CHAPTER III.
THE LETTERS OF FIRE ON THE CLIFF.
"Now, how'd he know that, Allan? D'ye reckon he tells the same way youwould?" asked Step Hen, immediately interested.
Some of the others had seen the Maine boy do various "stunts" alongthe line of woodcraft, on previous occasions; and among others he hadbeen able to tell just about how many hours previous a fire had beenabandoned, by the "feel" of the ashes, as Giraffe always declared.
"Pretty much the same, I suppose, Step Hen," replied the other,pleasantly, for Allan, being one of the officers of the patrol, wasalways glad to find any of the scouts interested in picking upinformation; and never refused to assist to the best of his ability.
Toby was examining the ground around the ashes with those snappingeyes of his, small in point of size, but capable of taking in everypoint going.
"How d'ye suppose he did do it?" persisted Step Hen, who was verydetermined, once he had set his mind on anything--stubbornness some ofhis camp-mates called it.
"Oh! there are ways easier to grasp in your mind than explain," Allanremarked. "You just _seem_ to know a thing. Some hidden instinct tellsyou, I might say. You feel a deadness in the ashes that's differentfrom fresh ones. And then the looks tell you whether the dew hasfallen on them or not. In this case Toby, I reckon, has found out thatthey seem mighty fresh; and so no night has passed since the lastspark of fire died out. There are other ways of telling about how manynights ago it may have been made, if an old one. But you ought to makea practice of studying these things connected with fires, Giraffe,instead of being always wanting to make fresh blazes. You'd find thematter mighty interesting, and worth while, I give you my word."
"Say, that gives me an idea!" exploded the tall scout; "and mebbe Iwill. Just as you say, Allan, everybody's getting sore on me forwanting to always build fires and fires, _and_ fires. I've been ableto start 'em every which way, from flint and steel, to twirling astick with a bow, after the style of them South Sea Islanders; andlike old Alexander I'm cryin' for new worlds to conquer. Well, herethey are, just like you say; and connected with fires too; right in myline, so to speak. Thank you for giving me the tip, Allan; I'm suregoin' to think it over."
"Thank goodness!" exclaimed Step Hen, fervently.
"Now, what d'ye say that for?" demanded Giraffe, taking umbrage at once.
"If ever you devote your colossal mind to the job of seeing how manyways fires can be _put out_, instead of started, the rest of us'llhave a chance to get some decent sleep nights; because we won't bealways afraid of the woods burnin' up with your crazy experiments,"and Step Hen moved a little further away from his chum as he saidthis, not knowing how Giraffe might take it.
But the tall scout, after meditating over the matter for part of aminute only remarked indifferently:
"Oh! that's all right, Step Hen; you've got your faults too, and bigones in the bargain. Ask Bumpus here if my faculty for makin' firesdidn't save us from a whole peck of trouble that time up in Maine whenwe found ourselves lost, a cold night comin' on, two partridges shot,and not a single match in the crowd to start a fire to cook the gameand keep us from freezing stiff. He knows."
"That's right," declared the fat scout, instantly, and with a fondlook toward Giraffe, as memories of the occasion referred to cametrooping into his mind, so that he could almost smell the odor ofthose cooking birds, thrust near the delightful fire on the points oflong splinters of wood.
Meanwhile the guide had come back to where the little party began tomake preparations for the night, the packs having been taken from thebacks of Mike and Molly, and everybody finding something to do in thebustle.
"Get anything?" asked Thad, as Toby Smathers came up, a grindecorating his sunburnt but honest face.
"Oh! it was the kunnel, all right," replied the guide. "I knows themark o' his hoof among a thousand. An' he's got them two pizen sharksalong o' him, Waffles and Dickey Bird. They been kicked out of nighevery camp in the silver region, but they just about suit the ijee ofthe kunnel, when he wants any dirty work done."
"And that's what you call finding the long lost silver mine, do you?"asked the scoutmaster, smiling.
"Well, accordin' to the ijee of most decent miners, that same Rawsonhad the first claim on that ere mine; and any feller that rediscoversit ought to turn a third of the proceeds over to the fambly of the manas got thar first. But you don't ketch Kunnel Kracker doin' any suchfoolish business as that. He'd gobble the whole business, and snap hisfinger at the widow and orphans. But they's one thing I don't justexactly understand about the marks hereabouts. Seems to be a boy alongwith the gang. Now, whatever could such an old seasoned prospector andminer as Kracker want with a half grown boy up in this part of thecountry, when he's huntin' for a mine that seems to have dropped outof sight, like it fell through to China? That's what gets _me_."
"Perhaps it might be an Indian boy; we had a glimpse of such a halfgrown brave skulking along, one day. He seemed to want to count nosesin our crowd the worst kind, and we wondered if he meant to stealanything; but after a while he just cut stick and cleared out, lookinga lot disappointed over something. Giraffe here tried to get closeenough to him to speak, but he was that shy he kept moving off all thetime. We thought he might have expected to see somebody he knew amongus, a boy perhaps, and when he found that we were a pack of strangershe didn't want anything more to do with us."
"This wa'n't any red-skinned boy, but a white," Toby declared,positively. "An Injun would a toed-in, and wore moccasins; but he hadon shoes, and turned his toes out, all right, civilized way. But then,just as you say, p'raps it don't matter a row of beans to us who hewas. We may run acrost 'em sooner or later; and again mebbe we won't."
When the two tents were in position it began to look "jolly much likea camp," as Step Hen declared.
The mules were allowed to graze on the little tufts of grass that grewin spots around, where there was enough earth to allow of such athing. Close by was an occasional stunted tree, from which the boyseasily secured all the firewood that was apt to be needed.
And how genial that blaze did look in the coming night, as it shoneupon the tents, the smiling faces of the scouts, and the generalsurroundings, so wild and lonely.
"Looks like we owned the whole world," remarked Bumpus, "when you justsquint around, and see the old Rockies towerin' up to the right and tothe left, behind and before. Say, this is what we've been lookin'forward to a long time, ain't it, fellers?"
Bumpus seemed to be happier over the situation than any of the others.Really, it was queer how deep an interest the stout youth had alwaystaken in this trip to the Wild Northwest. He it was who firstsuggested the same, and on every occasion he had fostered the idea. Upin Maine, when they first heard about that rich reward offered for therecovery of the missing valuables that had been stolen from a bank,Bumpus had been the one to declare that they ought to recover them, soas to have plenty of funds in the treasury, to pay the expenses of agrand trip to the backbone of the continent, those glorious mountainswhich he saw so often in his day dreams, and yearned so much to visit.
Of course, by this time every one of his chums had become filled withenthusiasm also, and there was no faint answer to this question on thepart of Bumpus.
Pretty soon supper was started, and that was a time when the scoutsbegan to be more or less restless. Tired as they might be, when thedelicious odors permeated the outermost limits of the camp, no oneseemed able to sit still. The fact of the matter was that they wereravenously hungry, and it was tantalizing to get the "smell" of thecooking, with the knowledge that it would be at least half an hour erethey could begin to satisfy their appetites. Any one who knows themake-up of average boys, understands that.
"I wouldn't like to be caught in parts of this valley, in acloud-burst," Davy Jones remarked; "I've been alookin' around some,and there's signs that tell of floods long ago. Guess a feller'd havehike some, to get away if a wall of water came whirlin' down here."
"But the hunting ought
to be fine, don't you think, Toby?" asked StepHen, who had begun to have aspirations to equal the record of severalof his comrades; and more than once declared that nothing less than abig-horn Rocky Mountain sheep would satisfy his ambition. "I c'n justthink I see the jumpers playin' leap-frog up along some of the cliffsthat stand out against the sky yonder."
"We'll find sheep, sooner or later, all right," asserted the guide,who was engaged in cutting wood for the fire; and more than that hewould not say, being a man of words rather than big promises.
"Look at Giraffe, would you?" remarked Step Hen. "He just can't quitplayin' with fire all the time."
"What's he doing now?" asked Thad, with a laugh, and not bothering tolook up; for it happened that just then he was making some notes inhis log book, fearing lest they slip his mind, if he waited untilafter supper.
"Oh! he's got a firebrand, and standing out there in the dark he's doingall sort of queer stunts! with it--whirling it around several times;then movin' it up and down, quick like; after which he crosses ithorizontally a few times. Why, just to look at him you'd think he wassending a message like we do with the wigwag flags in the day time."
"Well, that's just what Giraffe is pretending to do, right now," saidThad, after he had taken one quick look. "Only instead of using flags,he's taking a light to make the letters with. Giraffe is a pretty goodhand at heliograph work and all kinds of wigwagging, you know. I'vetalked with him by means of a piece of looking glass, on a sunshinyday, more than a mile away; and we managed to understand each otherfirst-rate. Leave Giraffe alone, Step Hen. He's a nervous scout, youunderstand, and has to work off his steam some way. There couldn't beany better than brushing up his Morse code, I think."
"Huh! p'raps you're right," grunted the other; "but it does beat all,how Giraffe, always finds satisfaction in playing with fire."
"There's one good thing, about it these days," ventured Davy Jones.
"What might that be, suh?" asked the Southern boy, Bob White, lookingup; for he was assisting to get supper ready.
"Why, we don't have to be afraid of Giraffe setting the woods on fireany more. It'd take a job bigger'n he could manage to get a fire goin'in this rocky valley," and Step Hen laughed as he said this; forindeed, the sparse and stunted trees that grew at intervals along thesides of the mountains did not seem to offer much encouragement to awould-be incendiary.
"How much longer do we have to wait for grub?" asked Bumpus, sighingdismally.
"What's that to you?" demanded Giraffe, from outside the limits of thecamp proper; he having heard the plaint. "If you went without a bitefor a week, sure, you could live on your fat, Bumpus; but think of_me_. Why, in two days' time my back-bone'd be rubbing up against myfront ribs; and in another they would have a riot. I've got a space tofill all the time. Please hurry up, fellers. Somebody blow the fire,and make it cook faster, won't you?"
"You might be doing the same, Giraffe, 'stead of wastin' all yoursurplus energy aswipin' the empty air out there," called out Step Hendisdainfully, and yet with a slight touch of envy in his voice; for,truth to tell, he aimed to equal the proficiency of the lanky scout inthe signal line.
So they went on exchanging remarks, as the minutes dragged slowlypast, each seeming more like an hour to the half-starved boys. In vaindid those who were doing the cooking tell them to keep their eyesanywhere but on the fire, because "a watched pot never boils."
But by slow degrees the supper was nearing readiness. Bumpus was evenmaking his mouth give signs of his eagerness to begin; and some of theothers had even taken up their tin platters hoping to be helped first,when Giraffe suddenly came jumping into camp, wildly excited.
Thad looked up from his writing, half expecting to see him followed bya savage mountain wolf, or possibly a full-grown grizzly bear; but tohis astonishment the boy who carried the burning fagot of wood criedout as well as he could in his great excitement:
"Thad--Allan--look! look! somebody's making wigwag letters with ablaze like mine, away up yonder on the face of that high cliff; and Icould read it, sure I could! And Thad, oh! what do you think, itkeeps on sayin' the same thing over and over all the time, aspellin'out the one word: 'help! help! help!'"
The scoutmaster jumped to his feet instantly, ramming the note book deepdown in his pocket as he grasped Giraffe eagerly by the arm, exclaiming:
"Come and show me what you mean! I hope you haven't mistaken a starfor a torch!"