a mountain-lion.
Almost breathlessly the lad waited, listening, watching, but he heardnothing and no one came. Fifteen minutes passed before he dared to goon,
and even then he did not stand erect, but crouched, keeping hiddenby the stunted growths about him.
This was the big adventure that his boyish heart had yearned for, andthe real element of danger but enhanced his joy in it.
He was wondering how much farther he would have to go before he sawsigns of a camp, when suddenly he rounded a denser and higher clump oftrees and found himself looking directly into a clearing on a smallplateau, which was protected on three sides, the fourth opening towardthe lake. Darting back under cover of the low-growing pines, Ken peeredout and beheld a rude structure that was neither cabin nor wigwam, but ashelter made of green branches. The campfire in front of it was stillsmoldering, proving that either the man was not far away, or that he hadnot long been gone. Then a terrible fear smote the heart of the lad.What if that had been the camper's last meal on the mountain! What if hehad now departed, not to return!
Just at that moment another shot rang out, the sound reverberating fromthe canyon below. The camper was evidently hunting for game. Indeed heprobably had nothing else to eat, though lower down and near the lakethere were rushing streams in which the little mountain trout could becaught in abundance.
The lad hardly knew what to do. He feared it would not be wise for himto go boldly into this unknown man's camp while he was away, for if itshould be one of the "dangerous characters" occasionally described bythe Genoa "Crier," who sought a hiding-place in the high Nevadas, thelad would want to slip away unobserved.
He decided to remain under cover until the camper had returned. Luckily,Ken had not long to wait, for a nearer shot told that the hunter wasapproaching, and in another moment a tall, sinewy, broad-shoulderedyoung man swung into view, a small deer flung over his shoulder.
His brown hair was long and his face nearly covered with a beard.Indeed, at first glance, he looked as though he might be a verydangerous character, but just as Ken had made this decision, the youngman, little knowing that he was being so closely observed, began to singin a tenor voice that carried to the heart of the listener theconviction that, whatever might be the reason for his hiding, it was notbecause of an evil record.
However, he did not leave his place of observation at once. He watchedas the young giant dropped the small deer upon the ground, stretched hisarms out as though to rest them, and then disappeared in his pineshelter. A moment later he reappeared without the gun, and carrying along sharp knife. Kneeling by the deer, he prepared to skin it.
Silently the lad drew nearer, but so intent was the camper upon hisoccupation that he did not hear a footfall nor a sound of any kind untilthe boy spoke hesitatingly, "I say, mister, I'm awful good at skinningcreatures. Couldn't I help?"
The young man, who had believed himself to be alone near the top of analmost unscaleable mountain, leaped to his feet, amazed. His keen grayeyes swept over the very small figure of the barefooted boy, and then,to the unutterable joy of the lad, his hands were seized and a voice heknew and loved was fairly shouting: "Ken Martin, old pal; I've beenwondering how in time I could get word to you that I was--well, sort ofa neighbor of yours. I fully intended to drop down into Woodford's soonand hunt you up, but I'm mighty glad you called first, so to speak. Sitdown, old man. But wait; I'll get you a drink of aqua pura from mynear-by sparkling fount. You look petered out, as though you had climbedto near the end of your strength."
The boy drank long of the water which was given him in a folding cup,and then, as he sank down on the ground in a truly weary heap, hegasped, "I say, Mr. Edrington, what-all are you doing up here?"