We erased our tracks to the tree, and made two blazes, on other trees, so that our cache was in the middle of a line from blaze to blaze. Then we took sights, and wrote them down on paper, so that none of us would forget how to find the place. (Note 50.)

We each had a blanket, rolled and slung in army style, with a string run through and tied at the ends. I carried the twenty-two rifle, and we stuffed away in our clothes what rations we could. In my blanket I carried the other of our lariat ropes. We might need it.

So the time was about ten o'clock before we started. The trail was more than twenty-four hours old, but our Scouts had made it plain on purpose, and we followed right along. Of course, I am sixteen and Kit Carson is thirteen and little Jed Smith is only twelve, so I set my pace to theirs. A blanket roll weighs heavy after you have carried it a few miles.

But we stopped only twice before we reached a sign marked in the ground: "Look out!" The trail faltered, and an arrow showed which way to go, and we came to the spot where the Scouts had peeped over into the draw and had seen the enemy. Here another arrow pointed back, and we understood exactly what had happened.

We took the new direction. The three Scouts had left as plain a trail as they could by breaking branches and disturbing pebbles, and treading in single file. Jed Smith was awful tired, by this time, for the sun was hot and we hadn't halted to eat. But picking the trail we made the circuit around the upper end of the draw and climbed the opposite ridge. The trail was harder to read, here, among the grass and rocks.

By the sun it was the middle of the afternoon, now, and we must have been on the trail five hours. We waited, and listened, and looked and smelled, feeling for danger. We must not run into any ambuscade. A little gulch, with timber, lay just ahead, and a haze of smoke floated over it.

This spelled danger. It was not Scouts' smoke, because Scouts would not be having a fire, at this time of day, smoking so as to betray their position. When we made a smoke, we made it for a purpose. The place must be reconnoitered.

We spread. I took the right, Kit Carson the left, and Jed Smith was put in the middle because he was the littlest. It would have been good if we could have left our blanket rolls, but we did not dare to. Of course, if we were chased, we might have to drop them and let them be captured.

We crossed a cow-path, leading into the gulch. It held burro tracks, pointing down; and it seemed to me that if there was any ambuscade down there it would be along this trail. Naturally, the enemy would expect us to follow the trail. Maybe the other Scouts had followed it and had been surrounded. So we crossed the trail, and I signed to Carson and to Smith to move out across the gulch and around by the other side.

We did. Cedars and spruces were scattered about, and gooseberry bushes and other brush were screen enough; we swung down along the opposite side, and the smoke grew stronger. But still we could not hear a sound. We closed in, peering and listening—and then suddenly I wasn't afraid, or at least, I didn't care. Through the stems of the trees was an open park, at the foot of the gulch, and if there was a camp nobody was at home, for the park was afire!

"Come on!" I shouted. "Fire!" and down I rushed. So did Carson and Jed Smith.

We were just in time. The flames had spread from an old camp-fire and had eaten along across the grass and pine needles and were among the brush, getting a good start. Already a dry stump was blazing; and in fifteen minutes more a tree somewhere would have caught. And then—whew!

But we sailed into it, stamping and kicking and driving it back from the brush.

"Wet your blanket, Jed," I ordered, "while we fight."

A creek was near, luckily; Jed wet his blanket, and we each in turn wet our blankets; and swiping with the rolls we smashed the line of fire right and left, and had it out in just a few minutes.

Now a big blackened space was left, like a blot; and the burning and our trampling about had destroyed most of the sign. But we must learn what had happened. We got busy again.

We picked up the cow-path, back in the gulch, and found that the burros had followed it this far. We found where the burros had been grazing and standing, in the brush, near the burned area, and we found where horses had been standing, too! We found fish-bones, and coffee-grounds dumped from the little bag they had been boiled in, and a path had been worn to the creek. We found in the timber and brush near by other sign, but we missed the second warning sign. However, where the fire had not reached, on the edge of the park, we found several pieces of rope, cut, lying together, and in a soft spot of the turf here we found the hob-nail prints of the Elk Patrol! By ashes we found where the main camp-fire had been, and we found where a second smaller camp-fire had been, at the edge of the park, and prints of shoes worn through in the left sole—the shoes of the beaver man! We found a tin plate and fork, by the big camp-fire, and wrapped in a piece of canvas in a spruce was a hunk of bacon. By circling we found an out-going trail of horses and burros. We found the out-going trail of the beaver man—or of a single horse, anyway, but no shoe prints with it. But looking hard we found Scout sole prints in the horse and burro trail.

By this time it was growing dusk, and Jed Smith was sick because he had drunk too much water out of the creek, when he was tired and hot and hungry. So we decided to stay here for the night. From the signs we figured out what might have happened:

According to the tracks, the burro thieves had joined with this camp. Our fellows had sighted the burro thieves, back where the "Look out" sign had been made, and had circuited the draw so as to keep out of sight themselves, and had taken the trail again on the ridge. They had followed along that cow-path, and had been ambushed. The cut ropes showed that they had been tied. This camp had been here for two or three days, because of the path worn to the creek and because of the coffee grounds and the fish bones and the other sign. It was a dirty camp, too, and with its unsanitary arrangements and cigarette butts and tobacco juice was such a camp as would be made by that town gang. The sign of the cut ropes looked like the town gang, too. The camp must have broken up in a hurry, and moved out quick, by the things that were forgotten. Campers don't forget bacon, very often. The cut ropes would show haste, and we might have thought that the Scout prisoners had escaped, if we hadn't found their sole prints with the out-going trail. These prints had been stepped on by burros, showing that the burros followed behind. What the beaver man was doing here we could not tell.

So we guessed pretty near, I think.

Little Jed Smith had a splitting headache, from heat and work and water-drinking. His tongue looked all right, so I decided it was just tiredness and stomach. One of the blankets was dry; we wrapped him up and let him lie quiet, with a wet handkerchief on his eyes, and I gave him a dose of aconite, for fever. (Note 51.)

At this time, we know now, General Ashley and Thomas Fitzpatrick were being hustled along one trail, captives to the gang; the beaver man was on a second trail, with our message; and Jim Bridger was on his lone scout in another direction, and just about to make a camp-fire with his hob-nails and a flint.

The dusk was deepening, and Kit Carson and I went ahead settling camp for the night. We built a fire, and spread the blankets, and were making tea in a tin can when we heard hoof thuds on the cow-path. A man rode in on us. He was a young man, with a short red mustache and a peaked hat, and a greenish-shade Norfolk jacket with a badge on the left breast. A Forest Ranger! Under his leg was a rifle in scabbard.

"Howdy?" he said, stopping and eying us.

Kit Carson and I saluted him, military way, because he represented the Government, and answered: "Howdy, sir?"

He was cross, as he gazed about.

"What are you lads trying to do? Set the timber afire?" he scolded. He saw the burned place, you know.

"We didn't do that," I answered. "It was afire when we came in and we put it out."

He grunted.

"How did it start?"

"A camp-fire, we think."

He fairly snorted. He was pretty well disgusted and angered, we could see.

"Of course. There are more blamed fools and down-right criminals loose in these hills this summer than ever before. I've done nothing except chase fires for a month, now. Who are you fellows?"

"We're a detail of the Elk Patrol, 14th Colorado Troop, Boy Scouts of America."

"Well, I suppose you've been taught about the danger from camp-fires, then?"

"Yes, sir," I answered.

"Bueno," he grunted. "Wish there were plenty more like you. Every person who leaves a live camp-fire behind him, anywhere, ought to be made to stay in a city all the rest of his life." (Note 52.)

He straightened in his saddle and lifted the lines to ride on. But his horse looked mighty tired and so did he; and as a Scout it was up to me to say: "Stop off and have supper. We're traveling light, but we can set out bread and tea."

"Sure," added Kit Carson and Jed Smith.

"No, thanks," he replied. "I've got a few miles yet to ride, before I quit. And to-morrow's Sunday, when I don't ride much if I can help it. So long."

"So long," we called; and he passed on at a trot.

We had supper of bread and bacon and tea. The bread sopped in bacon grease was fine. Jed felt better and drank some tea, himself, and ate a little. It was partly a hunger headache. We pulled dead grass and cut off spruce and pine tips, and spread a blanket on it all. The two other blankets we used for covering. Our coats rolled up were pillows. We didn't undress, except to take off our shoes. Then stretched out together, on the one-blanket bed and under the two blankets, we slept first-rate. Jed had the warm middle place, because he was the littlest.

As I was commander of the detail I woke up first in the morning, and turned out. After a rub-off at the creek I took the twenty-two and went hunting for breakfast. I saw a rabbit; but just as I drew a bead on him I suddenly remembered that this was Sunday morning—and I quit. Sunday ought to be different from other days. So I left him hopping and happy, and I went back to camp. Jed and Kit had the fire going and the water boiling; and we breakfasted on tea and bread and bacon.

Then we policed the camp, put out the fire, every spark, and took the burro and horse trail, to the rescue again. We must pretend that this was only a little Sunday walk, for exercise.

After a while the trail crossed the creek at a shallow place, and by a cow-path climbed the side of a hill. Before exposing ourselves on top of the hill we crawled and stuck just our heads up, Indian scouts fashion, to reconnoiter. The top was clear of enemy. Sitting a minute, to look, we could see old Pilot Peak and the snowy range where we Scouts ought to be crossing, bearing the message. We believed that now the gang with prisoners were traveling to cross the range, too. They had the message, of course, and that was bad, unless we could head them off. So we sort of hitched our belts another notch and traveled as fast as we could.

The hill we were on spread into a plateau of low cedars and scrubby pines; the snowy range, with Pilot Peak sticking up, was before. After we had been hiking for two or three hours, off diagonally to the left we saw a forest fire. This was thick timber country, and the fire made a tremendous smoke. It was likely to be a big fire, and we wondered if the ranger was fighting it. As for us, we were on the trail and must hurry.

We watched the fire, but we were not afraid of it, yet. The plateau was too bare for it, if it came our way. The smoke grew worse—a black, rolling smoke; and we could almost see the great sheets of flame leaping. We were glad we weren't in it, and that we didn't know of anybody else who was in it. But whoever had set it had done a dreadful thing.

The trail of the burros and of the horses, mixed, continued on, and left the plateau and dipped down into a wide flat, getting nearer to the timber on the slope opposite. Then out from our left, or on the fire side, a man came riding hard. He shouted and waved at us, so we stopped.

He was the Ranger. I tell you, but he looked tired and angry. His eyes were red-rimmed and his face was streaked with sweat and dirt, and holes were burned in his clothes and his horse's hide.

"I want you boys," he panted, as soon as he drew up. "We've got to stop that fire. See it?"

Of course we'd seen it. But—it wasn't any of our business, was it?

"I want you to hurry over there to a fire line and keep the fire from crossing. Quick! Savvy?"

"I don't believe we can, sir," I said. "We're on the trail."

"What difference does that make?"

"We're after a gang who have three of our men and we want to stop them before they cross the range."

"You follow me."

"I'm sorry," I said; "but we're trailing. We're obeying orders."

"Whose orders?"

"Our Patrol leader's."

"Who's he?"

"General Ashley—I mean, Roger Franklin. He's another boy. But he's been captured and two of our partners. We're to follow and rescue them. We've got to go."

"No, you haven't," answered the Ranger. "Not until after this fire is under control. You'll be paid for your time."

"We don't care anything about the pay," said Kit Carson. "We've got to go on."

"Well, I'm giving you higher orders from a higher officer, then," retorted the Ranger. "I'm giving you orders from the President of the United States. This is Government work, and I'm representing the Government. I reckon you Boy Scouts want to support the Government, don't you?"

Sure we did.

"If that fire goes it will burn millions of dollars' worth of timber, and may destroy ranches and people, too. It's your duty now to help the Government and to put it out. Your duty to Uncle Sam is bigger than any duty to private Scouts' affairs. And it is the law that anybody seeing a forest fire near him shall report it or aid in extinguishing it. Now, are you coming, or will you sneak off with an excuse?"

"Why—coming!" we all cried at once. We hated to leave the trail—to leave the general and Fitz and Jim Bridger and the message to their fate; but the Government was calling, here, and the first duty of good Scouts is to be good citizens.

"Pass up your blanket rolls," ordered the Ranger. "You smallest kid climb behind me. Each of you two others catch hold of a stirrup. Then we can make time across."

In a second away we all went at a trot, heading for the timber and the fire.

"I rode right through that fire to get you," said the Ranger. "I saw you. I've got two or three guards working up over the ridge. Your job is to watch a fire line that runs along this side of the base of that point yonder. One end of the fire line is a boggy place with willows and aspens; and if we can keep the fire from jumping those willows and starting across, down the valley, and those fellows on the other side of the ridge can head it off, in their direction, then we'll stop it by back-firing at the edge of Brazito canyon."

He talked as rapidly as we moved—and that was good fast Scouts' trot, for us. The hold on the stirrups and latigos helped a lot. It lifted us over the ground. We all crossed the flat diagonally and struck into a draw or valley full of timber and with a creek in it, at right angles to the flat. Up this we scooted, hard as we could pelt.

"Tired? Want to rest a second?" he asked.

We grunted "No," for we had our second wind and little Jed Smith was hanging on tight, behind the saddle. Besides, the fire was right ahead, toward the left, belching up its great rolls of black-and-white smoke. And at the same time (although we didn't know it) the gang who had started it were fleeing in one direction, from it, and the general and Fitzpatrick were loose and fleeing in another direction, and Jim Bridger was smelling it and with the Red Fox Patrol was drawing near to it and not knowing, and the beaver man was tying up his leg and about to run right into it.

But we were to help stop it.

"Here!" spoke the Ranger. "Here's the fire line, this cleared space like a trail. It runs to those willows a quarter of a mile below. When the fire comes along this ridge you watch this line and beat out and stamp out every flame. See? You can do it. It won't travel fast, down-hill; but if ever it crosses the line and reaches the bottom of the valley where the brush is thick, there's no knowing where it will stop. It will burn willows and everything else. One of you drop off here; I'll take the others further. Then I must make tracks for the front."

We left Kit Carson here. Jed Smith climbed down and was left next, in the middle, and I was hustled to the upper end.

"So long," said the Ranger. "Don't let it get past you. It won't. Work hard, and if you're really in danger run for the creek. But Boy Scouts of America don't run till they have to. You can save lives and a heap of timber, by licking the fire at this point. I'll see you later." And off he spurred, through the timber, across the front of the fire.

He wasn't afraid—and so we weren't, either.



CHAPTER XIV

THE CAPTURE OF THE BEAVER MAN

The fire line looked like some old wood-road, where trees had been cut out and brush cleared away. It extended through the timber, striking the thin places and the rocky bare places, and the highest places, and wound on, half a mile, over a point. This point, with a long slope from the ridge to the valley there, was open and fire-proof. The lower end of the line was that willow bog, which lay in a basin right in a split of the timber. Away across from our ridge was another gravelly ridge, and beyond that was the snowy range. (Note 53.)

The smoke was growing thick and strong, so that we could smell it plain. The fire was coming right along, making for us. There were the three of us to cover a half-mile or more of fire line, so we got busy. We divided the line into three patrols, and set to work tramping down the brush on the fire side of it and making ready.

Pretty soon wild animals began to pass, routed out by the fire. That was fun, to watch deer and coyotes and rabbits and other things scoot by, among the trees, as if they were moving pictures. Once I saw a wolf, and little Jed Smith called that he had seen a bear. Kit Carson reported that some of the animals seemed to be heading into the willow bog beyond his end of the line.

It was kind of nervous work, getting ready and waiting for the fire. It was worse than actual fighting, and we'd rather meet the fire halfway than wait for it to come to us. But we were here to wait.

The fire did not arrive all at once, with a jump. Not where I was. A thin blue smoke, lazy and harmless, drifted through among the trees, and a crackling sounded louder and louder. Then there were breaths of hot air, as if a dragon was foraging about. Birds flew over, calling and excited, and squirrels raced along, and porcupines and skunks, and even worms and ants crawled and ran, trying to escape the dragon. A wind blew, and the timber moaned as if hurt and frightened. I felt sorry for the pines and spruces and cedars. They could not run away, and they were doomed to be burnt alive.

The birds all had gone, worms and ants and bugs were still hurrying, and the timber was quiet except for the crackling. Now I glimpsed the dragon himself. He was digging around, up the slope a little way, extending his claws further and further like a cat as he explored new ground and gathered in every morsel.

This is the way the fire came—not roaring and leaping, but sneaking along the ground and among the bushes, with little advance squads like dragon's claws or like the scouts of an army, reconnoitering. The crackling increased, the hot gusts blew oftener, I could see back into the dragon's great mouth where bushes and trees were flaming and disappearing—and suddenly he gave a roar and leaped for our fire line, and ate a bush near it.

Then I leaped for him and struck a paw down with my stick. So we began to fight.

It wasn't a crown fire, where the flames travel through the tops of the timber; it traveled along the ground, and climbed the low trees and then reached for the big ones. But when it came near the fire line, it stopped and felt about sort of blindly, and that was our chance to jump on it and stamp it out and beat it out and kill it.

The smoke was awful, and so was the heat, but the wind helped me and carried most of it past. And now the old dragon was right in front of me, raging and snapping. The fore part of him must be approaching Jed Smith, further along the line. I whistled the Scout whistle, loud, and gave the Scout halloo—and from Jed echoed back the signal to show that all was well.

This was hot work, for Sunday or any day. The smoke choked and blinded, and the air fairly scorched. Pine makes a bad blaze. What I had to do was to run back and forth along the fire line, crushing the dragon's claws. My shoes felt burned through and my face felt blistered, and jiminy, how I sweat! But that dragon never got across my part of the fire line.

The space inside my part was burnt out and smoldering, and I could join with Jed. There were two of us to lick the fire, here; but the dragon was raging worse and the two of us were needed. He kept us busy. I suppose that there was more brush. And when we would follow him down, and help Kit, he was worse than ever. How he roared!

He was determined to get across and go around that willow bog. Once he did get across, and we chased him and fought him back with feet and hands and even rolled on him. A bad wind had sprung up, and we didn't know but that we were to have a crown fire. The heat would have baked bread; the cinders were flying and we must watch those, to catch them when they landed. We had to be everywhere at once—in the smoke and the cinders and the flames, and if I hadn't been a Scout, stationed with orders, I for one would have been willing to sit and rest, just for a minute, and let the blamed fire go. But I didn't, and Kit and Jed didn't; all of a sudden the dragon quit, and with roar and crackle went plunging on, along the ridge inside the willow bog. We had held the fire line—and we didn't know that Jim Bridger and the Red Fox Scouts were in those willows which we had saved because we had been ordered to!

Then, when just a few little blazes remained to be trampled and beaten out, but while the timber further in was still aflame, Jed cried: "Look!" and we saw a man coming, staggering and coughing, down through a rocky little canyon which cut the black, smoking slope.

He fell, and we rushed to get him.

Blazing branches were falling, all about; the air was two hundred in the shade; and in that little canyon the rocks seemed red-hot. But the fire hadn't got into the canyon, much, because it was narrow and bare; and the man must have been following it and have made it save his life. He was in bad shape, though. Before we reached him he had stood up and tumbled several times, trying to feel his way along.

"Wait! We're coming," I called. He heard, and tried to see.

"All right," he answered hoarsely. "Come ahead."

We reached him. Kit Carson and I held him up by putting his arms over our shoulders, and with Jed walking behind we helped him through the canyon and out to the fire line. He groaned and grunted. His eyebrows were crisped and his hair was singed and his shoes were cinders and his hands and face were scarred, and his eyes were all bloodshot, and he had holes through his clothes.

"Fire out?" he asked. "I can't see."

"It isn't out, but it's past," said Jed.

"Well, it mighty near got me," he groaned. "It corralled me on that ridge. If I hadn't cached myself in that little canyon, I'd have been burned to a crisp. It burned my hoss, I reckon. He jerked loose from me and left me to go it alone with my wounded leg. Water! Ain't there a creek ahead? Gimme some water."

While he was mumbling we set him down, beyond the fire line. It didn't seem as though we could get him any further. Kit hustled for water, Jed skipped to get first-aid stuff from a blanket-roll, and I made an examination.

His face and hands were blistered—maybe his eyes were scorched—there was a bloody place wrapped about with a dirty red handkerchief, on the calf of his left leg. But I couldn't do much until I had scissors or a sharp knife, and water.

"Who are you kids?" he asked. "Fishin'?" He was lying with his eyes closed.

"No. We're some Boy Scouts."

He didn't seem to like this. "Great Scott!" he complained. "Ain't there nobody but Boy Scouts in these mountains?"

Just then Kit came back with a hat of water from a boggy place. It was muddy water, but it looked wet and good, and the man gulped it down, except what I used to soak our handkerchiefs in. Kit went for more. Jed arrived with first-aid stuff, and I set to work, Jed helping.

We let the man wipe his own face, while we cut open his shirt where it had stuck to the flesh.

"Here!" he said suddenly. "Quit that. What's the matter with you?"

But he was too late. When I got inside his undershirt, there on a buckskin cord was hanging something that we had seen before. At least, it either was the message of the Elk Patrol or else a package exactly like it.

"Is that yours?" I asked.

"Maybe yes, and maybe no. Why?" he growled.

"Because if it isn't, we'd like to know where you got it."

"And if you don't tell, we'll go on and let you be," snapped little Jed.

"Shut up," I ordered—which wasn't the right way, but I said it before I thought. Jed had made me angry. "No, we won't." And we wouldn't. Our duty was to fix him the best we could. "But that looks like something belonging to us Scouts, and it has our private mark on it. We'd like to have you explain where you got it."

"He's got to explain, too," said little Jed, excited.

"Have I?" grinned the man, hurting his face. "Why so?"

"There are three of us kids. We can keep sight of you till that Ranger comes back. He'll make you."

"Who?"

"That Forest Ranger. He's a Government officer."

Kit Carson arrived, staring, with more water.

"I know you!" he panted. He signed to us, pointing at the man's feet. "You were at that other camp!" And Jed and I looked and saw the hole in the left sole—although both soles were badly burned, now. By that mark he was the beaver man! He wriggled uneasily as if he had a notion to sit up.

"Well, if you want it so bad, and it's yours, take it." And in a jiffy I had cut it loose with my knife. "It's been a hoodoo to me. How did you know I was at any other camp? Are you those three kids?"

"We saw your tracks," I answered. "What three kids?"

"The three kids those other fellows had corralled."

"No, but we're their partners. We're looking for them."

He'd had another drink of water and his face squinted at us, as we fussed about him. Kit took off one of the shoes and I the other, to get at the blistered feet.

"Never saw you before, did I?"

"Maybe not."

"Well, I'll tell you some news. One of your partners got away."

That was good.

"How do you know?" we all three asked.

"I met him, back on the trail, with two new kids."

"Which one was he? What did he look like?"

"A young lad, dressed like you. Carried a bow and arrow."

"Brown eyes and big ears?"

"Brown eyes, I reckon. Didn't notice his ears."

That must have been Jim Bridger.

"Who were the two fellows?"

"More of you Scouts, I reckon. Carried packs on their backs. Dressed in khaki and leggins, like soldiers."

They weren't any of us Elks, then. But we were tremendously excited.

"When?"

"This noon."

That sure was news. Hurrah for Jim Bridger!

"Did you see a one-armed boy?"

"Saw him in that camp, where the three of 'em were corralled."

"What kind of a crowd had they? Was one wearing a big revolver?"

"Yes. 'Bout as big as he was. They looked like some tough town bunch."

"How many?"

"Eight or ten."

Oho!

"Did you hear anybody called Bill?"

"Yes; also Bat and Mike and Walt and et cetery."

We'd fired these questions at him as fast as we could get them in edgewise, and now we knew a heap. The signs had told us true. Those two recruits had joined with the town gang, and our Scouts had been captured; but escape had been attempted and Jim Bridger had got away.

"How did you get that packet?" asked Kit.

"Found it."

He spoke short as if he was done talking. It seemed that he had told us the truth, so far; but if we kept questioning him much more he might get tired or cross, and lie. We might ask foolish questions, too; and foolish questions are worse than no questions.

We had done a good job on this man, as appeared to us. We had bathed his face, and had exposed the worst burns on his body and arms and legs and had covered them with carbolized vaseline and gauze held on with adhesive plaster, and had cleaned the wound in his leg. It was a regular hole, but we didn't ask him how he got it. 'Twas in mighty bad shape, for it hadn't been attended to right and was dirty and swollen. Cold clear water dripped into it to flush it and clean it and reduce the inflammation would have been fine, but we didn't have that kind of water handy; so we sifted some boric powder into it and over it and bound on it a pad of dry sterilized gauze, but not too tight. I asked him if there was a bullet or anything else in it, and he said no. He had run against a stick. This was about all that we could do to it, and play safe by not poking into it too much. (Note 54.)

He seemed to feel pretty good, now, and sat up.

"Well," he said, "now I've given you boys your message and told you what I know, and you've fixed me up, so I'll be movin' on. Where are those things I used to call shoes?"

We exchanged glances. He was the beaver man.

"We aren't through yet," I said.

"Oh, I reckon you are," he answered. "I'm much obliged. Pass me the shoes, will you?"

"No; wait," said Kit Carson.

"What for?" He was beginning to growl.

"Till you're all fixed."

"I'm fixed enough."

"We'll dress some of those wounds over again."

"No, you won't. Pass me those shoes."

They were hidden behind a tree.

"Can't you wait a little?"

"No, I can't wait a little." He was growling in earnest. "Will you pass me those shoes?"

"No, we won't," announced Kit. He was getting angry, too.

"You pass me those shoes or something is liable to happen to you mighty sudden. I'll break you in two."

"I'll get the rifle," said Jed, and started; but I called him back. We didn't need a rifle.

"He can't do anything in bare feet like that," I said. And he couldn't. His feet were too soft and burned. That is why we kept the shoes, of course.

"I can't, eh?"

"No. We aren't afraid."

He started to stand, and then he sat back again.

"I'll put a hole in some of you," he muttered; and felt at the side of his chest. But if he had carried a gun in a Texas holster there, it was gone. "Say, you, what's the matter with you?" he queried. "What do you want to keep me here for?"

"You'd better wait. We'll stay, too."

He glared at us. Then he began to wheedle.

"Say, what'd I ever do to you? Didn't I give you back that message, and tell you all I knew? Didn't I help you out as much as I could?"

"Sure," we said.

"Then what have you got it in for me for?"

"We'd rather you'd wait till the Ranger or somebody comes along," I explained.

He fumbled in a pants pocket.

"Lookee here," he offered. And he held it out. "Here's a twenty-dollar gold piece. Take it and divvy it among you; and I'll go along and nobody'll be the wiser."

"No, thanks," we said.

"I'll make it twenty apiece for each," he insisted. "Here they are. See? Give me those shoes, and take these yellow bucks and go and have a good time."

But we shook our heads, and had to laugh. He couldn't bluff us Scouts, and he couldn't bribe us, either. He twisted and stood up, and we jumped away, and Kit was ready to grab up the shoes and carry them across into the burned timber where the ground was still hot.

The man swore and threatened frightfully.

"I'd like to get my fingers on one of you, once," he stormed. "You'd sing a different tune."

So we would. But we had the advantage now and we didn't propose to lose it. He couldn't travel far in bare, blistered feet. I wished that he'd sit down again. We didn't want to torment him or nag him, just because we had him. He did sit down.

"What do you think I am, anyhow?" he asked.

"Well, you've been killing beaver," I told him.

"Who said so?"

"We saw you at the beaver-pond, when we were camping opposite. And just after you left the game warden came along, looking for you."

"You saw some other man."

"No, we didn't. We know your tracks. And if you aren't the man, then you'll be let go."

"You kids make me tired," he grumbled, and tried to laugh it off. "Supposin' a man does trap a beaver or two. They're made to be trapped. They have to be trapped or else they dam up streams and overflow good land. Nobody misses a few beaver, anyhow, in the timber. This is a free land, ain't it?"

"Killing beaver is against the law, just the same," said Jed.

"You kids didn't make the law, did you? You aren't judge of the law, are you?"

"No," I said. "But we know what it is and we don't think it ought to be broken. If people go ahead breaking the game laws, then there won't be any game left for the people who keep the laws to see or hunt. And the less game there is, the more laws there'll be." I knew that by heart. It was what Scouts are taught.

This sounded like preaching. But it was true. And while he was fuming and growling and figuring on what to do, we were mighty glad to hear a horse's hoofs. The Ranger came galloping down the fire line.

"Hello," he said. He was streaked with ashes and soot and sweat, and so was his horse, and they both looked worn to a frazzle. "Well, we've licked the fire. Who's that? Somebody hurt?" Then he gave another quick look. "Why, how are you, Jack? You must have run against something unexpected."

The beaver man only growled, as if mad and disgusted.

I saluted.

"We have held the fire line, sir," I reported.

"You bet!" answered the Ranger. "You did well. And now you're holding Jack, are you? You needn't explain. I know all about him. Since that fire drove him out along with other animals, we'll hang on to him. The game warden spoke to me about him a long time ago."

"You fellows think you're mighty smart. Do I get my shoes, or not?" growled the beaver man.

"Not," answered the Ranger, cheerfully. "We'll wrap your feet up with a few handkerchiefs and let you ride this horse." He got down. "What's the matter? Burns? Bad leg? Say! These kids are some class on first-aid, aren't they! You're lucky. Did you thank them? Now you can ride nicely and the game warden will sure be glad to see you." Then he spoke to us. "I'm going over to my cabin, boys, where there's a telephone. Better come along and spend the night."

We hustled for our blanket-rolls. The beaver man gruntingly climbed aboard the Ranger's horse, and we all set out. The Ranger led the horse, and carried his rifle.

"Is the fire out?" asked Kit Carson.

"Not out, but it's under control. It'll burn itself out, where it's confined. I've left a squad to guard it and I'll telephone in to headquarters and report. But if it had got across this fire line and around those willows, we'd have been fighting it for a week."

"How did it start?"

"Somebody's camp-fire."

The trail we were making led through the timber and on, across a little creek and up the opposite slope. The sun was just setting as we came out beyond the timber, and made diagonally up a bare ridge. On top it looked like one end of that plateau we had crossed when we were trailing the gang and we had first seen the fire.

The Ranger had come up here because traveling was better and he could take a good look around. We halted, puffing, while he looked. Off to the west was the snowy range, and old Pilot Peak again, with the sun setting right beside him, in a crack. The range didn't seem far, but it seemed cold and bleak—and over it we were bound. Only, although now we had the message, we didn't have the other Scouts. If they were burned—oh, jiminy!

"Great Caesar! More smoke!" groaned the Ranger. "If that's another fire started—!"

His words made us jump and gaze about. Yes, there was smoke, plenty of it, over where the forest fire we had fought was still alive. But he was looking in another direction, down along the top of the plateau.

"See it?" he asked.

Yes, we saw it. But—! And then our hearts gave a great leap.

"That's not a forest fire!" we cried. "That's a smoke signal!"

"A what?"

"A smoke signal! And—"

"Wait a second. We'll read it, if we can. Scouts must be over there," I exclaimed.

"More Scouts!" grunted the beaver man. "These here hills are plumb full of 'em."

The air was quiet, and the smoke rose straight up, with the sun tinting the top. It was a pretty sight, to us. Then we saw two puffs and a pause, and two puffs and a pause, and two puffs and a pause. It was our private Elk Patrol code, and it was beautiful. We cheered.

"It's from our partners, and it says 'Come to council,'" I reported. "They're hunting for us. We'll have to go over there."

"Think they're in trouble?"

"They don't say so, but we ought to signal back and go right over."

"I'll go, too, for luck, and see you through, then," said the Ranger.

"Do I have to make that extra ride?" complained the beaver man, angry again.

"Sure," answered the Ranger. "That's only a mile or so and then it's only a few more miles to the cabin, and we aren't afraid of the dark."

They watched us curiously while we hustled and scraped a pile of dead sage and grass and rubbish, and set it to smoking and made the Elks' "O. K." signal. The other Scouts must have been sweeping the horizon and hoping, for back came the "O. K." signal from them.

And traveling our fastest, with the beaver man grumbling, we all headed across the plateau for the place of the smoke. Sunday was turning out good, after all.



CHAPTER XV

GENERAL ASHLEY DROPS OUT

(JIM BRIDGER RESUMES THE TALE)

I tell you, we were glad to have that smoke of ours answered, and to see Major Henry and Kit Carson and Jed Smith coming, in the twilight, with the Ranger and the beaver man. We guessed that the three boys must be our three partners—and when they waved with the Elk Patrol sign we knew; but of course we didn't know who the two strangers were.

While they were approaching, Major Henry wigwagged: "All there?" with his cap; and Fitzpatrick wigwagged back: "Sure!" They arrived opposite us, and then headed by the man with the rifle, who was leading the horse, they obliqued up along the gulch as if they knew of a crossing; so we decided that one of the strangers must be acquainted with the country. They made a fine sight, against the horizon.

Pretty soon into the gulch they plunged, and after a few minutes out they scrambled, man and horse first, on our side, and came back toward us. And in a minute more we Elk Scouts were dancing and hugging each other, and calling each other by our regular ordinary names, "Fat" and "Sliver" and "Red" and all, and discipline didn't cut much figure. That was a joyful reunion. The Ranger and his prisoner, the beaver man, looked on.

Then when Major Henry hauled out the message packet, and saluting and grinning passed it to the general, our cup was full. I was as glad as if I had passed it, myself. "One for all, and all for one," is the way we Scouts work.

"If you hadn't trailed him (the beaver man) and headed him and fixed him so he couldn't travel fast, he'd have got away from the fire and wouldn't have run into us," claimed Major Henry.

"And if you fellows hadn't held that fire line you wouldn't have seen him and we might have been burnt or suffocated in the willows," I claimed back.

So what seems a failure or a bother, when you're trying your best, often is the most important thing of all, or helps make the chain complete.

But now we didn't take much time to explain to each other or to swap yarns; for the twilight was gone and the dark was closing in, and we weren't in the best of shape. The burro Apache was packed with bedding, mostly, which was a good thing, of course; the Red Fox Scouts had their outfit; but we Elks were short on grub. That piece of bacon and just the little other stuff carried by the Major Henry party were our provisions. Fitz and the poor general were making a hungry camp, when we had discovered them. And then there was the general, laid up.

"What's the matter with you, kid?" queried the Ranger.

"Sprained ankle, I think."

"That's sure bad," sympathized the Ranger.

And it sure was.

"Boys, I'll have to be traveling for that cabin of mine, to report about the fire and this man," said the Ranger, after listening to our talk for a minute. "If you're grub-shy, some of you had better come along and I'll send back enough to help you out."

That was mighty nice of him. And the general spoke up, weakly. "How far is the cabin, please?"

"About three miles, straight across."

"If I could make it, could I stay there a little while?"

"Stay a year, if you want to. We'll pack you over, if you'll go. Can you ride?"

"All right," said the general. "I'll do it. Now, you fellows, listen. Major Henry, I turn the command and the message over to you. I'm no good; I can't travel and we've spent a lot of time already, and I'd be only a drag. So I'll drop out and go over to that cabin, and you other Scouts take the message."

Oh, we didn't want to do that! Leave the general? Never!

"No, sir, we'll take you along if we have to carry you on our backs," we said; and we started in, all to talk at once. But he made us quit.

"Say, do I have to sit here all night while you chew the rag?" grumbled the beaver man. But we didn't pay attention to him.

"It doesn't matter about me, whether I go or not, as long as we get that message through," answered the general, to us. "I can't travel, and I'd only hold you back and delay things. I'll quit, and the rest of you hustle and make up for lost time."

"I'll stay with you. This is Scout custom: two by two," spoke up little Jed Smith. He was the general's mate.

"Nobody stays with me. You all go right on under Corporal Henry."

"It'll be plumb dark before we get to that cabin," grumbled the beaver man. "This ain't any way to treat a fellow who's been stuck and then burnt. I'm tired o' sittin' on this hoss with my toes out."

"Well, you can get off and let this other man ride. I'll hobble you and he can lead you," said the Ranger.

"What's the matter with the burro?" growled the beaver man. He wasn't so anxious to walk, after all.

Sure! We knew that the Ranger was waiting, so while some of us led up Apache, others bandaged the general's ankle tighter, to make it ride easier and not hurt so much if it dangled. Then we lifted the general, Scout fashion, on our hands, and set him on Apache.

Now something else happened. Red Fox Scout Ward stepped forward and took the lead rope.

"I'm going," he announced quietly. "I'm feeling fine and you other fellows are tired. Somebody must bring the burro back, and the general may need a hand."

"No, I won't," corrected the general.

"But the burro must come back."

"It's up to us Elk Scouts to do that," protested Major Henry. "Some of us will go. You stay. It's dark."

"No, sir. You Elk men have been traveling on short rations and Van Sant and I have been fed up. It's either Van or I, and I'll go." And he did. He was bound to. But it was a long extra tramp.

We shook hands with the general, and gave him the Scouts' cheer; and a cheer for the Ranger.

"Ain't we ever goin' to move on?" grumbled the beaver man.

"I may stay all night and be back early in the morning," called Ward.

"Of course."

They trailed away, in the dimness—the Ranger ahead leading the beaver man, Red Fox Scout Ward leading Apache. And we were sorry to see them go. We should miss the plucky Ashley, our captain.



CHAPTER XVI

A BURRO IN BED

When I woke in the morning Fitz was already up, building the fire, according to routine, and Red Fox Scout Van Sant was helping him. So I rolled out at once, and here came Red Fox Scout Ward with the burro, across the mesa, for the camp.

He brought a little flour and a few potatoes and a big hunk of meat, and a fry-pan. He brought a map of the country, too, that he had sketched from information from the Ranger. That crack beside Pilot Peak, where the sun had set, was a pass through, which we could take for Green Valley. It was a pass used by the Indians and buffalo, once, and an old Indian trail crossed it still. The general sent word that if we took that trail, he would get the goods we had left cached.

"Now," reported Major Henry, when we had filled for a long day's march, "I'll put it to vote. We can either find that cache ourselves, and take the trail from there, as first planned, or we can head straight across the mountain. It's a short cut for the other side of the range, but it may be rough traveling. The other way, beyond the cache, looked pretty rough, too. But we'd have our traps and supplies,—as much as we could pack on Apache, anyhow."

"I vote we go straight ahead, over the mountain, this way," said Fitz. "We'll get through. We've got to. We've been out seven days, and we aren't over, yet."

We counted. That was so. Whew! We must hurry. Kit and Jed and I voted with Fitz.

"All right. Break camp," ordered Major Henry.

He didn't have to speak twice.

"That Ranger says we can strike the railroad, over on the other side, Van, and make our connections there," said Red Fox Scout Ward to his partner. "Let's go with the Elks and see them through that far."

That was great. They had come off their trail a long way already, helping me, it seemed to us—but if they wanted to keep us company further, hurrah! Only, we wouldn't sponge off of them, just because they had the better outfit, now.

We policed the camp, and put out the fire, through force of habit, and with the burro packed with the squaw hitch (Note 55), and the Red Foxes packed, forth we started, as the sun was rising, to follow the Ute trail, over Pilot Peak. The Red Fox Scouts carried their own stuff; they wouldn't let us put any of it on Apache, for they were independent, too.

Travel wasn't hard. After we crossed the gorge the top of the mesa or plateau was flat and gravelly, with some sage and grass, and we made good time. We missed the general, and we were sorry to leave that cache, but we had cut loose and were taking the message on once more. Thus we began our second week out.

The forest fire was about done. Just a little smoke drifted up, in the distance behind and below. But from our march we could see where the fire had passed through the timber, yonder across; and that blackened swath was a melancholy sight. We didn't stop for nooning, and when we made an early camp the crack had opened out, and was a pass, sure enough.

Red Fox Scout Van Sant and I were detailed to take the two rifles and hunt for rabbits. We got three—two cottontails and a jack—among the willows where a stream flowed down from the pass. The stream was swarming here with little trout, and Jed Smith and Kit Carson caught twenty-four in an hour. So we lived high again.

Those Red Fox Scouts had a fine outfit. They had a water-proof silk tent, with jointed poles. It folded to pocket size, and didn't weigh anything at all; but when set up it was large enough for them both to sleep in. Then they had a double sleeping bag, and blankets that were light and warm both, and a lot of condensed foods and that little alcohol stove, and a complete kit of aluminum cooking and eating ware that closed together—and everything went into those two packs.

They used the packs instead of burros or pack-horses. I believe that animals are better in the mountains where a fellow climbs at ten and twelve thousand feet, and where the nights are cold so he needs more bedding than lower down. Man-packs are all right in the flat timber and in the hills out East, I suppose. But all styles have their good points, maybe; and a Scout must adapt himself to the country. We all can't be the same.

Because the Red Fox Scouts were Easterners, clear from New Jersey, and we were Westerners, of Colorado, we sort of eyed them sideways, at first. They had such a swell outfit, you know, and their uniform was smack to the minute, while ours was rough and ready. They set up their tent, and we let them—but our way was to sleep out, under tarps (when we had tarps), in the open. We didn't know but what, on the march, they might want to keep their own mess—they had so many things that we didn't. But right away a good thing happened again.

"How did Fitzpatrick lose his arm?" asked Scout Van Sant of me, when we were out hunting and Fitz couldn't hear.

"In the April Day mine," I said.

"Where?"

"Back home."

He studied. "I thought the name of that town sounded awfully familiar to me," he said.

When we came into camp with our rabbits, he went straight up to Fitz.

"I hear you hurt your arm in the April Day mine," he said.

"Yes. I was working there," answered Fitz. "Why?"

Van Sant stuck out his hand. "Shake," he said. "My father owns that mine—or most of it. Ever hear of him?"

"No," said Fitz, flushing. "I'm just a mucker and a sorter. My father's a miner."

"Well, shake," laughed Van Sant. "I never even mucked or sorted, and you know more than I do about it. My father just owns—and if it wasn't for the workers like you and your father, the mine wouldn't be worth owning. See? I'm mighty sorry you got hurt there, though."

Fitz shook hands. "It was partly my own fault," he said. "I took a chance. That was before your father bought the mine, anyway."

Then he went to cooking and we cleaned our game. But from that time on we knew the Red Fox Scouts to be all right, and their being from the East made no difference in them. So we and they used each other's things, and we all mixed in together and were one party.

We had a good camp and a big rest, this night: the first time of real peace since a long while back, it seemed to me. The next morning we pushed on, following up along the creek, and a faint trail, for the pass.

This day's march was a hard climb, every hour, and it took our wind, afoot. But by evening old Pilot Peak wasn't far at all. His snow patches were getting larger. When we camped in a little park we must have been up about eleven thousand feet, and the breeze from the Divide ahead of us blew cool.

The march now led through aspens and pines and wild flowers, with the stream singing, and forming little waterfalls and pools and rapids, and full of those native trout about as large as your two fingers. There was the old Indian trail, to guide us. It didn't have a track except deer-tracks, and we might have been the only white persons ever here. That was fine. Another sign was the amount of game. Of course, some of the game may have been driven here by the forest fire. But we saw lots of grouse, which sat as we passed by, and rabbits and porcupines, and out of the aspens we jumped deer.

We arrived where the pretty little stream, full of songs and pictures and trout, came tumbling out of a canyon with bottom space for just it alone. The old Indian trail obliqued off, up a slope, through the timber on the right, and so did we.

It was very quiet, here. The lumber folks had not got in with their saws and axes, and the trees were great spruces, so high and stately that we felt like ants. Among the shaded, nice-smelling aisles the old trail wound. Sometimes it was so covered with the fallen needles that we could not see it; and it had been blazed, years ago, by trappers or somebody, and where it crossed glades we came upon it again. It was an easy trail.

We reached the top of a little ridge, and before us we saw the pass. 'Twas a wide, open pass, with snow-banks showing on it, and the sun swinging down to set behind it.

The trail forked, one branch making for the pass, the other making for the right, where Pilot Peak loomed close at hand. There was some reason why the trail forked, and as we surveyed we caught the glint of a lake, over there.

Major Henry examined the sketch map. "That must be Medicine Lake," he said. "I think we'd better go over there and camp, instead of trying the pass. We're sure of wood and water, and it won't be so windy."

The trail took us safely to the brow of a little basin, and looking down we saw the lake. It was lying at the base of Pilot Peak. Above it on one side rose a steep slope of a gray slide-rock, like a railway cut, only of course no railroad was around here; and all about, on the other sides, were pointed pines.

I tell you, that was beautiful. And when we got to the lake we found it to be black as ink—only upon looking into it you could see down, as if you were looking through smoky crystal. The water was icy cold, and full of specks dancing where the sun struck, and must have been terrifically deep.

We camped beside an old log cabin, all in ruins. It was partly roofed over with sod, but we spread our beds outside; these old cabins are great places for pack-rats and skunks and other animals like those. Fish were jumping in the lake, and the two Red Fox Scouts and I were detailed to catch some. The Red Fox Scouts tried flies, but the water was as smooth as glass, and you can't fool these mountain lake-trout, very often, that way. Then we put on spinners and trolled from the shores by casting. We could see the fish, gliding sluggishly about,—great big fellows; but they never noticed our hooks, and we didn't have a single strike. So we must quit, disgusted.

The night was grand. The moon was full, and came floating up over the dark timber which we had left, to shine on us and on the black lake and on the mountain. Resting there in our blankets, we Elk Scouts could see all about us. The lake lay silent and glassy, except when now and then a big old trout plashed. The slide-rock bank gleamed white, and above it stretched the long rocky slope of Pilot, with the moon casting lights and shadows clear to its top.

This was a mighty lonely spot, up here, by the queer lake, with timber on one side and the mountain on the other; the air was frosty, because ice would form any night, so high; not a sound could be heard, save the plash of trout, or the sighs of Apache as he fidgeted and dozed and grazed; but the Red Fox Scouts were snug under their tent, and under our bedding we Elks were cuddled warm, in two pairs and with Major Henry sleeping single.

We did not need to hobble or picket Apache. (Note 56.) He had come so far that he followed like a dog and stayed around us like a dog. When you get a burro out into the timber or desert wilds and have cut him loose from his regular stamping ground, then he won't be separated from you. He's afraid. Burros are awfully funny animals. They like company. So when we camped we just turned Apache out, and he hung about pretty close, expecting scraps of bread and stuff and enjoying our conversation.

To-night he kept snorting and fussing, and edging in on us, and before we went to sleep we had to throw sticks at him and shoo him off. It seemed too lonesome for him, up here. Then we dropped to sleep, under the moon—and then, the first thing Fitz and I knew, Apache was trying to crawl into bed with us!

That waked us. Nobody can sleep with a burro under the same blanket. Apache was right astraddle of us and was shaking like an aspen leaf; his long ears were pricked, he was glaring about, and how he snorted! I sat up; so did Fitz. We were afraid that Apache might step on our faces.

"Get out, Apache!" we begged. But he wouldn't "get." He didn't budge, and we had to push him aside, with our hands against his stomach.

Now the whole camp was astir, grumbling and turning. Apache ran and tried to bunk with Kit and Jed. "Get out!" scolded Kit; and repulsed here, poor Apache stuck his nose in between the flaps of the silk tent and began to shove inside.

Something crackled amidst the brush along the lake, and there sounded a snort from that direction, also. It was a peculiar snort. It was a grunty, blowy snort. And beside me Fitz stiffened and lifted his head further.

"Bear!" he whispered.

"Whoof!" it answered.

"Bear! Look out! There's a bear around!" said the camp, from bed to bed.

Down came the silk tent on top of Apache, and out from under wriggled the Red Fox Scouts, as fast as they could move. Their hair was rumpled up, they were pale in the moonlight, and Van Sant had his twenty-two rifle ready. That must have startled them, to be waked by a big thing like Apache forcing a way into their tent.

"Who said bear? Where is it?" demanded Van Sant.

"Don't shoot!" ordered Major Henry, sharply, sitting up. "Don't anybody shoot. That will make things worse. Tumble out, everybody, and raise a noise. Give a yell. We can scare him."

"I see it!" cried Ward. "Look! In that clear spot yonder—up along the lake, about thirty yards."

Right! A blackish thing as big as a cow was standing out in the moonlight, facing us, its head high. We could almost see its nostrils as it sniffed.

Up we sprang, and whooped and shouted and waved and threw sticks and stones into the brush. With another tremendous "Whoof!" the bear wheeled, and went crashing through the brush as if it had a tin can tied to its tail. We all cheered and laughed.

"Jiminy! I ought to have tried a flashlight of it," exclaimed Fitz, excited. "If we see another bear I'm sure going to get its picture. I need some bear pictures. Don't let's be in such a hurry, next time."

"That depends on the bear," said little Jed Smith. "Sometimes you can't help being in a hurry, with a bear."

"Guess we'd better dig the burro out of our tent," remarked Scout Ward. "He smelled that bear, didn't he?"

He certainly did. If there's one thing a burro is afraid of, it's a bear. No wonder poor Apache tried to crawl in with us. We hauled him loose of the tent, and helped the Red Fox Scouts set the tent up again. Apache snorted and stared about; and finally he quieted a little and went to browsing, close by, and we Scouts turned in to sleep again.

When I woke the next time it was morning and the bear had not come back, for Apache was standing fast asleep in the first rays of the sun, at the edge of the camp.

We could catch no fish for breakfast. They paid no attention to any bait. So we had the last of the meat, and some condensed sausage that the Red Fox Scouts contributed to the pot. During breakfast we held a council; old Pilot Peak stuck up so near and inviting.

"I've been thinking, boys, that maybe we ought to climb Pilot, for a record, now we've got a good chance," proposed Major Henry. "What do you say. Shall we vote on it?"

"How high is it?" asked Red Fox Scout Ward.

Major Henry looked at the map of the state. "Fourteen thousand, two hundred and ten feet."

"Whew!" Scout Ward eyed it. "We'd certainly like to make it. That would be a chance for an honor, eh, Van?"

"You bet," agreed Van Sant.

"He's sure some mountain," we said.

"We haven't any time to spare from the trail," went on Major Henry, "and it would kill a day, to the top and back. So we ought to double up by traveling by night, some. But that wouldn't hurt any; it would be fun, by moonlight. Now, if you're ready, all who vote to take the Red Fox Scouts and climb old Pilot Peak for a record hold up their right hands."

"We won't vote. Don't make the climb on our account," cried the Red Fox Scouts.

"Let's do it. I've never been fourteen thousand feet, myself," declared Fitz.

And we all held up our right hands.

"Bueno," quoth Major Henry. "Then we go. We'll climb Pilot and put in extra time on the trail. Cache the stuff, police the camp, put out the fire, take what grub we can in our pockets, and the sooner we start the better."

Maybe we ought not to have done this. Our business was the message. We weren't out for fun or for honors. We were out to carry that message through in the shortest time possible. The climb was not necessary—and I for one had a sneaking hunch that we were making a mistake. But I had voted yes, and so had we all. If anybody had felt dubious, he ought to have voted no.

In the next chapter you will read what we got, by fooling with a side issue.



CHAPTER XVII

VAN SANT'S LAST CARTRIDGE

The way to climb a mountain is not to tackle it by the short, steep way, but to go up by zigzags, through little gulches and passes. You arrive about as quick and you arrive easier.

Now from camp we eyed Old Pilot, calculating. Major Henry pointed.

"We'll follow up that draw, first," he said. "Then we can cross over to that ledge, and wind around and hit the long stretch, where the snow patches are. After that, I believe, we can go right on up."

We had just rounded the lower end of the lake, and were obliquing off and up for the draw, when we heard a funny bawly screech behind us, and a clattering, and along at a gallop came Apache, much excited, and at a trot joined our rear. He did not propose to be left alone! We were glad enough to have him, if he wanted to make the climb, too. He followed us all the way, eating things, and gained a Scout mountain honor.

We were traveling light, of course. Fitz had his camera slung over his shoulder, Red Fox Scout Van Sant had his twenty-two rifle, because we thought we might run into some grouse, and the law on grouse was out at last and we needed meat. Nobody bothered with staffs. They're no good when you must use hands and knees all at once, as you do on some of the Rocky Mountains. They're a bother.

We struck into the draw. It was shallow and bushy, with sarvice-berries and squaw-berries and gooseberries; but we didn't stop to eat. We let Apache do the eating. Our thought was to reach the very tip-top of Pilot.

The sun shone hot, making us sweat as we followed up through the draw, in single file, Major Henry leading, Fitz next, then the Red Fox Scouts, and we three others strung out behind, with Apache closing the rear. The draw brought us out, as we had planned, opposite the ledge, and we swung off to this.

Now we were up quite high. We halted to take breath and puff. The ledge was broad and flat and grassy, with rimrock behind it; and from it we could look down upon the lake, far below, and the place of our camp, and the big timber through which we had trailed, and away in the distance was the mesa or plateau that we had crossed after the forest fire. We were above timber-line, and all around us were only sunshine and bareness, and warmth and nice clean smells.

"Whew!" sighed Red Fox Scout Ward. "It's fine, fellows."

That was enough. We knew how he felt. We felt the same.

But of course we weren't at the top, not by any means. Major Henry started again, on the upward trail. We followed along the ledge around the rimrock until we came to a little pass through. That brought us into a regular maze of big rocks, lying as if a chunk as big as a city block had dropped and smashed, scattering pieces all about. This spot didn't show from below. That is the way with mountains. They look smooth, but when you get up close they break out into hills and holes and rocks and all kinds of unexpected places, worse than measles.

But among these jagged chunks we threaded, back and forth, always trying to push ahead, until suddenly Red Fox Scout Ward called, "I'm out!" and we went to him. So he was.

That long, bare slope lay beyond, blotched with snow. The snow had not seemed much, from below; but now it was in large patches, with drifts so hard that we could walk on them. One drift was forty feet thick; it was lodged against a brow, and down its face was trickling black water, streaking it. This snow-bank away up here was the beginning of a river, and helped make the lake.

We had spread out, with Apache still behind. Suddenly little Jed called. "See the chickens?" he said.

We went over. Chirps were to be heard, and there among the drifts, on the gravelly slope, were running and pecking and squatting a lot of birds about like gray speckled Brahmas. They were as tame as speckled Brahmas, too. They had red eyes and whitish tails.

"Ptarmigan!" exclaimed Fitz, and he began to take pictures. He got some first-class ones.

Red Fox Scout Van Sant never made a move to shoot any of them. They were so tame and barn-yardy. We were glad enough to let them live, away up here among the snowdrifts, where they seemed to like to be. It was their country, not ours—and they were plucky, to choose it. So we passed on.

The slope brought us up to a wide moraine, I guess you'd call it, where great bowlders were heaped as thick as pebbles—bowlders and blocks as large as cottages. These had not looked to be much, either, from below.

On the edge of them we halted, to look down and behind again. Now we were much higher. The ledge was small and far, and the timber was small and farther, and the world was beginning to lie flat like a map. On the level with us were only a few other peaks, in the snowy Medicine Range. The pass itself was so low that we could scarcely make it out.

To cross that bowlder moraine was a terrific job. We climbed and sprawled, and were now up, now down. It was a go-as-you-please. Everywhere among the bowlders were whistling rock-rabbits, or conies. They were about the size of small guinea-pigs, and had short tails and round, flat bat ears plastered close to their heads. They had their mouths crammed full of dried grass, which they carried into their nests through crannies—putting away hay for the winter! It was mighty cheerful to have them so busy and greeting us, away up in these lonely heights, and Fitz got some more good animal pictures.

Apache was in great distress. He couldn't navigate those bowlders. We could hear him "hee-hawing" on the lower edge, and could see him staring after us and racing frantically back and forth. But we must go on; we would pick him up on our way down.

Well, we got over the bowlder field—Fitz as spryly as any of us. Having only one good arm made no difference to him, and he never would accept help. He was independent, and we only kept an eye on him and let him alone. The bowlders petered out; and now ahead was another slope, with more snow patches, and short dead grass in little bunches; and it ended in a bare outcrop: the top!

Our feet weighed twenty-five pounds each, our knees were wobbly, we could hear each other pant, and my heart thumped so that the beats all ran together. But with a cheer we toiled hard for the summit, before resting. We didn't race—not at fourteen thousand feet; we weren't so foolish—and I don't know who reached it first. Anyway, soon we all were there.

We had climbed old Pilot Peak! The top was flat and warm and dry, so we could sit. The sky was close above; around about was nothing but the clear air. East, west, north and south, below us, were hills and valleys and timber and parks and streams, with the cloud-shadows drifting across. We didn't say one word. The right words didn't exist, somehow, and what was the use in exclaiming when we all felt alike, and could look and see for ourselves? You don't seem to amount to much when you are up, like this, on a mountain, near the sky, with the world spread out below and not missing you; and a boy's voice, or a man's, is about the size of a cricket's chirp. The silence is one of the best things you find. So we sat and looked and thought.

But on a sudden we did hear a noise—a rattling and "Hee-haw!" And here, from a different side, came Apache again. He had got past those bowlders, somehow. With another "Hee-haw!" he trotted right up on top, in amidst us, where he stood, with a big sigh, looking around, too.

This was the chance for us to map out the country ahead, on the other side of the pass. So we took a good long survey. It was a rough country, as bad as that which we had left; with much timber and many hills and valleys. Down in some of the valleys were yellow patches, like hay ranches, and forty or fifty miles away seemed to be a little haze of smoke, which must be a town: Green Valley, where we were bound! Hurrah! But we hadn't got there, yet.

Major Henry made a rough sketch of the country, with Pilot Peak as base point and a jagged, reddish tip, over toward the smoke, as another landmark. Our course ought to be due west from Pilot, keeping to the south of that reddish tip.

We had a little lunch, and after cleaning up after ourselves we saluted the old peak with the Scouts' cheer, saying good-by to it; and then we started down. We discovered that we could go around the bowlder-field, as Apache had done. When we struck the snow-patch slope we obliqued over to our trail up, and began to back track. Back-tracking was the safe way, because we knew that this would bring us out. Down we went, with long steps, almost flying, and leaving behind us the busy conies and the tame ptarmigans, to inhabit the peak until we should come again. We even tried not to tramp on the flowers. (Note 57.)

Through the maze of rock masses we threaded, and along the grassy ledge, and entered the bush draw. By the sun it was noon, but we had plenty of time, and we spread out in the draw, taking things easy and picking berries. We didn't know but what we might come upon some grouse, in here, too, for the trickle from that snow-bank drained through and there was a bunch of aspens toward the bottom. But instead we came upon a bear!

I heard Red Fox Scout Ward call, sharp and excited: "Look out, fellows! Here's another bear!"

That stopped us short.

"Where?"

"Right in front of me! He's eating berries. And I see another, too—sitting, looking at me."

"Wait!" called back Fitz, excited. "Let 'em alone. I'll get a picture."

That was just like Fitzpatrick. He wanted to take pictures of everything alive.

"Yes; let 'em alone," warned Major Henry, shouting.

For that's all a bear in a berry-patch asks; to be let alone. He's satisfied with the berries. In fact, all a bear asks, anyway, is to be let alone, and up here on the mountain these bears weren't doing any harm.

"Where are you?" called Fitz.

"On this rock."

Now we could see Scout Ward, with hand up; and over hustled Fitz, and over we all hustled, from different directions.

They were not large bears. They looked like the little brown or black bears, it was hard to tell which; but the small kind isn't dangerous. They were across on the edge of a clearing, and were stripping the bushes. Once in a while they would sit up and eye us, while slobbering down the berries; then they would go to eating again.

Fitz had his camera unslung and taken down. He walked right out, toward them, and snapped, but it wouldn't be a very good picture. They were too far to show up plainly.

"I'll sneak around behind and drive them out," volunteered little Jed Smith; and without waiting for orders he and Kit started, and we all except Fitz spread out to help in the surround. Fitz made ready to take them on the run. Nobody is afraid of the little brown or black bear.

Jed and Kit were just entering the bushes to make the circuit on their side, when we heard Apache snorting and galloping, and a roar and a "Whoof!" and out from the brush over there burst the burro, with another bear chasing him. This was no little bear. It was a great big bear—an old she cinnamon, and these others weren't the small brown or black bears, either: they were half-grown cinnamon cubs!

How she came! Kit Carson and Jed Smith were right in her path.

"Look out!" we yelled.

Kit and little Jed leaped to dodge. She struck like a cat as she passed, and head over heels went poor little Jed, sprawling in the brush, and she passed on, straight to her cubs. They met her, and she smelled them for a moment. She lifted her broad, short head, and snarled.

"Don't do a thing," ordered Major Henry. "She'll leave."

So we stood stock-still. That was all we could do. We knew that poor little Jed was lying perhaps badly wounded, off there in the brush, but it wouldn't help to call the old bear's attention to him again. In the open place Fitzpatrick the Bad Hand stood; he was right in front of the old bear, and he was taking pictures!

The old bear saw him, and he and the camera seemed to make her mad. Maybe she took it for a weapon. She lowered her head, swung it to and fro, her bristles rose still higher, and across the open space she started.

"Fitz!" we shrieked. And I said to myself, sort of crying: "Oh, jiminy!"

We all set up a tremendous yell, but that didn't turn her. Major Henry jumped forward, and tugged to pull loose a stone. I looked for a stone to throw. Of course I couldn't find one. Then out of the corner of my eye, while I was watching Fitz, too, I glimpsed Red Fox Scout Van Sant coming running, and shooting with his twenty-two. The bullets spatted into the bear's hide, and stung her.

"Run, Fitz!" called Van Sant. "I'll stop her."

But he didn't, yet. Hardly! That Fitz had just been winding his film. He took the camera from between his knees, where he had held it while he used his one hand, and he leveled it like lightning, on the old bear—and took her picture again. That picture won a prize, after we got back to civilization. But the old bear kept coming.

We all were shouting, in vain,—shouting all kinds of things. Red Fox Scout Van Sant sprang to Fitz's side, and again we heard him say: "Run, Fitz! Over here. Make for the rock. I'll stop her."

It was the outcrop where Ward had been. Fitz jumped to make for it. He hugged his camera as he ran. We thought that Van Sant would make for it, too. But he let Fitz pass him, and he stood. The old bear was coming, crazy. She only halted to scratch where a twenty-two pellet had stung her hide. Van Sant waited, steady as a rock. He lifted his little rifle slowly and held on her, and just as she was about to reach him he fired.

"Crack!"

Headfirst she plunged. She kicked and ripped the ground, and didn't get up again. She lay still, amidst a silence, we all watching, breathless. Beyond, Fitzpatrick had closed his precious camera as he ran, and now at the rock had turned.

"Shoot her again, Van!" begged Scout Ward.

"I can't," he answered. "That was my last cartridge. But she's dead. I hit her in the eye." And he lowered his rifle.

Then we gave a great cheer, and rushed for the spot—except Major Henry; he was the first to think and he rushed to see to little Jed Smith. Fitzpatrick shook hands hard with Red Fox Scout Van Sant and followed the major.

Yes, the old bear was stone dead. Van Sant had shot her through the eye, into the brain. That was enough. Ward and I shook hands with him, too. He had shown true Scouts' nerve, to sail in in that way, and to meet the danger and to be steady under fire.

"Oh, well, I was the only one who could do anything," he explained. "I knew it was my last cartridge and I had to make it count. That's all."

Then we hurried down to where the Major and Fitz and Kit Carson were gathered about little Jed. Jed wasn't dead. No; we could see him move. And Fitz called: "He's all right. But his shoulder's out and his leg is torn."

Little Jed was pale but game. His right arm hung dangling and useless, and his right calf was bloody. The whole arm hung dangling because the shoulder was hurt; but it was not a fractured collarbone, for when we had laid open Jed's shirt we could feel and see. The shoulder was out of shape, and commencing to swell, and the arm hung lower than the well arm. (Note 58.)

We let the wound of the calf go, for we must get at this dislocation, before the shoulder was too sore and rigid. We knew what to do. Jed was stretched on his back, Red Fox Scout Ward sat at his head, steadying him around the body, and with his stockinged heel under Jed's armpit Major Henry pulled down on the arm and shoved up against it with his heel at the same time. That hurt. Jed turned very white, and let out a big grunt—but we heard a fine snap, and we knew that the head of the arm-bone had chucked back into the shoulder-socket where it belonged.

So that was over; and we were glad,—Jed especially. We bound his arm with a handkerchief sling across to the other shoulder, to keep the joint in place for a while, and we went at his leg.

The old bear's paw had cuffed him on the shoulder and then must have slipped down and landed on his calf as he sprawled. The boot-top had been ripped open and the claws had cut through into the flesh, tearing a set of furrows. It was a bad-looking wound and was bleeding like everything. But the blood was just the ordinary oozy kind, and so we let it come, to clean the wound well. Then we laid some sterilized gauze from our first-aid outfit upon it, to help clot the blood, and sifted borax over, and bound it tight with adhesive plaster, holding the edges of the furrows together. Over that we bound on loosely a dry pack of other gauze.

We left Jed (who was pale but thankful) with Red Fox Scout Ward and went up to the bear. Kit Carson wanted to see her. She was still dead, and off on the edge of the brush her two cubs were sniffing in her direction, wondering and trying to find out.

Yes, that had been a nervy stand made by Scout Van Sant, and a good shot. Fitzpatrick reached across and shook his hand again.

"I don't know whether I stopped to thank you, but it's worth doing twice. I'm much obliged."

"Don't mention it," laughed Van Sant.

Then we all laughed. That was better. There isn't much that can be said, when you feel a whole lot. But you know, just the same. And we all were Scouts.

Somehow, the big limp body of the old mother bear now made us sober. We hadn't intended to kill her, and of course she was only protecting her cubs. It wasn't our mountain; and it wasn't our berry-patch. She had discovered it first. We had intruded on her, not she on us. It all was a misunderstanding.

So we didn't gloat over her, or kick her, or sit upon her, now that she could not defend herself. But we must do some quick thinking.

"Kit Carson, you and Bridger catch Apache," ordered Major Henry. "Fitz and I will help Scout Van Sant skin his bear."

"She's not my bear," said Scout Van Sant. "I won't take her. She belongs to all of us."

"Well," continued Major Henry, "it's a pity just to let her lie and to waste her. We can use the meat."

"The pelt's no good, is it?" asked Fitz.

"Not much, in the summer. But we'll take it off, and put the meat in it, to carry."

They set to work. Kit Carson and I started after the burro. He had run off, up the mountain again, and we couldn't catch him. He was too nervous. We'd get close to him, and with a snort and a toss of his ears he would jump away and fool us. That was very aggravating.

"If we only had a rope we could rope him," said Kit. But we didn't. There was no profit in chasing a burro all over a mountain, and so, hot and tired, we went back and reported.

The old bear had been skinned and butchered, after a fashion. The head was left on the hide, for the brains. At first Major Henry talked of sending down to camp for a blanket and making a litter out of it. We would have hard work to carry Jed in our arms. But Jed was weak and sick and didn't want to wait for the blanket. Apache would have been a big help, only he was so foolish. But we had a scheme. Scouts always manage. (Note 59.)

We made a litter of the bear-pelt! Down we scurried to the aspens and found two dead sticks. We stuck one through holes in the pelt's fore legs, and one through holes in the pelt's hind legs, and tied the legs about with cord. We set little Jed in the hair side, facing the bear's head, turned back over; the Major, the two Red Fox Scouts, and Kit Carson took each an end of the sticks; Fitzpatrick and I carried the meat, stuck on sticks, over our shoulders; and in a procession like cave-men or trappers returning from a hunt we descended the mountain, leaving death and blood where we had intended to leave only peace as we had found it.

Apache made a big circuit to follow us. The two cubs sneaked forward, to sniff at the bones where their mother had been cut up—and began to eat her. We were glad to know that they did not feel badly yet, and that they were old enough to take care of themselves.

But as we stumbled and tugged, carrying wounded Jed down the draw, we knew plainly that we ought to have let that mountain alone.



CHAPTER XVIII

FITZ THE BAD HAND'S GOOD THROW

That green bear-pelt and Jed together were almost too heavy, so that we went slow and careful and stopped often, to rest us. The sun was setting when at last we got down to camp again—and we arrived, a very different party from that which had gone out twelve hours before. It was a sorry home-coming. But we must not lament or complain over what was our own fault. We must do our best to turn it to account. We must be Scouts.

We made Jed comfortable on a blanket bed. His leg we let alone, as the bandage seemed to be all right. And his shoulder we of course let alone. Then we took stock. Major Henry decided very quickly.

"Jed can't travel. He will have to stay here till his wounds heal more, and Kit Carson will have to stay with him. I'd stay, instead, because I'm to blame for wasting some men and some time; but the general passed the command on to me and I ought to go as far as I possibly can. We'll fix Kit and Jed the best we're able, and to-morrow we'll hustle on and make night marches, if we need to."

This was sense. Anyway, although we had wasted men and time, we were now stocked up with provisions; all that bear meat! While Fitzpatrick and Red Fox Scout Ward were cooking supper and poor Jed looked on, two of us went at the meat to cut it into strips for jerking, and two of us stretched the pelt to grain it before it dried.

We cut the meat into the strips and piled them until we could string them to smoke and dry them. We then washed for supper, because we were pretty bloody with the work of cutting. After supper, by moonlight, we strung the strips with a sailor's needle and cord which the Red Fox Scouts had in their kit, and erected a scaffolding of four fork-sticks with two other sticks laid across at the ends. We stretched the strings of meat in lines, back and forth. Next thing was to make a smudge under and to lay a tarp over to hold the smudge while the meat should smoke. (Note 60.)

Pine smoke is no good, because it is so strong. Alder makes a fine sweet smoke, but we didn't have any alder, up here. We used aspen, as the next best thing at hand. And by the time we had the pelt grained and the meat strung and had toted enough aspen, we were tired.

But somebody must stay awake, to tend to Jed and give him a drink and keep him company, and to watch the smudge, that it didn't flame up too fierce and that it didn't go out. By smoking and drying the meat all night and by drying it in the sun afterward, Major Henry thought that it would be ready so that we could take our share along with us.

If we had that, then we would not need to stop to hunt, and we could make short camps, as we pleased. You see, we had only four days in which to deliver the message; and we had just reached the pass!

This was a kind of miserable night. Jed of course had a bed to himself, which used up blankets. The others of us stood watch an hour and a half each, over him and over the smudge. He was awful restless, because his leg hurt like sixty, and none of us slept very well, after the excitement. I was sleepiest when the time came for us to get up.

We had breakfast, of bear steak and bread or biscuits and gravy. The meat we were jerking seemed to have been smoked splendidly. The tarp was smoked, anyhow. We took it off and aired it, and left the strips as they were, to dry some more in the sun. They were dark, and quite stiff and hard, and by noon they were brittle as old leather. The hide was dry, too, and ready for working over with brains and water, and for smoking. (Note 61.)

But we left that to Kit. Now we must take the trail again. We spent the morning fussing, and making the cabin tight for Jed and Kit; at last the meat had been jerked so that our share would keep, and we had done all that we could, and we were in shape to carry the message on over the pass and down to Green Valley.

"All right," spoke Major Henry, after dinner. "Let's be off. Scout Carson, we leave Scout Smith in your charge. You and he stay right here until he's able to travel. Then you can follow over the pass and hit Green Valley, or you can back-track for the Ranger's cabin and for home. Apache will come in soon and you'll have him to pack out with. You'll be entitled to just as much honor by bringing Jed out safe as we will by carrying the message. Isn't that so, boys?"

"Sure," we said.

But naturally Kit hated to stay behind. Only, somebody must; it was Scouts' duty. We all shook hands with him and with wounded Jed (who hated staying, too), and said "Adios," and started off.

Apache had not appeared, and we were to pack our own outfit. We left Jed and Kit enough meat and all the flour (which wasn't much) and what other stuff we could spare (they had the bearskin to use for bedding as soon as it was tanned) and one rope and our twenty-two rifle, and the Ranger's fry-pan and two cups, and we divided among us what we could carry.

"Now we've got three days and a half to get through in," announced Major Henry. We counted the days on the trail to make sure. Yes, three days and a half. "And besides, these Red Fox Scouts must catch a train in time to make connections for that Yellowstone trip. We've put in too much time, and I think we ought to travel by night as well as by day, for a while."

"Short sleeps and long marches; that's my vote," said Fitz.

"Don't do it on our account," put in the Red Fox Scouts. "But we're game. We'll travel as fast as you want to."

So we decided. And now only three Elk Scouts, instead of six, and two Red Fox Scouts, again we took the long trail. In the Ranger's cabin behind was our gallant leader General Ashley, and in this other cabin by the lake were Jed Smith and Kit Carson. Thus our ranks were being thinned.

We followed the trail from the lake and struck the old Indian trail again, leading over the pass. About the middle of the afternoon we were at the pass itself. It was wide and smooth and open and covered with gravel and short grass and little low flowers like daisies. On either side were brownish red jagged peaks and rimrock faces, specked with snow. The wind blew strong and cold. There were many sheep-tracks, where bands had been trailed over, for the low country or for the summer range. It was a wild, desolate region, with nothing moving except ourselves and a big hawk high above; but we pressed on fast, in close order, our packs on our backs, Major Henry leading. And we were lonesome without Kit and Jed.

Old Pilot Peak gradually sank behind us; the country before began to spread out into timber and meadow and valley. Pretty soon we caught up with a little stream. It flowed in the same direction that we were going, and we knew that we were across the pass and that we were on the other side of the Medicine Range, at last! Hurrah!

We were stepping long, down-hill. We came to dwarf cedars, and buck brush, showing that we were getting lower. And at a sudden halt by the major, in a nice golden twilight we threw off our packs and halted for supper beside the stream, among some aspens—the first ones.

About an hour after sunset the moon rose, opposite—a big round moon, lighting everything so that travel would be easy. We had stocked up on the jerked bear-meat, roasted on sharp sticks, and on coffee from the cubes that the Red Fox Scouts carried, and we were ready. The jerked bear-meat was fine and made us feel strong. So now Major Henry stood, and swung his pack; and we all stood.

"Let's hike," he said.

That was a beautiful march. The air was crisp and quiet, the moon mounted higher, flooding the country with silver. Once in a while a coyote barked. The rabbits all were out, hopping in the shine and shadow. We saw a snowshoe kind, with its big hairy feet. We saw several porcupines, and an owl as large as a buzzard. This was a different world from that of day, and it seemed to us that people miss a lot of things by sleeping.

Our course was due west, by the North Star. We were down off the pass, and had struck a valley, with meadow and scattered pines, and a stream rippling through, and the moonlight lying white and still. In about three hours we came upon sign of another camp, where somebody had stopped and had made a fire and had eaten. There were burro tracks here, so that it might have been a prospectors' camp; and there was an empty tin can like a large coffee can.

"I think we had better rest again," said Major Henry. "We can have a snack and a short sleep."

We didn't cook any meat. We weren't going to take out any of the Red Fox dishes, but Fitz started to fill the tin can with water, to make soup in that. It was Red Fox Scout Ward who warned us.

"Here," he objected. "Do you think we ought to do that? You know sometimes a tin can gives off poison when you cook in it."

"And we don't know what was in this can," added Van Sant. "We don't want to get ptomaine poisoning. I'd rather unpack ten packs than run any risk."

That was sense. The can looked clean, inside, and the idea of being made sick by it hadn't occurred to us Elks. But we remembered, now, some things that we'd read. So we kicked the can to one side, that nobody else should use it, and Fitz made the soup in a regulation dish from the Red Fox aluminum kit. (Note 62.)

We drank the soup and each chewed a slice of the bear-meat cold. It was sweet and good, and the soup helped out. Then we rolled in our blankets and went to sleep. We all had it on our minds to wake in four hours, and the mind is a regular clock if you train it.

I woke just about right, according to the stars. The two stars in the bottom of the Little Dipper, that we used for an hour hand, had been exactly above a pointed spruce, when I had dozed off, and now when I looked they had moved about three feet around the Pole Star. While I lay blinking and warm and comfortable, and not thinking of anything in particular, I heard a crackle of sticks and the scratch of a match. And there squatting on the edge of a shadow was somebody already up and making a fire.

"Is that you, Fitz?" asked Major Henry.

"Yes. You fellows lie still a few seconds longer and I'll have some tea for you."

Good old Fitz! He need not have done that. He had not been ordered to. But it was a thoughtful Scout act—and was a Fitz act, to boot.

Scouts Ward and Van Sant were awake now; and we all lay watching Fitz, and waiting, as he had asked us to. Then when we saw him put in the tea—

"Levez!" spoke Major Henry; which is the old trapper custom. "Levez! Get up!" (Note 63.)

Up we sprang, into the cold, and with our blankets about our shoulders, Indian fashion, we each drank a good swig of hot tea. Then we washed our faces, and packed our blankets, and took the trail.

It was about three in the morning. The moon was halfway down the west, and the air was chill and had that peculiar feel of just before morning. Everything was ghostly, as we slipped along, but a few birds were twittering sleepily. Once a coyote crossed our path—stopped to look back at us, and trotted away again.

Gradually the east began to pale; there were fewer stars along that horizon than along the horizon where the moon was setting. The burro tracks were plain before us, in the trail that led down the valley. The trail inclined off to the left, or to the south of west; but we concluded to follow it because we could make better time and we believed that the railroad lay in that direction. The Red Fox Scouts ought to be taken as near to the railroad as possible, before we left them. They had been mighty good to us.

The moon sank, soon the sun would be up; the birds were moving as well as chirping, the east was brightening, and already the tip of Pilot Peak, far away behind us with Kit and Jed sleeping at his base, was touched with pink, when we came upon a camp.

Red Fox Scout Van Sant, who was leading, suddenly stopped short and lifted his hand in warning. Before, in a bend of the stream that we were skirting, among the pines and spruces beside it was a lean-to, with a blackened fire, and two figures rolled in blankets; and back from the stream a little way, across in an open grassy spot, was a burro. It had been grazing, but now it was eying us with head and ears up. Red Fox Scout Van had sighted the burro first and next, of course, the lean-to camp.

We stood stock-still, surveying.

"Cache!" whispered Major Henry (which means "Hide"); and we stepped softly aside into the brush. For that burro looked very much like Sally, who had been taken from us by the two recruits when they had stolen Apache also—and by the way that the figures were lying, under a lean-to, they might be the renegade recruits themselves. It was a hostile camp!

"What is it?" whispered Red Fox Scout Ward, his eyes sparkling. "Enemy?"

"I think so," murmured Major Henry.

"We can pass."

"Sure. But if that's our burro we ought to take her." And the major explained.

The Red Foxes nodded.

"But if she isn't, then we don't want her. One of us ought to reconnoiter." And the major hesitated. "Fitz, you go," he said. And this rather surprised me, because naturally the major ought to have gone himself, he being the leader. "I've got a side-ache, somehow," he added, apologizing. "It isn't much—but it might interfere with my crawling."

Fitz was only too ready to do the stalking. He left his pack, and with a detour began sneaking upon the lean-to. We watched, breathless. But the figures never stirred. Fitz came out, opposite, and from bush to bush and tree to tree he crept nearer and nearer, with little darts from cover to cover; and at last very cautiously, on his hands and knees; and finally wriggling on his belly like a snake.

'Twas fine stalking, and we were glad that the Red Fox Scouts were here to see. But it seemed to us that Fitz was getting too near. However, the figures did not move, and did not know—and now Fitz was almost upon them. From behind a tree only a yard away from them he stretched his neck and peered, for half a minute. Then he crawled backward, and disappeared. Presently he was with us again.

"It's they, sir," he reported. "Bat and Walt. They're asleep. And that is Sally, I'm certain. I know her by the white spot on her back."