"W'en de ole black cat widdee yella eyes Slink round like she atter ah mouse, Den yo' bettah take keer yo'self en frien's, Kase dey's sho'ly a witch en de house."

"Who is making that unearthly noise?" demanded the Professor in an irritated voice.

"That's Stacy singing," answered Tad politely.

"Singing?"

"Yes, sir."

"Nonsense! Does he think he can sing?"

"Yes, sir."

"Humph! I shall be obliged if some of you boys will remove that impression from his mind so that I may go back to sleep."

"Yes, sir."

"W'en de puddle duck 'e leave de pon' En start to comb e fedder—"

A stone struck the rock on which Stacy Brown was sitting. Some small particles flew up and hit him in the neck.

"Hey, you fellows quit that!"

"Den yo' bettah take yo' umbrell, Kase dey's gwine to be wet wedder."

"Yeow!"

The fat boy left the rock, jumping right up into the air, for the wild yell had seemed to come out of the rock itself. At that juncture three pajama-clad figures rose from behind the rock and threw themselves upon him.

"Let go of my neck!" howled Chunky, fighting desperately to free himself, not having caught a glance at his assailants, though he knew well enough who they were. Stacy had calculated on aggravating them to the danger point, then slipping away and hiding until breakfast time. But he had gone a little too far with his so-called singing.

The boys picked the fat boy up and carried him, kicking and yelling, to a point just beyond the camp where a glacial stream trickled down, forming in a pool some three feet deep near the trail.

"I—I'll get even with you fellows for this. Can't you let me alone?" he cried.

Reaching the spring they held him by the feet and soused him into the icy water head first, thrusting the fat boy in until his head struck the hard bottom. He was howling lustily, howling and choking, when his head was out of water.

"You'll need your 'old ombrell' when we have done with you," cried Ned.

"You will wake us up at this hour with your unearthly screeching, will you?" demanded Tad.

"I reckon the Professor will give you a spanking for disturbing his morning slumbers," added Walter Perkins.

"That's enough, fellows. Remember the water is cold," warned Butler. "Let him go."

They took Tad literally. They did let the fat boy go. He landed on his head on a hard rock when they let go of him, and Stacy rolled on his back yelling lustily.

"Look out! There comes the Professor Stacy."

Walter shouted the warning just in time. Professor Zepplin, stern of face, gorgeous in a pair of new pajamas, a stick in one hand came stalking toward the group. Stacy saw him coming. The fat boy bounded to his feet in a hurry. He was especially interested in the cedar limb with its sharp broken points, grasped so firmly in the right hand of the Professor.

"I reckon I'll see you all later," muttered Chunky as he made a bolt for his tent. Either some one tripped him or he tripped himself. At least, he measured his length on the ground just as the stick came in contact with his body. It was not a hard blow, but merely a tap of reminder. The Professor was now smiling broadly.

Stacy leaped to his feet and ran, howling at the top of his voice, and threatening dire revenge on the Professor. Professor Zepplin was plainly undismayed, for he pursued with strides that made the merry onlookers think of the seven-league boots.

"Say, can't we arbitrate, without an appeal to force?" bellowed back Stacy as he reached the tent.

"We cannot," boomed the Professor's deep voice. "This is an instance in which the punitive expedition must go through."

Whack! Whack! That stick played a tattoo that made Stacy sore in more senses than one. Instead of burrowing deeper into the cedar boughs, he got up hastily. In his desperation he seized the Professor's feet, giving a mighty tug at them.

"Here, stop that!" protested Professor Zepplin, laughing.

He reached for the fat boy, but Chunky, with a new exertion of his strength, brought the tutor down to a sitting position.

"Retreat in good order, while you have a chance!" called Walter Perkins. Three grinning faces met the fugitive at the tent. But Stacy bowled Walter over, leaped the foot that Rector extended to trip him, and then dashed for the shelter of the tall cedars, where he hid.

There he shivered in his wet pajamas. It was three o'clock in the morning, but young Brown cared not for time. His stomach told him only that it was high breakfast time. The gnawing under his belt-line continued.

"I wish I hadn't been quite so fresh!" thought the boy, dismally. "It's all right to have fun, but there are times when a square meal is worth more."

However, the Professor, though he was really enjoying the situation, looked anything but amiable.

"I'll try the crowd, anyway," thought Stacy, ruefully. "I've got to get near the kitchen kit soon. Hello, the camp!"

There was no response. Stacy emerged from his hiding place and began to sing the song he had learned from Rastus Rastus in Kentucky.

One end of the tent was suddenly raised.

"Do you want another ducking?" demanded the angry voice of Ned Rector.

"If you're man enough to give it to me," returned the fat boy.

Ned came tumbling out, but by the time he had straightened up, Stacy was nowhere in sight. The fat boy had stolen in among the trees whence he watched the progress of events. Ned returned to his tent in disgust. No further objection was heard from the Professor as to Chunky's vocal exercises.

"There's no use trying to sleep with that boy bawling away out there. What does he think he is, a bird?" demanded Tad.

"Sounds more like a hoot owl, the bird he was telling us about," averred Ned.

"I guess I'll get up. So long as he is abroad there will be no more rest in this camp for the rest of the night."

"Won't he catch cold? He must be all wet," said Walter solicitously.

"I hope to goodness he does," retorted Rector. "I hope he gets such a cold that he can't speak for a week. Then we'll have some peace."

"Oh, I wouldn't put it quite so strongly as that," laughed Tad. "However, I guess he will get the cold all right."

Tad dressed himself. After finishing, he thought to look at his watch and was disgusted to find it was only a few minutes after three o'clock. Ned declared that he was going to sleep again if Tad would keep the fat boy quiet. Butler promised to do his best and went out. He looked about for Stacy but failed to see him, so the freckle-faced boy sat down on the rock where Chunky had sat singing.

"Hello, Tad," piped a voice behind him, causing Butler to jump a little. Stacy had been hiding behind the rock, to which place he had crept from the cedar forest.

"Oh, it's you, is it?"

"I guess so. I'm cold and—and hungry."

"Go back to the tent. You should put on some dry clothes."

"You don't care whether I freeze or not. Go get them for me, please."

"I will not. You got yourself into this difficulty, now get out of it as best you may," answered Butler. "There won't be any breakfast for three hours yet. Tighten your belt."

"I—I haven't any belt. I haven't my clothes on."

"That's too bad," retorted Tad unfeelingly.

"What'd you soak me for?"

"A cold bath in the morning is an excellent tonic. Hadn't you ever heard that?"

"If I had I'd know now that it isn't true. I didn't think you could be as mean as that, Tad."

"I didn't think you could be so mean as to wake us up at three o'clock in the morning with your screeching. Why did you do it?"

"I—I was exercising my voice."

"I should say so. But take my advice. Don't use it that way again, especially so early in the morning. You'll ruin it and then you won't be able to sing at all."

"That would be a catastrophe," mumbled Chunky.

"A blessing to the Pony Rider Boys community, you mean. Hello!"

"What is it?" cried Stacy.

Tad was staring fixedly at a rope suspended between two small cedars near the tents. It was on this that some of the provisions had been hung the previous evening.

"Where is that ham?" he demanded, apparently not having heard his companion's question.

"What ham?"

"The one I hung up there last night?"

"I—I don't know. I didn't eat it."

Tad got up and hastened to the "stores-line," as they called the rope that held their meats and other provisions. He discovered that several other articles besides the ham were missing. Even the pieces of twine with which the provisions had been fastened to the line were missing.

"Well, if this doesn't beat everything!" wondered Butler.

"It does," agreed Chunky, who had made bold to approach. "I hope the fellows won't blame me, but I reckon they will. They lay everything to me."

Tad did not reply. He was trying to make up his mind what had become of the missing provisions. He turned sharply to Stacy.

"See here, you aren't playing tricks on us, are you?"

Stacy indignantly protested that he was not.

"I knew you'd try to put it on me," he grumbled. "I'm pretty bad, I know, but I don't steal."

"Stop it! I haven't accused you of stealing. Of course I know you wouldn't do that, but if you have taken the stuff and hidden it for a joke, say so now before I call the others. They might not take kindly to your joke after your early morning vocal exercises."

"I didn't. I don't know any more about it than you do."

Stacy's lips were blue with cold and he was chattering. Tad suddenly observed these signs of cold and felt sorry for the boy.

"When the others come out, you duck in and put on some dry clothes. You will have plenty of time. I don't think they will bother you. Oh, Ned! Professor!" called Tad.

Ned Rector, Professor Zepplin and Walter came hurrying out.

"Isn't there any rest at all in this camp?" protested Ned.

"That is what I was about to inquire," declared the Professor.

"What! You here?" demanded Rector, fixing a menacing eye on the fat boy. "Has he been cutting up again?"

"It's something else this time."

"What is it?" questioned Professor Zepplin sharply.

"Did any of you folks remove the ham and the other stuff from the line last night?" asked Butler.

"No," replied Ned.

"Of course not. You were the last one to attend to those things," said the Professor.

"I helped him tie them up," interjected "Walter.

"And—and I watched him—them—do it," added Stacy.

"Yes, that's about all you ever do do," objected Ned.

"What's this you say?" questioned Professor Zepplin. "The ham missing?"

"Yes, sir. It is nowhere about," Tad informed him.

"Then we must have had a visit from a bear or some other animal."

"What would a bear want with a rope?" asked Butler.

"A rope?"

"I left our quarter-inch reserve rope coiled at the foot of that tree last night. It isn't there now."

"Stacy Brown, do you know anything about this?" demanded the Professor sternly.

"What'd I tell you, Tad? I knew you'd be accusing me for the whole business. I told Tad you would blame me."

"Go put on some dry garments," commanded the Professor.

Stacy lost no time in getting to the tent.

"What do you make of it, Tad?" asked Professor Zepplin.

"I can make only one thing out of it. There has been an intruder in the camp while we slept. That intruder must have been a man. Bears do not carry away ropes. Bears do not untie knots and take the strings away with them," replied Tad Butler in a convincing tone.

Stacy Brown poked his head through the tent opening.

"What we need in this camp is a watch dog," he shouted.

Ned Rector shied a tin can at him, whereat the fat boy ducked in out of sight.



CHAPTER IX

A MYSTERY UNSOLVED

"But surely whoever was here must have left some trace," protested Professor Zepplin.

"Perhaps you may be able to find it. I can't," answered Tad.

"We'll all look," cried Ned.

Tad nodded, and while they were scanning the ground he walked about the outskirts of the camp with his glances on the ground. There was not a footprint, not a thing to indicate that any person outside of themselves had been near the camp. Tad was looking in particular for the strings with which the stuff had been tied to the rope. Not finding these he was certain that some human being had been in the camp.

"We shall have to make the best of it and let it go at that," he said, returning to his companions. "Shall we go to sleep again?"

"Sleep!" shouted Ned.

Stacy popped his head out to see what the shout was about. He ducked back again upon encountering Rector's angry gaze.

"If it isn't Stacy Brown raising a row it's Tad Butler, and if it isn't Tad it's a midnight robber."

"Or else Ned Rector himself," added the Professor. "If you young gentlemen will excuse me I think I shall put on some clothes. We might as well have our breakfast and get an early start, since we are all awake."

"I was going to suggest that," replied Tad. "I'll go rub down the ponies while the rest of you get the breakfast."

"Shall we dress before or after?" questioned Walter.

"Before, of course," returned the Professor.

Breakfast was not a very merry meal that morning. Tad was chagrined to think a person could get into their camp and steal a ham without his having heard the intruder. Either he had slept more soundly than usual, or else their late visitor had been unusually stealthy.

"I'll tell you what I think," spoke up Rector after a period of silence.

"Out with it," answered the Professor.

"I'll wager that some of these prospectors have ducked in here and taken our stuff. There must be plenty of them in the mountains hereabouts."

Tad shook his head.

"I don't think so. I have an idea."

"What is your idea?" questioned Professor Zepplin.

"Are there Indians up here?" questioned Tad.

"Many of them."

"It was an Indian who did this job. No white man could get away with it so skilfully. If it was, as I suspect, we might as well give it up," concluded Butler.

"Oh, I kissed that ham good-by a long time ago," piped Stacy solemnly.

"I don't agree with any of you," said Ned. "I think the ham, unable to endure Chunky's singing, took wings and flew away. Either that or it was afraid he would kiss it again. He said he had kissed it good-by."

"You are wrong," declared Walter. "If Stacy had got that close to the ham he would have eaten it."

"You're right," agreed the Professor with an emphatic nod.

"I've got a bone to pick with you, too, Walt Perkins," warned Stacy.

"A ham-bone?" twinkled Tad.

"No, a drumstick."

"The probability is that we shall never know any more about the affair than we do now," decided the Professor. "Break camp as soon as we have finished breakfast and we will get under way. Have you looked to see which way the trail leads from this point, Tad?"

"Yes, sir. That way," replied Tad, pointing.

"Northwest?"

"Yes, sir."

Camp was broken in short order and within an hour they were on their way. Though the country was very rough and rugged and the going awful, they found the trail narrow and perilous only in spots. Generally they found it perfectly safe. That night they camped in a pass through which flowed a rushing glacial stream. Tall cottonwoods lined the stream and giant arborvitae was thick and almost impassable a short distance back from the stream. The Professor explained that this arborvitae was ordinarily found about glaciers, and in cool, dim fiords.

Determined not to be robbed of their provisions again, Tad led a string through the loops made in tying the meats to the provision line. He carried one end of the string into his tent and when he turned in he tied the end to his wrist.

Long after midnight he felt a jolt at his wrist that brought him to his feet in an instant. Another jolt followed.

The boy slipped the twine from his wrist and hurried out. The night was not so dark but that he could make out objects distinctly. There was nothing of an alarming nature in sight. He examined the provisions. None had been tampered with.

Considerably mystified, Tad returned to his tent, after rearranging his burglar alarm, and lay down. He had just dozed off when there came another tug more violent than the others.

"Hang it! Something is at those provisions," he muttered.

Tad once more slipped out. This time he remained out for a long time. He sat down behind the tent where he waited and watched. Nothing of a disturbing nature occurred. He could not understand it.

"There must be ghosts around here," he muttered. "If there are, I reckon I'll catch them before the night is over."

He grew weary of waiting for the "ghosts," after a time, and returning to the tent went to bed. Three times after that was the boy dragged out by a violent tug at the rope, and three times did he return without having discovered the cause.

"I think I begin to smell a mouse," thought Tad Butler.

He lay down. Again came the tugs at the string. But Tad apparently gave no heed to them. After a time he began snoring, but stopped suddenly, pinching himself to keep awake. A few moments later he got up quietly and went out. This time he ran the fingers of one hand along the provision line. The fingers stopped suddenly as they came in contact with a second string the size of the one he had used for a burglar alarm and evidently from the same ball of twine.

"I thought so," chuckled the boy. "More of Chunky Brown's tricks. I reckon I'll teach him a lesson and give him a surprise at the same time. Let's see. Yes, I have it now."

Tad found a quarter inch rope. He made a slip noose at one end, working the honda or knot back and forth until it slipped easily. In reality it was a lasso. He tucked the loop under the rear of the tent, then crawled cautiously in after it. Great caution was necessary in order not to disturb the other occupants of the tent, though the boys were sleeping soundly, Stacy snoring thunderously. The fat boy's feet protruded from under his blanket. Tad found them after a little careful groping. He wished to make certain that he had the right feet. Satisfying himself on this point he slipped the noose over the feet and wriggled out.

Tad then drew the rope carefully about a slender tree, taking care that there might be no strain on the other end about the fat boy's feet. Using the tree as a leverage Butler gave the rope a quick jerk. A slight commotion in the tent followed.

He now gave the rope a mighty tug. A wild yell from the interior of the tent told that his effort had been successful. The freckle-faced boy now began pulling with all his might, hand over hand. Stacy Brown's yells were loud and frightful. To his howls were added those of another voice. Stacy was sliding out from under the rear of the tent feet first, being dragged along on his back as Butler hauled in on the rope.

But Stacy was not alone. Instead of one boy there were two. One of Chunky's feet and one of Ned Rector's was fast in the loop. Tad had made a mistake and selected a foot from each of the two boys.

"Something's got me!" bellowed Chunky. "Help, help!"

"It's got me, too," yelled Rector. "It's got me by the foot."

"Oh, wow, wow! Help, help!"

The two boys were fighting and clawing each other in their excitement. Chunky fastened a hand in the hair of his companion fetching away a handful. Ned retaliated by smiting Chunky on the nose. Then both grabbed hold of the tent wall as they slipped out from under it feet first. The tent swayed and threatened to collapse.

Walter Perkins was struggling about in the dark, shouting to know what had happened. Professor Zepplin roared out a similar inquiry and sprang from his bed of boughs. He fell out into the open in his haste, but the night was so dark that he was unable to make out a single object. He could hear the two boys yelling at the rear of their tent, struggling and fighting to free themselves from the grip on their ankles.

The hauling ceased suddenly. Ned reached down and freed his foot, the same movement freeing that of the fat boy.

At this juncture Tad Butler dashed out from the tent, to which he had run after having thrown the freed rope away.

"Here, here, what's going on here?" he shouted.

"Something got us. It was a snake," howled Chunky. "Oh, wow; oh, wow!"

"A snake? Nonsense!" exploded the Professor. "There are no snakes in Alaska."

"There's one here and he's the biggest one you ever saw. Why, he twisted right around my leg and dragged me out. I think he bit me, too," wailed Chunky.

"Somebody make a light here," commanded the Professor.

"That's what I say," shouted Ned. "You pulled half the hair out of my head, Chunky. I'll be even with you for that."

"Did the Thing get you, too?" questioned Walter.

"Get me? I should say it did. I never had anything grip me like that."

Tad was busy starting the fire. The Professor, by this time, realized that the boys were in earnest; that something really had happened to disturb them, though he had not the least idea that it had been as bad as they said.

The fire began snapping briskly. Tad was bending over it in his pajamas, standing as far back as possible to avoid the sparks. Glancing at the others out of the corners of his eyes, he observed that Stacy's face was pale; Ned Rector's was flushed and angry, and Ned kept passing a hand over his head where the hair had come out. Tad could barely keep back the laughter.

"Now, show me!" demanded the Professor after the camp had been lighted up.

Stacy went into an elaborate explanation of what had occurred so far as he knew. He said something had grabbed them by the ankles and dragged them out under the tent. He showed where they had been dragged. The backs of their pajamas were evidence enough of this fact, the dirt being fairly ground into the cloth.

The Professor fixed his keen eyes on the freckled face of Tad Butler. The Professor was plainly suspicious, but he did not voice his suspicion. Instead, he smiled to himself.

"I am going back to bed, young gentlemen, and I trust there will be no further disturbance in this camp to-night. If there is I shall be under the necessity of taking a hand in it myself."

"If Ned and Chunky will behave themselves, I don't believe there will be any further trouble, sir," said Tad.

Stacy fixed a glance of quick comprehension on Butler, and Tad saw in that one glance that the fat boy's suspicions were aroused, too. Stacy was sharper than Tad had given him credit for being.



CHAPTER X

IN THE HOME OF THE THLINKITS

Stacy did not speak of his suspicions that night, but on the following morning he was up earlier than the others, looking here and there about the camp. He was unusually silent at breakfast time, but Ned Rector on the contrary had a great deal to say.

"Somebody was in this camp again last night. I don't know what he was trying to do, but whatever it was, he made a good start," said Ned.

"Perhaps it was the work of Indians," suggested Walter.

"I shouldn't be surprised," replied the Professor dryly.

"Perhaps," agreed Tad, "the Indian was after another ham and thought he had hold of one when he got Chunky."

"You keep on and I'll say something!" snorted the fat boy.

"I have been looking at that red mark on my ankle," continued Ned. "It was a rope that did the business. How do you suppose they ever managed to tie it to our ankles without waking us up?"

"I thought you did wake up," answered Tad with twinkling eyes.

"We did afterwards, but I don't understand it at all. Didn't you hear anything, Tad?"

"If I remember rightly I heard two boys yelling like frightened babies."

Once again Chunky snorted, but held his peace. Matters were rapidly nearing a crisis. Chunky knew that he had played a mean trick on Tad by tying a string to the provision line and giving it a jerk to wake his companion up, thus making him believe someone was at the provisions. He suspected that the trick had been turned on him, but he wasn't quite sure. Stacy was covertly watching every expression on the face of Tad Butler, every word that was uttered, Tad in the meantime continuing to worry his fat companion. The latter stood it as long as possible. Then he arose rather hastily and strode around to the rear of the tent, returning a moment later with a rope in his hand.

Tad recognized it instantly.

"Here, if you want to know what got hold of us last night. Look at this!" exclaimed Chunky.

"What is it?" questioned Rector.

"It's a rope. Don't you know a rope when you see one? It is the same rope that dragged us from the tent by our ankles last night. Oh, this is a fine outfit!" jeered Chunky.

No one spoke for a few seconds.

"Ah!" breathed the Professor. "I begin to see a light."

"So did we," returned Stacy. "But it wasn't so very light that you could notice it particularly."

Ned started up, his face flushing violently.

"Do you mean to tell me that one of our outfit dragged you and me out by the heels last night?" he demanded.

"Yes!"

"Who did it?" cried Rector angrily. "I can thrash the fellow who did that. Who is he, I say?"

"Well, I may be wrong, but from the look of his face, I should say that Tad Butler knows something about the affair. Mind you, I'm not saying he did it, but I reckon he knows the man who did," observed Stacy.

"Tad Butler, did you do that?" demanded Ned.

"Stacy seems to think I did."

"Then I've nothing more to say."

"I—I thought you were going to whale the fellow who did it," reminded Stacy.

"I reckon I've changed my mind," muttered Ned. "I'll have a talk with Tad later, though."

"No time like the present," laughed Butler.

"Young gentlemen, enough of this. I am amazed at you, Tad," rebuked Professor Zepplin.

"Tell them the rest, Stacy," nodded Tad.

The fat boy hung his head.

"Maybe I was to blame, after all. I reckon Tad was after me, not Ned," admitted Stacy.

"What had you done?" questioned the Professor with a poor attempt at sternness.

"I—I tied a string to the provision line. You know Tad had a line tied to it with one end around his wrist so that he would know if an intruder began to interfere with the provisions?"

"Yes. Go on."

"Well, as I told you, I tied another string to the rope. After Tad got to sleep I pulled the rope. He went out to see what had done it. I guess he didn't find it, for he went out several times after that. Oh, I made him dance a merry dance," chuckled Stacy. "By and by I went to sleep. That was the last I knew until I found myself sliding out of the tent on my back."

Everyone shouted. Stacy's droll way of telling the story was too much for them.

"So that was the way of it, eh?" questioned Ned.

"So Stacy says," nodded Butler.

"And you didn't mean to drag me out?"

"No; the fellow who did the dragging must have gotten hold of the wrong foot," replied Butler.

"Then I forgive you. I would endure almost anything for the sake of seeing Chunky get the worst of it."

"Well, I like that!" shouted the fat boy. "I'm glad that you, too, got some of the worst of it. Why didn't you tie the rope around his neck while you were about it, Tad, and make a thorough job of it?"

Nevertheless, Stacy was set upon having his revenge on Tad, even though he was himself to blame for the trick that had been played on him. The sun shone over the camp of the Pony Rider Boys a few hours later, and the rough hike was again taken up. It was the middle of the fifth day after the roping experience when the boys first caught sight of Yakutat Bay. Huge cakes of floating ice were being thrown up into the air by the strong gale that swept in from the Pacific, the whitened ice in strong contrast with the black sands of the beach.

Towering above it all, nearly five miles in the air, stood Mt. St. Elias glistening in the mid-day sun. Rushing streams roared down the sides of the mountain, thundering through deep gorges cut into the rocks through perhaps thousands of years of wear. It was a tremendous spectacle, exceeding in impressiveness anything the boys had ever looked upon.

At their feet lay the wreck of the rude cabins of the early Thlinkit Indians. There was no sign of any other village. The masts of a few small schooners were visible on the southern side of the bay. It was in this part of the waters that ships came to anchor. Here they were not exposed to the heavy swell from the Pacific, being sheltered by islands on the southern side.

An Indian wrapped in a gaudy blanket went striding stolidly past the Pony Rider party.

"Will you tell us where the town is?" called Tad.

Without looking at the questioner, the Indian pointed up the hill to the right.

"He means on top of the mountain," interpreted Stacy.

"No. There is a trail leading up through the trees," answered Tad. "But it can't be much of a settlement."

"There must be quite a town here," said the Professor. "I have read that in the year 1796 the Russians established a penal colony here, having erected quite a plant. A city was laid out at the time, though I think I have heard that the penal buildings were burned down. But we shall find out more when we get to it."

The climb was a stiff one—almost straight up, it seemed to the boys. Three miles of this through a forest-bordered trail brought them to the village.

"This certainly is some town," laughed Tad.

They saw before them a general store, two or three shops that looked as if they were for the purpose of supplying miners' outfits, with a few scattering cottages here and there. To the left they could make out the smoke from the new Thlinkit village. Squaws from the latter were sitting about the village street weaving baskets. Such beautiful baskets none of that party ever had seen before. The boys could hardly resist the temptation to buy, but knowing that every pound and every inch of bulk in their packs counted, they contented themselves with admiring the handicraft of the squaws.

Ponies or horses were seldom seen in the Yakutat street, so those of the Pony Rider outfit attracted no little attention. A swarm of Indian children gathered about them, chattering half in English and half in their native language.

The keeper of the general store came out to greet the outfit, scenting some trade, and shook hands with the Professor warmly.

"Anybody'd think the Professor was his long-lost brother," chuckled Stacy.

A bevy of dark-eyed squaws surrounded the Professor. In several instances papooses were strapped to their backs, the youngsters looking as if they did not enjoy it any too well.

"Why do they tie them up in splints?" asked Stacy.

"To keep them from getting broken," answered Rector.

A squaw offered Stacy a pair of beaded moccasins that were gorgeous to his eyes.

"How much?"

"Fife dolee."

"Eh? I don't hear very well?"

"Four dolee."

"I'll give you a dollar and fifty cents."

"Two dolee. You take um?"

"You bet I'll take um. It's like finding moccasins to get them for that price."

"You will have to carry them yourself, you know," warned Tad.

"What do you think I'm going to do with those joy shoes?" demanded the fat boy.

"I supposed you intended to wear them when sitting by the fireside."

"Like the squaw, you've got another guess coming. I'm going to send those moccasins to my aunt in Chillicothe."

This was an unusual thing to do. Stacy usually thought of himself, but seldom of others. Tad called to the other boys to tell them the news. They examined the moccasins gravely.

At this juncture the Professor beckoned to the boys to come into the store, which they did after hastily staking down their stock.

"This gentleman says he thinks he can get us a guide," announced the Professor. "I tell him we must have a reliable one, for we know absolutely nothing about the country from here on."

"Black or white?" questioned Stacy.

"Oh, black, of course. There are no white guides up here. I think this one was out with a government surveying party once," said the store-keeper.

"He should do very well, then," nodded the Professor, well pleased.

"What's good enough for our Uncle Sam surely should be good enough for us," agreed Ned Rector. "What do you say, Chunky?"

"I decline to commit myself. I've been taken in on guides before this. Trot out your guide and, after I've tried him out, I'll tell you what I think of him. In buying guides I follow the same tactics that Tad Butler does in purchasing horses."

"Oh, you do, eh?" jeered Ned.

"Always."

"Then be sure you examine this fellow's legs to make certain that they are sound. Feel his ankles that there is neither spavin nor ringbone, then open his mouth and look at his teeth to be sure that he isn't lying to you," advised Tad dryly.

"After which, one Stacy Brown will be reduced to the condition that he deserves," laughed Ned.

"What condition?" demanded the fat boy.

"Use your imagination."

"It isn't working to-day. I'm too hungry."

"Plenty of crackers and cheese and other things here," said Tad. "I am going to have some. Isn't that 'pop' up there, sir?" he asked the proprietor.

"Yes; have some?"

"What flavors have you?"

"Sarsaparilla and ginger ale."

"Give me both," interjected Stacy. "I'll have a pound of that cheese and about a peck of crackers. Got anything else?"

"Ginger snaps?"

"Hooray! Just like being in Chillicothe, isn't it?" Stacy filched a hard cracker and slipped it into the mouth of a papoose on its mother's back.

The squaw did not observe the action, but one of her sister squaws muttered something, whereat the mother snatched the cracker from the mouth of her young hopeful, cast the cracker on the floor and put her moccasined foot on it. She launched into a volley in her own language, directed at Chunky.

"That's all right, madam. Roast me all you wish. I don't care how much you insult me so long as I don't understand a word you are saying."

"Do you wish the cheese done up?" asked the proprietor.

"Done up? Certainly not. I'll attend to the doing up myself." Chunky took a large bite, then banged the end of the pop bottle against the counter to open the bottle. The stuff was highly charged, and a good quantity of it struck Ned Rector in the eye. Stacy waved the bottle at arm's length before placing it to his mouth. The charge went over his shoulder and soaked the Professor's whiskers before the fat boy succeeded in steering the mouth of the bottle safely to his lips.

Professor Zepplin sputtered, Ned Rector threatened, but the fat boy ate and drank, regardless of the disturbance he had caused.

"If you open any more of that stuff be good enough to go outdoors to do so," advised the Professor.

"I wuz thinking ob doig it in here and shooting a papoose with some ginger ale," answered Stacy thickly.

"You will keep on till you have those squaws pulling your hair, Chunky," warned Butler.

The other boys were by this time eating cheese, crackers and ginger snaps. The proprietor had sent one of the Indian children to fetch the man he had recommended as a guide, and by the time the Pony Rider Boys had satisfied their appetites, the guide entered the store and stood waiting to be recognized.

The boys laughed when they saw him.



CHAPTER XI

THE GUIDE WHO MADE A HIT

The guide might have been anywhere from twenty to forty years of age. The boys were unable to say, though they decided that he was quite young. He was considerably shorter in stature than the Indians they had seen, and Tad wondered if he were not an Eskimo. The guide's head was shaven except for a tuft of black coarse hair on the top, standing straight up, while a yellow bar of paint had been drawn perpendicularly on each cheek. He wore a shirt that had once been white, a pair of trousers, one leg of which extended some six inches below the knee, the other as far above the knee of the other leg. Over his shoulders drooped a blanket of gaudy color. The guide's feet were clad in the mucklucks worn both in summer and winter. Taking him all in all, the man was a smile-producing combination.

"Are you a guide?" asked the Professor.

"Me guide."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty year."

"I think that is about it," said the store-keeper. "These natives never know their age exactly."

"You look to me more like an Eskimo than an Indian," observed Professor Zepplin.

"Me Innuit—Siwash. You savvy me?"

Stacy scratched his head.

"Tell him to talk United States," suggested the fat boy.

"What is your name?" asked Tad.

"Anvik. Me smart man, savvy? Me educate Jesuit Mission. Me pilot Chilkoot, White Horse, Caribou; me savvy all over."

"Do you know how to cook?" questioned the Professor.

"Heap cook all time. Me savvy cook."

"You don't savvy any cooking for me," declared Stacy.

"You will think differently about it when you are hungry. Remember, you are full of cheese and crackers now," answered Rector.

"You have been out with the white men surveying, I am told," resumed the Professor.

Anvik nodded solemnly.

"Big snow—no trail—big mountains. White men get lost. Anvik find, Anvik know trail. Anvik big pilot. Me take um to Ikogimeut when Yukon ice get hard so man can go safe with dog team. Big feast, big feed, tell heap big stories, big dance. Oh, heap big time. Innuit go, plenty Ingalik go. Me got pony, too. Buy um from Ingalik man."

"According to his story he seems to be the big noise up here," muttered Ned Rector.

"He has a pony. That is one point in his favor," said Tad.

"Wait till you see it before you call it a pony," advised Stacy.

"Me got gun, too. Me shoot. Bang!"

Stacy staggered back, clapping a hand to his forehead.

"I'm shot!" he cried dramatically.

"Stacy, do restrain yourself until we get out on the trail again," begged the Professor.

"Me make snare. Me catch big game in snare. Me heap big pilot. Me Ingalik."

"Have some cheese," urged Chunky, passing a chunk to the now squatting Indian.

Without the least change of expression the Indian thrust the chunk into his mouth and permitted it to lie there, bulging out the right cheek.

"Do you think this man will do, sir?" asked Professor Zepplin, turning to the store-keeper.

"He will have to if you want a guide. He is the only fellow here who has ever acted in that capacity, so far as I know."

"We would prefer to have a white man."

The proprietor shook his head.

"White men mostly are up in the gold country, Dawson, Nome, all over."

"Isn't there gold in this part, too?" questioned Tad.

"Yes, there's gold everywhere. You can go down and pan out gold in the black sands on the beach here. But what's the use? There is more money to be made in other ways in this country, unless you are lucky enough to strike it rich before you have spent a fortune locating the claim."

"Where you go?" demanded Anvik.

"North. Northwest from here. We want to get into the wildest of the country and we don't want to get lost."

"Me no lose. Mebby me find gold, uh!"

"We are not looking for gold," replied the Professor.

"We are always looking for gold," corrected Stacy. "If you know where there is gold you just lead me to it and I'll be your brother for life."

"Me show."

"I take back all I said about this gentleman," announced Chunky. "If the half that he says is true, he is worth several times the price he asks."

"How much does he ask?" inquired Rector.

"I don't know," replied the fat boy. "He's cheap at the price, anyway."

"When you mush?" demanded Anvik.

"We don't have mush. We have bacon and beans, and tin biscuit and coffee, and plenty of other things, but no mush," answered the Professor.

The store-keeper laughed heartily.

"He doesn't mean something to eat. Mush means march or move, a corruption of the French-Canadian 'marche.' He means when are you going to set out."

"Oh!" exclaimed the Professor.

"I thought you were an Indian, Professor?" said Tad laughingly. "I guess if we depend upon you for interpreter we shall get left."

"Of course I don't understand this jargon."

"Of course you don't," agreed Butler.

"I doubt if any other persons do outside of the locality itself. You see this jargon is purely local and—"

"That's what the doctor said about a pain I had once," interjected Stacy. "But it hurt just the same."

"Anvik, we would like to start this afternoon, if you are ready," announced the Professor.

The Indian shook his head.

"No mush to-day. Mush to-mollel."

"Why not to-day?"

"Innua him angry to-day."

"Who is Innua?" demanded the Professor, bristling. "We do not care who is angry. That has nothing to do with us."

"He means the mountain spirits," explained the store-keeper.

"Eh?" questioned Chunky. "Mountain spirits?"

"He means spirits in the air," explained Butler. "We are not afraid of spirits, Anvik."

"Anvik no like."

"How do you know Innua is abroad?" asked the Professor, now curious to know more of the native superstitions.

"See um."

"Where?"

"On big mountain," indicating Mt. St. Elias with a sweeping gesture.

"He won't go until to-morrow. If you want him you will have to wait," the store-keeper informed them.

"Then I suppose we shall have to wait," reflected Professor Zepplin. "It may be an excellent idea after all. We can pitch camp in the village and acquaint our guide with our methods of doing things, Anvik, do you know how to put up tents and make camp?"

"Me make Ighloo, fine Ighloo. Snow no get in, cold no get in, Innua no get in."

"How about rain?" put in Stacy.

"Rain no get in."

"That's all right, then. We don't care whether the snow gets in or not, but we don't want to have to swim out of our Ighloos in the middle of the night. One is liable to get wet, you know," reminded Brown.

The Professor arranged the wages with Anvik, calling upon the store-keeper to witness the bargain and put it in writing. The Professor then directed the boys to take the new guide out and begin his instruction in the ways of the Pony Rider Boys. The Professor remained to purchase necessary stores and supplies, consulting the proprietor as to what would be needed on the journey. The advice of the store-keeper was helpful in aiding the Professor to take only such equipment and supplies as would be absolutely necessary.

Anvik went to the Indian village to bring his pony, the boys in the meantime starting off to pick a camp site.

"One thing, boys, we mustn't play tricks on Anvik," reminded Tad. "I have an idea that he hasn't much of a sense of humor. He might lose his temper and run away and leave us after we were deep in the interior of the country."

"Do you know, I don't believe he is an Indian at all," asserted Ned Rector.

"Neither an Indian nor a white man," suggested Stacy wisely.

"I think he is an Esquimo," spoke up Walter.

"What's the odds? We don't care what his race is so long as he answers our purpose," declared Butler.

"He says he is an I-Knew-It, and I believe him," said Stacy Brown with emphasis.

"An Innuit, you mean," corrected Tad.

"That's it, an I-Knew-It, and that's what I did—"

"There he comes," cried Walter.

The Indian was leading a pony that looked as if it had not felt a brush or comb since its birth, but Tad's discerning eye noted that the little animal was hardy and well-conditioned, though of evident temper.

"Does he kick?" asked the boy, as Anvik tied his mount to a tree.

"Him kick like buck caribou. Him kick all time, both ways."

"We'll hopple him if he does," said Tad. "Be sure that you tie him so he doesn't kick our ponies, Anvik. We can't have anything of that sort. If he persists in kicking I'll see if I can't break him of it."

"You horse shaman?" asked Anvik.

"Yes, he's ashamed of his horse, that's it," chuckled Stacy.

Tad's face wore a puzzled look, which a few seconds later gave place to a smile of understanding.

"Oh! you mean, am I a horse doctor? Is that it?"

"Uh."

"That's what he is. Anvik has got you properly located this time. Ha, ha!" laughed Chunky.

"Come, boys, unpack. We must give our guide his first lesson. You sit down and watch us, Anvik, while we make camp."

The guide did so, grunting with approval or disapproval from time to time as the work pleased or displeased him. Under the now skillful hands of the Pony Rider Boys the camp rapidly assumed shape and form. All the tents were erected on this occasion in order that the guide might observe the whole process. The tents up, the boys settled them. There were plenty of trees about from which to get boughs for their beds, and wood was brought and a campfire built up. This especially interested the guide. He uttered grunts and nods of approval as he watched Tad build the fire in true woodsman-like manner.

"White man no make fire like Indian. You make fire like Indian."

"Thank you," smiled Butler.

"You make cook fire. How you make sleep fire?"

"A little fire close up to the tent," answered Butler. "I make it so as to get all the heat into the tent instead of sending the heat up into the air where it will do no good."

"Heap good. You good Indian."

"That's what he is, Anvil, he's an Indian," cried Stacy.

"I seem to be a good many things in this camp," laughed Tad. "Any further compliments you can pay me, Stacy?"

"No, but if you don't chase that buck over yonder behind the Professor's tent, I reckon you'll lose your rope," reminded the fat boy.

Tad sprang to his feet, leaping over the tent ropes to the rear. A native had reached under and was hauling out Butler's lasso. Tad grabbed the fellow by an arm and sent him spinning.

"You get out of here or I'll wallop you!" threatened the freckle-faced boy. "Don't you try that! It doesn't go in this outfit. Anvik, tell your friend that someone will get knocked in the head if he steals anything in this camp."

The guide uttered a volley of protest in Innuit, which the assembled squaws, papooses and bucks received in stoical silence, and with impassive faces.

"They don't seem to be particularly impressed by your lecture," said Ned.

"Him no take. Anvik tell um stick um with knife if take."

"You will do nothing of the sort. We will do all the punishing. Don't let me see you using your knife to stick anyone. Now, I guess you had better show us around. Take your pony and come along," rebuked Rector.

"Where you want go?"

"Oh, anywhere. You lead the way. Will anything here be taken while we are away?" questioned Ned.

"No take. Anvik stick um if take."

"You're a savage, that's what you are," declared Chunky.

The boys got on their ponies, while Anvik, after letting his blanket slip to his waist, started away at a stride that the ponies had to trot to keep up with.



CHAPTER XII

IN THE HEART OF NATURE

That night the Indian slept rolled in his blanket with feet close to the campfire in true Indian style. He neither moved nor made a sound all night long so far as the boys knew, but just as the dawn, was graying the skies between the great white glaciers, he was up and striding, away on some pilgrimage of his own. He did not return until two hours later. When the boys awoke Anvik was sitting before the fire with both hands clasped about his bunched knees.

"Good morning," greeted Tad, who was the first to emerge from the tents.

"Huh!" answered the guide.

"Is the mountain spirit willing that we should make a start this morning?"

"Him gone," answered the Indian.

"Where?"

"Not know. Mebby Yukon, mebby Caribou," with a wave of his hand that encompassed all the territory to the north of them. "You mush bymeby?"

"Very soon. We will have breakfast now, then we will get under way."

Anvik nodded and grunted, then, straightening up, let fall his blanket and began preparing the things for breakfast. One by one the Pony Rider Boys appeared, stretching themselves and yawning. A wash in an icy spring close at hand awakened them instantly. Stacy was the last to emerge from his tent. He sniffed the air, then turned up his nose.

"Bacon!" he grumbled disgustedly.

"Don't you like it?" asked Tad.

"I was thinking last night that if I keep on eating bacon for many months more I'll be growing a pork rind in my stomach."

"You don't have to eat the bacon unless you want to, Chunky."

"Yes, I do. It's either that or starve, and Stacy Brown never will starve so long as there is anything to eat in the shop. Where's the bath room? I want to wash."

"Over yonder, and don't you wash where we get our breakfast water if you know what's good for you."

"All water looks alike to me," answered the fat boy, walking rather unsteadily toward the spring, rubbing his eyes.

Breakfast that morning was rather a hurried affair, for there was much to be done. The supplies had been brought up from the store the night before so there was no need to wait for the place to open, and Anvik proved to be quite handy in striking camp, needing few instructions. He remembered well all that had been told him the previous day.

They got away early. As before, the guide disdained to ride his pony. He trotted along ahead, leading the little animal until some five miles beyond the village when he leaped to the pony's back, and with a shrill "Yip, yip!" sent it galloping ahead. This made the boys laugh. They did not laugh for long, however. A mile beyond this they swerved from the trail that led up parallel with the border between the United States and the Canadian possessions and struck straight into the wilds.

"Say, where's the trail?" demanded the perspiring Stacy when the going became so rough that the greater part of the time they were obliged to walk, leaving their ponies to get along as best they might.

"There is no trail. This is the trackless wilderness," replied Butler. "There is time to go back if you wish to."

"No, I don't want to go back."

Ere that day was ended Chunky almost wished he had gone back while he had the opportunity. Time and time again they were obliged to haul their ponies up the steep sides of rocks by main force. Fortunately, the little animals, used to mountain climbing, were unaffected by dizzy heights or dangerous crossings, and picked their way almost daintily. The boys were perspiring and red of face, but happy. They thoroughly enjoyed this wild traveling. It went beyond anything they had ever experienced.

"I hope you are satisfied," panted the Professor when at noon they stopped on a little plateau from which gulches fell away on all sides, leaving them, as it were, on a magic island high in the air. "I sincerely hope it is wild enough for you young gentlemen."

"Not any too much so, Professor," answered Tad. "I could stand it a lot wilder."

"At the present rate you will have it that way."

They built a fire and cooked a light meal, after which all hands lay down for an hour, with the exception of Anvik, who sat bunched in his now familiar brooding position, gazing off into space. As he sat thus, his far-seeing eyes discovered something, but he did not change countenance. He simply sat in dreamy-eyed silence. Perhaps what he saw did not interest him. A column of white smoke had attracted his attention. Promptly on the expiration of the hour that the boys had given themselves to sleep, Anvik stepped briskly to them, shaking each one by the shoulder.

"Mush!" he grunted with each shake.

"I wish you wouldn't say that," grumbled Stacy. "It makes me think I'm going to have breakfast."

"Heap big mush. Big snow, big mountain," grunted the Innuit, with a sweeping gesture towards the towering peaks of the St. Elias range which they were now entering.

"Have we got to go through that?" begged Walter anxiously.

"Um," replied the guide.

"But how shall we ever make it?"

"Mush."

"Yes, mush," jeered Chunky. "You just spread the mush over the mountain side and slide. Don't you understand, Walt? My, but you are thick."

All that afternoon they fought their way through the rugged mountains, making camp that night in a gloomy pass at the foot of Vancouver Mountain, a vast pile that towered nearly fourteen thousand feet high. It seemed to the Pony Rider Boys that they were a long way from civilization, and Tad admitted that he would soon be lost were he obliged to follow a trail up there.

The camp was made about six o'clock, still with broad daylight, but the boys considered that they had done enough for one day. The ponies were weary and Tad knew better than to press them too hard. After supper the freckle-faced boy shouldered his rifle.

Anvik gave him a glance of inquiry.

"Where are you going?" demanded the Professor.

"I'm going to 'mush' a little way up the pass to see if I can't get something worth while for our breakfast."

"You will get lost."

"No, that will not be possible. So long as I keep in the pass I shall be all right. Don't worry; I'll keep in the pass all right."

The boy plunged into the thick undergrowth, and no sooner had he done so than the giant mosquitoes and black gnats attacked him in force. Tad fought them until he grew tired of it, then he trudged on grimly, permitting them to do their worst. After a time he decided that he would get no game if he remained down in the pass, so, after carefully taking his bearings, Tad climbed the mountain until he was able to look over the tops of the trees. It was like a level green sea. He sat down in the sunlight, gazing out over the wonderful landscape.

"A world of silence," he murmured. "If Chunky were here he would say I was getting softening of the brain. Hello!" Tad froze himself. There was scarcely a perceptible flicker of the eyelids as his gaze became fixed on a point of rock just across the pass. There, poised with one foot in the air, stood an antelope. It was a young doe, as Tad surmised it to be. His position was not a favorable one for shooting because he was in plain sight, and the least move on his part no doubt would be discovered by the antelope.

"She must have scented me or else she has got a whiff from the camp. If I don't make any false moves she will be over in that camp within the next hour."

Tad raised his rifle slowly. Yet slow and cautious as he was, the antelope's head went up sharply. So did Butler's rifle. He took quick aim and pulled the trigger. The report of his shot went crashing from wall to wall, like a series of heavy shots.



The freckle-faced boy leaped to his feet, and to one side, with rifle ready for another shot in case he had missed. But he had not. The antelope had leaped into the air, turned a complete somersault, and went crashing down into the gulch out of sight.

"Hooray! Maybe it was a chance shot, but it was a dandy just the same. Now I wonder if I am going to be able to find her. I think I know how."

The boy took out his compass and got a bearing on the point where he had last seen the antelope. Noting the course he started down the mountain side, sliding and leaping in his haste. Crossing over the pass was more difficult, for a broad glacial stream was rushing through the center of it. Nothing daunted, Tad plunged in, but was swept off his feet almost instantly and carried several rods down before he was able to check himself by grabbing a rock.

The rifle had been held out of the water most of the way, though it got a pretty good wetting. The water was less swift from the rock on, and Tad essayed another crossing. He fell only once on the way over. This time he went in all over, rifle and all, but he got up grinning.

"It doesn't matter much now. I can't be any wetter, and I guess the gun isn't any the worse off, though I shall have to give it a pretty thorough cleaning and oiling when I get back to camp."

Having been thrown considerably off his course, Butler found some difficulty in picking it up again, but he found it at last, then guided by the compass made his way straight to where the antelope lay amid a thick mass of undergrowth. He examined her and found that the bullet had entered just behind the left shoulder.

"I couldn't have done any better than that at fifty yards," chuckled the boy. "The next question is, how am I going to get her to camp? I reckon I shall have to tote her."



CHAPTER XIII

A PONY RIDER BOY'S PLUCK

"White boy him make shoot," grunted Anvik.

"He has shot?" questioned Ned.

"Ugh."

"How do you know?"

"Hear um."

"You must have pretty good ears. I haven't heard anything," replied the fat boy. "How do you know it wasn't someone else?"

"Know um gun."

"It is queer we didn't hear him," said the Professor. "Do you think he got some game?"

The guide nodded.

"We shall see how good a fortune-teller you are, but the joke will be on you if it should prove not to have been Butler at all."

To this the guide made no reply. In the meantime, Tad Butler was having his troubles. The problem of how to get the antelope back to camp was not so easily solved. But Tad thought he knew a way. First he got a stick, which he sharpened at both ends. The stick, about six feet long, he thrust through slits he had made in the hocks of the animal, somewhat similar to what he would have done had he been going to string the carcass up.

First strapping his rifle over his shoulder, the Pony Rider Boy raised the stick to his shoulders also, and, stooping, lifted the animal. It was a heavy burden and he staggered. The head of the antelope was dragging on the ground, which made Butler's labor still more trying.

The lad started away, keeping close to the stream in his search of a fording place, but he failed to find anything that looked easier than the portage he had used before, so he finally decided to go back to that. By the time he reached the former point he was obliged to drop his burden and sink down on the rocks to rest.

"Whew, but it's hot. And the mosquitoes and the gnats! If it isn't one pest in the wilds, it is sure to be another and a worse one," he concluded somewhat illogically, measuring the width of the stream with his eyes. "I'll try it."

The weight of his burden was a help rather than otherwise in crossing the glacial stream, for the weight kept the boy on his feet, except on one occasion when stepping on a flat, slippery rock, they were whipped out from under him. Tad went in all over, with the antelope on top of him, and there he struggled and splashed, losing his foothold almost as fast as he gained it.

"Well, I am a muffer," gasped Tad, finally getting to his feet. "I'm worse than Chunky. I deserve a worse wetting, but I guess that's impossible."

The journey to the other side was made without further mishap. Then began a hard, grilling tramp down through the pass, the ends of the pole on which the animal was suspended continually catching on limbs and brush, frequently throwing Butler down, tearing his clothes and scratching his face and neck. His dogged determination carried him through, however, but he was in the end considerably the worse for wear. The first his companions saw of him was when Tad fell out into the open in plain sight of the camp, flat on his face, with the carcass on top of him. At first glance they thought it was a live animal they had seen.

"Get a gun, quick!" bellowed Stacy.

"Him white boy," answered the Indian. "Him git um."

"What, Tad?" Ned uttered a yell and started on a trot for his companion who, by this time, was getting up slowly and with evident effort. Stacy and Walter followed. "What have you got there? We came near letting go at you."

"Yes, yes, we thought you were a bear," chuckled Stacy.

"It's a deer," cried Walter Perkins.

"Him antelope," nodded the Indian wisely. "White boy heap much big hunter."

"I'm afraid I am a better hunter than I am a toter. Stacy, I fell in."

"Ye-e-e-ow!" yelled the fat boy joyously.

"Here, let us take him in," offered Ned, reaching for one end of the carrying stick.

Butler shook his head.

"I said I was going to get him to camp alone and I shall."

"But—" protested Ned.

"Oh, let him carry the beast if he wants to. Tad likes to work," laughed the fat boy.

"Which is a heap sight more than may be said of some persons we know of," returned Ned.

Tad dragged the carcass into camp, casting it down a short distance from the tents.

"Him heap big little man," reiterated the Indian.

"How much does the animal weigh?" asked the Professor.

"A good ton, I should say," replied Tad, sinking down by the fire. "I'm all tuckered out."

"You had better get on some dry clothes."

"These will dry in a few minutes by the fire," was the philosophical reply.

"Yes, that's right," bubbled Stacy. "When one side gets dry I'll pry you over with the stick on which you brought in the carcass. You can't say I don't do my share of the work in this outfit."

"I think I prefer to do my own rolling. I don't dare trust you," laughed Tad.

"That's it, you see. When I try to do anything you won't let me."

"Perhaps Anvik will show you how to skin and cut up the antelope."

"I don't want to know how to skin an antelope. We don't have that kind at home, so what's the use knowing about it? I know how to 'skin the cat,' and that's enough," Chunky declared.

Anvik deftly strung up the carcass and in half an hour had it neatly dressed, the boys watching the operation with interest.

"Heap much good meat," he nodded.

"Yes, heap," admitted Stacy solemnly. "What are you going to do with it all?"

"Eat um."

"All of it?"

"Some of um. Mebby wolf eat um rest. Mebby bear eat um."

"Mebby they don't. Mebby Stacy Brown will eat um if there is any left when my hungry friends get through with it to-morrow," jeered the fat boy. "I'll have mine rare, if you please."

"Huh!" grunted Anvik with the suspicion of a grin on his usually stolid countenance.



CHAPTER XIV

STACY BUMPS THE BUMPS

One by one the travelers were hauling the ponies up a steep mountain, over which their course lay, four days after Tad had brought in the antelope. They had eaten their fill of the meat, hiding the rest in case they should by any chance come that way again.

The going had been worse than before. It could not have been tougher for either man or beast. The mountain side up which they were struggling was rough and rugged. A short distance to the right of them the quartz rock was as smooth as polished marble save for a hummock here and there, some of the latter smooth, others rough. Neither Pony Rider Boy nor pony could have held his footing there for an instant.

After two hours' toil they got the last of the stock up, which in this case was the pack mule. Ned pulled on the rope while Tad and Anvik pushed. They were safe in doing so, for the mule could not kick without going down altogether. Furthermore, it was as anxious as its helpers to get to the top and have the disagreeable job over with. The result was that all hands were pretty well fagged out by the time they got to a level space from which their way led around the base of the higher mountain.

"Now, Stacy, you haven't done much except to give us the benefit of your advice, so take the mule over yonder and tether him where he can browse," directed Butler. "Walter, did you tether the others?"

"I did."

"Come on, you lazy mule. I'm not going to tote you. You'll tote yourself if you want a feed," growled Stacy, taking hold of the lead rope and slouching off to the right. The bushes where they had placed the ponies were about ten rods to the northward of the point at which the party had landed. Stacy was apparently trying to see how near he could walk to the edge without himself or the mule slipping down that glassy side of granite-like rocks.

"Come along, you lazy cayuse," he yelled, giving the lead line a series of tugs. It was like pulling on a dead weight, the pack mule being too weary to hasten its lagging footsteps. Chunky turned around and taking firm grip on the rope with both hands began to pull with all his might. The mule braced himself. He resented this sort of treatment.

The halter suddenly slipped over the animal's head, and the pack mule sat down heavily. So did the fat boy. Unfortunately for the mule it sat down with its haunches slightly over the edge of the slope, and down it went over the slippery surface.

"There goes the other mule!" yelled Walter Perkins.

"Fat boy him go, too," grunted Anvik.

They had failed to observe Stacy. What they were most interested in was the sight of their pack mule sliding down the slope backwards in a sitting posture. Alarmed as they were to see their stores disappearing, the ludicrousness of the sight interested them. The mule came in contact with one of the high places—a rocky bump, which bounced him up into the air and turned him completely around. Down to the next obstruction the animal traveled, principally on its nose.

Stacy Brown was only a few seconds behind the mule. The two had sat down facing each other. The mule being the heavier had gone first and, when once under way, his momentum carried him along with greater force and speed.

With a wild yell, the fat boy, sprawling and struggling to catch hold of something to stop his progress, began the descent. Below him he could hear the rattle of tin cans, for the pack had broken open. It was raining canned goods down there, but Stacy was not particularly interested in this phase of the situation. He hit the bump over which the pack mule had leaped, was hurled up into the air, where he did a dizzy spin, then sat down with a force that for the instant knocked all the breath out of him, and once more he shot towards the bottom.

"They'll both be killed!" cried the Professor in great alarm.

Tad, comprehending the scene in a twinkling, started on a run. Choosing a point where there were no bumps in the way, he crept over and, sitting on his feet, supported on each side by his hands, began a downward shoot. But the freckle-faced boy did not long maintain that position. A few seconds after starting he was flat on his back, going down feet first at a speed that fairly took his breath away.

Ere he was half-way down, the mule had reached the end of its journey at the bottom of the slope. Then Stacy Brown came along, but not much more gracefully than the mule, and landed feet first on the animal. What the slide and the bumps had failed to do for the unfortunate beast, Stacy Brown did. He was a human projectile and the mule, that had got to its fore feet, promptly lay down again under the impact. Chunky did a graceful dive over the body of his prostrate enemy, landing on his shoulders in a thicket.

"Stacy! Stacy!" yelled Tad as he reached the end of his own slide and got to his feet. Tad had not been in the least injured by the fall. "Stacy!"

"What do you want?"

"Are you hurt?"

"No."

"Then come and help me get the mule up."

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"I'm strung up."

Tad did not know what the trouble was, but he lost no time in getting to his companion. Butler gazed, then he burst out laughing. Chunky lay on his back on the ground, his eyes rolling. One foot was elevated as high as it could reach and still permit the boy's body to remain on the ground. The foot was caught in the crotch of a dwarfed tree, and was wedged in tightly, too.

"Gracious! How did you ever manage to get into that scrape?" questioned Tad between laughs. "Hey, Ned, is that you?" as a crashing in the bushes was heard near at hand.

"Yes. I'm coming. Is Stacy hurt?"

"No, but come here quick. Here's a sight for you!"

Ned threshed his way to them, then he, too, burst out into a roar of laughter.

"Ha, ha!" mocked Chunky. "That's right. Never mind me. I'm only the fat boy, taken along to do stunts to make the rest of you laugh. I'm quite comfortable, thank you. I can stand on my head here for any old length of time. Have your laugh out, then shoot me! I don't want to die a lingering death."

"I'll lift him up. You get the foot out, Ned," directed Tad.

This was not so easily accomplished. Butler tried different ways of doing this, but each time the fat boy's yells made him stop short. Every attempt to lift Stacy gave his foot a wrench, bringing forth a howl.

"Let me have your hatchet," demanded Tad. Ned passed it over.

"What are you going to do? Going to chop my leg off?" demanded Stacy.

"Don't worry. It won't hurt but a moment."

"Pro-o-o-o-fessor!"

"Keep still, you ninny! We aren't going to hurt you," growled Ned.

Tad was already hacking at the tree, which was small, but very tough. Every blow brought a yell from the fat boy. He couldn't have made much more racket had his companions in reality been amputating the leg itself.

At last Butler had chopped through. He grabbed the tree, but Stacy, jerking on his foot, pulled the tree right over on him, incidentally throwing Tad down. Then Chunky let out a fresh series of howls as the sharp sprouts smote him on the face and body. The foot, however, had come free with the falling of the tree, but the boy still lay there groaning, making no effort to help himself.

"Get up! You're all right," commanded Ned, jerking Stacy out by the collar. "See what you've accomplished now. You have done for our last mule. Had you not been along I don't believe the other one would have fallen off the trail."

"That's right. Save the donk, but never mind a Stacy Brown. He's a good joke, that's all," complained Stacy.

Tad had run to the pack mule which had got up, and was standing with nose close to the ground.

"He isn't hurt," cried Tad. "He is all right, Professor," he called. "Both mules are all right. Hooray!"

"Eh?" growled Stacy, flushing hotly.

Anvik, who had been making his way down by a more roundabout way, now made his appearance. He grunted upon discovering the disheveled Chunky, and shrugged his shoulders as he observed the display of tin cans strewn about.

"Much heap big fool!" ejaculated the Indian.

"Are you addressing your remarks to me or to the mule?" demanded Stacy calmly.

"Huh!" That was the only reply Stacy got, and Anvik began gathering up the stuff that had been lost from the battered pack. This was no small task, owing to the way the provisions had been scattered. Butler, in the meantime, had gone over the pack mule carefully to see if there were any serious injuries.

"He's a lucky mule," announced the lad. "There are no bones broken, but I'll warrant he aches all over from the shaking up he has had. I shall have to sew up that gash on his side when we get him up."

"Let's get started and boost him up, then," urged Rector.

"No, let the beggar rest. I haven't the heart to drag him up that mountain again until he recovers from the shock. We'll tether him and help Anvik get the provisions up first. Stacy, are you able to work?"

"What you want me to do?"

"Carry some of these stores up."

The fat boy shook his head.

"My weak heart won't stand it," he answered. Thrusting his hands in his pockets he strolled off.

The two boys looked at each other and Tad shook his head hopelessly. Ned picked up a stone and savagely shied it at a tomato can. It hit the can and split it wide open.

"If you must give vent to your emotions I wish you would throw stones at a tree, or at something that won't deplete our stores," suggested Butler. "Now see what you've done."

Stacy had promptly rescued the split tomato can and carefully holding it before him stepped gingerly over to a rock on which he sat down and began eating of the contents of the can.

"I don't want to see. Stacy riles me so that I want to thrash him. I'll do it some day, too!" threatened Ned.

Stacy paid no attention to Rector's threats, but having finally emptied the can, he threw it at Ned, then began climbing the mountain to rejoin the outfit.

It was all of two hours ere they finished their work of bringing the damaged supplies up the mountain side. Then came a tug of war in getting the mule up once more, the brute hanging back, the boys pulling and pushing. The Professor had a new pack cover all cut and sewed by the time they had finished. The boys decided to camp where they were for an hour longer, then go on, making a late camp that afternoon, the days being so long that this could be done without night traveling, which was very perilous in that rugged section.

They finally took up their journey, making camp on a high plateau where Tad was destined to make an important discovery before they set out on the following day.



CHAPTER XV

THE STORY IN THE DEAD FIRE

It was an hour past daylight on the following morning when Tad, who had got up early, shouldered his rifle and stalked out of camp, returned. The other boys were just out of their beds, heading for a spring to "wash their eyes open."

Tad did not show himself to them at once. There was no real reason for his caution, save that he was a woodsman and therefore always cautious as to the moves he made. Anvik caught sight of him instantly, and Tad beckoned. The guide did not appear to have observed the signal, but taking up his hatchet as if going out for wood, he strode from the camp also, and Butler seeing that the guide was coming, turned and walked briskly away from the camp.

The freckle-faced boy led for a short quarter of a mile straight over the plateau, a thickly wooded, rugged plain. Then he halted, waiting for the guide to come up. Tad pointed to a heap of ashes, the remains of a campfire.

"Huh!" grunted the Indian.

"Someone has been here before us," nodded Tad. "And not so very long ago, I should say. What do you make of it, Anvik?"

"You see um?"

Butler nodded.

"What you see?"

"A dead campfire."

"Huh. Heap much. What else you see?"

"I see a few things, Anvik. Of course I can't see as much as you do, but I should say this camp was not more than a day old. This fire was blazing yesterday. The ashes aren't the right color for a very old one."

"One sun," grunted the Indian.

"It looks to me as if there had been two men here. Am I right?"

"Heap good. Two men. Leave, big hurry. Him go that way. Stay here two hour. Wonder why big hurry?"

"Perhaps they wanted to get somewhere, some place for which they had set out in a hurry. They had two ponies and pretty heavy packs."

Anvik nodded.

"White boy much wise. Him see almost like Indian. My father him shaman. Him teach Anvik see many thing. White boy him see almost as much as Anvik."

"Where do you think they are going?"

"Not know."

"Perhaps they are miners prospecting for a claim."

Anvik shook his head.

"Too much big hurry. No prospect. Mebby go get claim. Mebby see um again."

"I hope we do. It would be pleasant to have some company in this wild place. They went in that direction when they broke camp. Is that the way we go?" asked Tad.

"We follow um trail."

"Then let's go back and get ready to move."

The pair strode back without another word, the Indian's admiration for the freckle-faced boy having increased greatly since Tad had beckoned him from the camp.

Shortly after noon as they were casting about for a favorable place in which to make their mid-day halt, Ned Rector, who was riding to the right of the others, uttered a shout.

"What is it?" cried Tad.

"There has been a campfire here."

"How did you find it?" wondered Tad.

"My pony walked through it and kicked up the ashes. Who do you suppose it could have been?"

"I am sure I don't know. See anything about the remains of the fire that tells you anything?"

"No. What is there to see, Tad?"

"It takes a woodsman to see things," declared Stacy Brown, getting from his saddle and gravely strolling to the heap of ashes, into which he thrust one hand.

"Well?" grinned Tad.

"Ashes warm. Haven't been away from here very long."

"Great!" cried the boys.

"You are a wonder," nodded Butler approvingly. "But you all missed the other one."

"The other what?" demanded Ned.

"The other campfire. There was another right near where we camped last night. In that case the ashes were cold. The travelers haven't made as much progress to-day as I should have thought they would, and it looks to me as though they thought they were moving rather too rapidly and had slowed down a little. What do you say, Anvik?"

"Huh!" grunted the Indian, which Tad interpreted as meaning that he was right.

The Professor was much interested in the discovery, and asked Tad and Anvik many questions about the earlier discovery. Still, there was not much to be learned. A stranger in this wild place was something to attract the attention and cause speculation and discussion, so during the rest hour they talked of little else. Tad thought they would come up with the two strangers, but the guide shook his head.

"Him go north. Anvik go northwest. No see."

"We shall see by to-morrow. I have an idea that we are going to catch up with our friends before we get across the mountains," averred Tad confidently.

"Lunch is ready," announced the Professor.

"And speaking of food, I'm a little hungry myself," said Tad with a laugh. "I really am glad there is no one in our outfit with a delicate appetite. Walt, do you remember what a dainty picker you were when we first went out together?"

"Yes. I have changed since then, haven't I?"

"I should say you have. From a delicate little chap you've gotten to be a regular whopper."

"Yes, I reckon we've all grown some," agreed Chunky. "But if this kind of going continues we'll all shrink away to nothing."

"You will be able to lift a house after you have finished this journey," laughed Tad.

"I don't want to lift a house. I've got all I can do to lift myself."

Soon after, the party started on, to meet with a surprise ere they had gone far on their journey.



CHAPTER XVI

A SIGN FROM THE MOUNTAIN TOP

The surprise did not come until just before night closed in, shortly after ten o'clock that night.

A hard, grilling day had been spent on the trail, with little relief from their labors, which were divided between hauling the ponies up dangerous slopes, down almost sheer walls, across glacial streams cold as ice, and last but not least the fighting of giant mosquitoes and black gnats.

"There is only one thing lacking to make this country the limit," declared Stacy after they had made camp and settled down to warm themselves while the guide was getting supper.

"And what might that be?" questioned the Professor.

"Snakes!"

"Thank goodness there aren't any such things here," exclaimed Rector. "It is bad enough as it is. Hark! What's that?"

"Him wolf," grunted the Indian.

"I should say there were several of 'him,'" laughed Tad Butler. "They seemed to be stirred up about something. Are they timber wolves, Anvik?"

The guide nodded and grunted.

"Are you afraid of wolves?" demanded Rector.

"No 'fraid wolves. Mebby 'fraid Ingalik."

Tad drew from this that the Indian had something in mind that he had not spoken to them about. The freckle-faced boy eyed the Indian keenly, but Anvik's impassive face told him nothing. The guide had discovered something else. Tad was sure of that, but what that something was the boy had not the slightest idea.

Tad's gaze roved about over the landscape, traveling slowly from mountain to mountain, from peak to peak. Twice he went over the rugged landscape spread out before them with his searching glances. Suddenly his gaze halted and fixed on the peak of a low mountain off to the northwest of them. Butler shaded his eyes, and Anvik, observing the action, followed the direction of the boy's gaze.

The guide made no move, nor did he change expression, but Tad saw that Anvik saw. A tiny ring of smoke was rising slowly from the low mountain peak, swaying lazily as it rose in the quiet air. It was almost white. One might have taken it for a cloud did he not know better, and only a mountaineer would have known better.

A moment and a second ring ascended in the wake of the first one, then after another interval a third ring rose.

"What are you looking at?" demanded the Professor sharply.

"Smoke," answered Tad.

"Where?"

"On that low peak. Where are the glasses?"

Ned hurriedly fetched the glasses. He took the first look, but saw no smoke. Tad reached for them. By this time another ring was rising. It, like the first one he had seen, was followed by two others.

"It's a signal!" announced Butler quietly. "Now what can it mean?"

"It means trouble for us," spoke up Stacy. "I can feel it in my bones."

"Who would desire to make trouble for us here?" demanded the Professor.

"I don't know," replied Tad. "I don't believe that smoke has anything to do with us. It must be an Indian signal."

"No Indian," grunted Anvik. "Him white man smoke."

"How do you know?" questioned the Professor sharply.

"Me know."

"Then perhaps you may be able to tell us whose smoke it is?"

"Him white man. Mebby same man, mebby not. White man all same. Him call other white man. Him say some along, by jink."

"Let's make a smoke and answer him," suggested Ned eagerly. "That would be a joke on him, whoever he is."

Tad said "no," and said it emphatically.

"No make smoke," agreed the Indian. "Smoke want white man off yonder"—pointing to the southwest.

"How do you know that?" asked Butler.

"Smoke him go that way. Want us, smoke him go this way."

"I never knew that before," reflected Tad. "You see, boys, they make these signal smokes by building a smudge, then holding a blanket over the smudge. By removing the blanket and replacing it they can make a definite number of smokes, long smokes or short smokes; in fact, they can almost make words, like the telegraph. It is a wonderful thing. I wouldn't be surprised if those signals could be made out twenty or thirty miles away, if one had eyes sharp enough to detect them."

"But what are they signaling for?" demanded Stacy.

"I don't know. Anvik says it is white men. I can't tell you anything about that. Smoke is just smoke to me. They are communicating with someone. We shan't see them, as they must be all of ten miles away."

"Fifteen," corrected the guide.

"That shows how poorly a novice judges distances in this country," nodded Butler. "They may see our fire to-night. If they are friendly we shall no doubt meet them. If they are not, we may never see a sign of them again. That is the way I reason it out."

Anvik grunted and nodded. The Indian understood a great deal more of what was being said than one would have supposed. In fact, to look at him one would not think he had even heard anything of what was being said about him. He was the silent, impassive-faced stoic of his race.

After darkness had set in the boys scanned the mountains for the light of a campfire, but there was no light to be seen. The Pony Rider Boys' campfire, however, was blazing up brightly, they having built up a large fire on purpose to attract the attention of the men who had made the smoke signals from the low mountain peak, low in comparison with the ten and fifteen thousand feet ranges about them. The boys turned in at midnight, a late hour for them, and were sound asleep within two minutes thereafter. They were aroused an hour later by the most terrifying roar they had ever listened to.

"What's the matter?" cried Tad, springing from his tent, trying to pierce the darkness with his gaze.

"Is—is the world coming to an end?" yelled Ned.

"I guess the mountain is falling down," shouted Stacy.

"Guide, guide!" roared the Professor.

Anvik, drawing his blanket still more closely about him, stepped over and threw some fresh sticks on the fire. The roaring by this time had become a thunderous, crashing noise that fairly deafened them. One had to shout to make himself heard. Fine particles, like sharp stones, began raining down upon them, stinging the faces, causing the boys to shield their eyes with their arms. Stacy, in alarm, ran and hid in the tent; the others stood their ground, yet not knowing what second they might be caught in what seemed to them to be a great upheaval of nature.

"It's an earthquake," shouted Ned Rector.

Stacy heard the words in a brief lull. The fat boy burst from his tent yelling like a wild Indian.

"An earthquake! Oh, wow, wow, wow! We'll all be shot to pieces. Oh, help!"

Tad grabbed the boy by a shoulder, giving him a good shaking.

"Stop that noise!" he commanded. "Don't yell until you are hurt."

"I want to yell now. Maybe I can't yell after I'm hurt," returned Chunky.

"Guide! What is it?" roared the Professor, the perspiration standing out over his face, as Tad observed when the fire blazed up.

Anvik finished what he was doing before he answered. Then he spoke without looking up.

"Him mountain fall down."

"Is it an ice slide?" shouted Tad.

"Ugh!"

"An avalanche, do you mean?"

"Yes; an ice-avalanche," explained the Professor. "I have seen them in other parts of the world."

"Sun make him ice weak; ice fall down," explained Anvik.

"How about danger for us?" asked Walter.

For answer the Indian shrugged his shoulders and went on poking the fire. Then, of a sudden, there came a crash like a salvo of artillery. A crushing, grinding mass shot by them, snuffing out the fire as it passed.

Darkness and a terrifying silence followed.



CHAPTER XVII

AN UNEXPECTED MEETING

After the roar of the passing avalanche had ceased, and the awed silence became oppressive, Stacy Brown's voice was heard.

"Ow-wow!" he wailed.

"Are we all here, and safe?" called Tad. "Professor, Ned, Walter, Anvik!"

Each answered to his name.

"You didn't call for me," Chunky protested indignantly. "Don't I count in this outfit?"

"That's easy," answered Tad. "When you're not making a noise we know you're somewhere else. Let's see what the ice did to our camp."

"Heap one piece ice fall," grunted the guide. "Him sit on fire. Innua him mad, by jink!"

"Is Innua the scoundrel who has been throwing sections of mountains at us?" demanded Walter.

"He means the mountain spirit," explained Tad. "Don't you recall that Anvik wouldn't start out with us the first day because he said the mountain spirit was in a blue funk, or something of the sort?"

"Oh, yes."

"Old Innua must have been in a rage to-night then, and we are lucky that we weren't in range of his projectiles," chuckled Tad.

Beyond destroying their fire, no damage had been done to the camp. However, after the excitement no one felt like sleep, so the boys sat about the fire discussing the ice avalanche for an hour or more. Then, at the Professor's urgent insistence, they turned in. Anvik long since had wound himself up in his blanket and gone to sleep.

Just as the dawn was graying, Tad got up, and shouldering his rifle slipped from the camp unobserved by anyone except the Indian. Anvik opened one eye, regarded the boy inquiringly, then closing the eye, dozed off. He was by this time too well used to Tad's morning excursions to ask any questions. He knew the boy was well able to take care of himself.

Tad had a two-fold purpose in view in going out this morning. He wanted to get some fresh meat for the outfit and he also was curious to know what the smoke of the previous evening had meant. While he did not expect to come up with any strangers, he thought that, perhaps he might discover something.

Tad did. He had proceeded less than a mile from camp when he smelled smoke. At first he thought the odor must come from his own camp, then he saw that the slight breeze was from the opposite direction.

"That means that someone isn't far ahead of me. It means I am going to find out who it is if I can."

After floundering about for fully half an hour, with the odor of smoke becoming more pungent all the time, the boy was on the point of confessing that he was beaten, when all at once he caught the sound of a human voice. The voice was not loud enough to enable him to distinguish the words, but he was quite sure it was the voice of a white man and not far away at that.

"They have masked their camp. That's why I haven't been able to find them," muttered the boy, starting ahead again. After creeping forward cautiously for some time, a wave of suffocating smoke from burning wood smote him full in the face.

Tad uttered a loud sneeze. Two men suddenly appeared in the haze of smoke, and the boy heard the sound of hands slapping pistol holsters. He was able to make the men out faintly, but not with sufficient clearness to see who or what they were.

"Hold on, boys—don't shoot!" warned Butler, as he stepped around the smudge to enable him to get a better view of the men whom he had come upon so unexpectedly, to them.

Before him stood Curtis Darwood and Dill Bruce, the latter known among his companions as the Pickle. Each man held his revolver ready for quick action.

"Why, how do you do?" smiled Tad. "I hadn't the least idea I should find anyone I knew."

"Well, suffering blue jays, if it isn't old Spotted Face!" exclaimed Bruce. "Howdy?"

"Very good. How are you?" Tad stepped forward. Bruce shook hands cordially with the boy. Tad turned to Darwood, who had not said a word. The latter's face darkened, and he appeared not to have observed the hand that Tad extended toward him.

"Aren't you going to shake hands with me, Mr. Darwood?" asked the lad.

"I reckon you ought to know better than to ask it," returned the gold digger. "I reckon, further, that if you know what's good for you you'll be mushing out of this as fast as your legs will carry you, unless you are looking for trouble. Git!"



CHAPTER XVIII

AN UNFRIENDLY RECEPTION

Tad gazed at the gold digger in amazement.

"I—I don't understand, Mr. Darwood."

"Don't you understand plain English? I said 'git.' We don't want anything to do with you, and if we find you fooling about our outfit after this we'll try something else to keep you away," warned the prospector.

"I don't know why you appear to have taken such a dislike to me. I am sure I have done nothing to merit it. However, I am equally sure that I don't want anything to do with you. If you change your mind and can act like a man, instead of a kid, I shall be glad to see you. But don't get funny. We may be boys but we are quite able to take care of ourselves," answered Tad, turning away.

"Stop!"

Darwood's voice was stern. Tad halted and turned towards the two men.

"You reckon you're mighty smart, I know, but you must think I'm a natural-born fool not to know that you have been following us all the way up here."

"What?"

"Oh, you needn't play the innocent dodge. You know what I mean."

"You—you think we have been following you?" questioned the boy, scarcely able to believe that the prospector was in earnest.

"I don't think. I know. You're like all the rest of them. We have had this thing happen to us before. There are plenty more like you, and they've followed us, hoping they will be the first to discover the bear totem and the claim that we are in search of."

"Taku Pass?" asked Butler with a half smile on his face.

Darwood's face flushed angrily.

"What did I tell you, Bruce?" he snapped. "Are you going?" he demanded, turning towards Tad.

"Yes. I don't care to stay where I'm not wanted. But before going I am going to tell you something. We are not prospecting, nor following prospectors. We are taking our usual summer vacation on horseback. All I know about your affairs is what Captain Petersen of the 'Corsair' told me, and what I overheard from Sandy Ketcham. If you will recall I told you about that. The Captain gave me your history as far as he knew it, and I was much interested. How could I help being? I love adventure and so do my companions. We wanted to know more about it, but did not think it was any of our business until I overheard Ketcham plotting against you. We hadn't the least idea we ever should see you again. My finding you this morning was a pure accident."

"How'd you happen to do it?" interjected Dill Bruce.

"I saw your smoke signs last night."

"What!"

Darwood snapped the word out like the crack of a whip.

"I saw your smoke signs. At least I suppose they were yours. This morning I started out, as I frequently do, in search of game. I smelled your smoke and out of curiosity hunted you up to see who our neighbors were. That's all there is to it. If you can get anything out of that you are welcome to it. I wish you luck in finding Taku Pass. If I should stumble on it, I'll look you up and let you know. We aren't looking for gold mines especially. 'Bye."

"Well, what d'ye think of that?" grinned the Pickle after Tad had left them.

"I think somebody will get hurt if they don't leave us alone," growled Darwood, caressing the butt of his revolver. "I'm getting tired of this kind of nagging."

"That outfit isn't nagging you," answered Bruce.

"How do you know?"

"They are nothing but boys. At least one of them is the right sort. Spotted Face did us a favor. He isn't a crook."

"I haven't said he was. But you don't know who is in their outfit now. Besides, there isn't one chance in a thousand that they'd be so close on our trail unless they had followed us on purpose. No, this business must be stopped. We may be on the right track, and if we are we must protect ourselves, and we'll do it, even though we have to kill a few curious hounds who are following the trail. The boy business may be merely a mask for the operations of some other persons."

"Why don't you find out, then?"

Darwood bent a keen gaze on his companion.

"What do you mean?"

"Hunt up their camp and see what is going on?"

"I'll do it," answered the gold digger with emphasis. "What's more, I'll do it now."

"That's the talk! If you hurry, you may be able to find the boy and follow him in. Shall I go along?"

"No. You stay here and look after things. I may be away for some time. I don't know where they are, but I'll find them if it takes all day. If our two comrades come in, you hold them here. Needn't tell them where I am."

Darwood shouldered his rifle and strode from his camp without another word. Bruce replenished the fire in order to make a smudge that could be smelled for some distance away, which was for the purpose of directing their companions to them, and also had served to call Tad Butler into their camp in advance of the other two gold diggers.

Tad was out of sight by the time Curtis Darwood got out, but Darwood was able to follow the boy's trail, though it was not an easy one. Tad had made no effort to mask his trail, but his natural instincts taught him to leave as few indications of his progress as possible. Darwood saw this. Instead of lessening his suspicions this fact served to increase them. The gold digger was using his nose more than his eyes, sniffing the air for the smoke from the camp of the Pony Rider Boys' outfit. He caught the scent after half an hour or so of trudging over the hard trail. From this time on it was easy so far as finding his way was concerned. Butler, knowing the way, had made much better time back to his own camp.