CHAPTER XIX.
A STORM AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
Long after dark that same evening the two lads came limping into campto the no small relief of the anxious watchers, who had built a roaringfire to guide them back. After a fine supper they told the story oftheir day’s adventures which, as may be imagined, caused no smallastonishment among their hearers. The fact that they had recognizedthe pony on which the wild-looking man rode, together with theirdescription of the man himself, served quite sufficiently to identifyhim as the same fellow who had been seen by Ralph on the two formeroccasions. But so far as solving his identity was concerned, they wereas far off as ever.
After a late sleep the next day, a visit was paid to the hole downwhich poor White-eye had terminated his career, thereby causing HarryWare and young Simmons so much trouble. The carcass of the bear laythere, and although tracks showed that animals--foxes and wolves inall probability--had been sniffing around it, the body had not beenmolested. When Mountain Jim had skinned it, they had a fine “silvertipped” grizzly’s skin to take back with them.
Harry had remained in camp during this expedition so as to rest hissprained ankle as much as possible. Mountain Jim had collected variousherbs and pounded them into a paste which, when laid on the injuredmember, did it more good than all the liniments in the professor’smedicine chest. But it was still painful, for the exertions he had madein getting back to camp on the previous evening had not improved it.
After a consultation it was decided that the party could not wellcontinue to the bow of the Columbia River without getting two moreponies to replace the dead and stolen animals. Mountain Jim saidthat he knew of a ranch not more than fifteen miles off across themountains, at which he could purchase the needed animals cheaply. Itwas decided, therefore, that he and Ralph should leave early the nextday for the ranch and bring back two ponies with them. The others wouldhave liked to go along; but in view of the apparent hostility of themysterious man it was decided best to leave a strong guard in camp.
Bright and early the next morning the camp was astir. But Mountain Jimwas hardly out of his blankets before he gave an angry exclamation andpointed to where the stores had been piled under a canvas.
The cover had been raised during the night, and by the disorder thatprevailed among the supplies it was plain that several articles hadbeen taken. But who or what could have done the rifling?
Bears were the culprits, according to Mountain Jim’s firstdeclaration, but he revised his opinion when Ralph’s quick eyesdetected the print of a foot in the soft ground near by. A slight,misty rain had fallen in the night and the ground showed plainly theimpression of a human foot, or rather of what was, apparently, a veryold and broken pair of boots.
“Humph!” grunted Mountain Jim, “I guess it’s your friend that’s beenand done this, Master Ralph. Yes, by hooky! there’s the hoof print ofthe pony he stole. I’d know it among a dozen. See here, that off foreshoe is broken.”
“Well, of all the nerve!” gasped Ralph. “To visit our camp on athieving expedition mounted on a stolen pony from our pack train; canyou beat it?”
“You can’t,” chorused the boys.
“Can’t even tie it,” commented Percy Simmons, standing with his handsin his pockets and legs far apart, surveying the scene of vandalism.
An investigation showed that some flour, beans, and a big hunk ofbacon had been taken, besides canned goods.
“Say, I’d like to get my hands on that fellow for just about fiveminutes,” declared Mountain Jim angrily. “The skunk’s broken every lawof the woods. If he had been hungry and asked for grub he’d have beenwelcome, but not to sneak it off this way. I’d just like to get hold ofhim.”
“Couldn’t we notify the Northwest Mounted Police?” asked the professormildly.
“There ain’t no station closer than MacLean’s,” was the reply, “an’that’s a good sixty miles off the other way. Besides that, we don’t gomuch on police in matters of this kind.”
Mountain Jim’s face took on a grim look. It was just as well for thatmysterious individual that he was not within reach of those clenchedand knotted fists right then. However, even with the draught that hadbeen made on their stock of provisions, they still had a large enoughsupply to last them to the Big Bend, where Mountain Jim assured themthey could get anything they wanted “from a pin to a threshing machine”at a store kept by a French-Canadian.
However, as they all felt a desire to push onward, they did not wastemuch time discussing the visit of the thief in the night. Instead,Mountain Jim and Ralph busied themselves with preparations for theirstart, and soon after breakfast they jogged off to an accompaniment ofa chorus of good-wishes and farewells. Their road lay down the littlevalley in which they had camped, and before long an elbow of craggycliff shut out the little canvas settlement from view.
The road was level for a short distance and they made good time, theponies loping along as if they enjoyed it. Soon Mountain Jim consultedhis compass and declared that the time had come for climbing a ridgeand making “across country” for the ranch where he hoped to get theponies.
Accordingly, they spurred up a steep mountain side covered with darkand somber pines and tamarack, among which the wind sighed dismally.The going was much the same as Ralph was already getting accustomed toin that rugged, little-traveled country. Rocks, fallen trees and deepcrevasses crossed their paths in every direction, causing frequentdetours.
Hour after hour they traveled through this sort of country, making butslow progress. At noon they stopped for a bite of lunch, and tetheringthe ponies in some scant grass which grew in a rocky clearing, theyseated themselves on a log for their meal. Their canteens of water camein refreshingly, for they had not passed any streams or springs.
So engrossed had they been in making their way over the difficultcountry that they had been traversing, that up to this time theyhad not paid any attention to the weather. They now saw that greatblack clouds were rolling up beyond the snow-covered summits to thenorthwest of them.
As they ate, the clouds spread out as if a sable blanket had been drawnacross the sky by unseen hands. Before long the sun was blotted out andthe forest grew unspeakably gloomy.
“Reckon we’re in for a change in the weather,” said Mountain Jim dryly,looking up.
“It seems that way,” was Ralph’s reply; “it’s getting as dark astwilight. Hadn’t we better be getting along?”
Mountain Jim nodded.
“I’d like to get across the bed of the valley yonder before that hitsin,” he said. “It looks like it’s going to be a hummer, and in thatcase the water will rise in the creek bed below, uncommon sudden.”
They finished their meal hastily and remounted. Before them lay thesteep mountain side, at the bottom of which was the creek of whichMountain Jim had spoken. At that time of year it was probably dry,but if the storm proved to be a bad one it might fill with greatsuddenness, and for a short time be transformed into a roaring torrent,next to impossible to cross.
As they rode down the shaly mountain side, their ponies slipping andsliding and scrambling desperately to keep a footing, there came a low,distant rumble of thunder. The sky to the northwest turned from blackto a sort of purplish green. Through this ugly cloud blanket a shaftof lightning zipped with a livid glare. The thunder rolled and rumbledamong the mountains, reminding Ralph of Rip Van Winkle’s experiences inthe far-off Catskills.
“She’ll hit in most almighty quick,” opined Mountain Jim; “wish we’dbrought slickers with us.”
“I don’t mind a wetting,” rejoined Ralph stoutly.
“It’s worse than a wetting you’ll get, if it’s bad; half a drowning ismore like it,” grunted Mountain Jim. “Geddap, Baldy, shake a foot.”
But hasten as they would, before they had gone more than a few hundredyards further the rain began to fall in huge globules; drops they couldnot be called, they were too large. The thunder roared closer and asudden chill struck into the air. The dark woods were lit up
in uncannyfashion by the blinding blue glare of the lightning.
Suddenly, there was a flash of brilliant intensity and simultaneouslya ripping crash of thunder, followed by a sound like some mighty masscrashing earthward.
“Tree hit yonder,” said Mountain Jim laconically, “reckon we’d betterbe looking for shelter. We came close enough to getting hit in that_brulee_.”
Ralph agreed with him. But where were they to go to get from underthe lofty trees that invited the lightning to pass through theircolumnular trunks earthward? Suddenly Mountain Jim gave a shout:
“There we are yonder. _The Hotel de Bothwell_,” he cried with a grin.
Ralph looked and saw a small opening under some rocks not far distant.It was only a small cave seemingly, but at least, in case anything intheir vicinity was struck, it would keep them out of harm’s way.
Amidst incessant flashes of lightning and peals of thunder they madefor the place.
“Have to hitch the ponies outside,” said Mountain Jim. “Too bad thereain’t room to take ’em in, too; but it can’t be helped.”
However, the space in front of the cave mouth was fairly open and freefrom trees, so that it was not as bad as if they had had to tie theirmounts in the dense forest. In the downpour the mountaineer and theboy made the terrified ponies fast, and then made a dash for the darkmouth of the cave. It appeared to be little more than a recess formedby the piling of a mass of huge rocks one on top of another, remindingone of a giant’s game of blocks. Had the professor been there, he wouldhave ascribed the presence of the Titanic rock pile to glacial action;but to Mountain Jim and Ralph, the place stood for nothing more than awelcome means of shelter.
They were just about to enter it when a low moaning groan came fromthe back of the place and a huge, tawny body flashed past them, almostknocking Ralph over.