CHAPTER XII. JUST IN TIME.

Once more the odd booming sound was borne to Ralph’s ears. It came from off to his left. The mud fell again in showers all about him.

“It’s some sort of a boiling spring!” exclaimed Ralph suddenly. “I’ll bet a doughnut that’s what it is. What a chump I was to think that the man on the rock had anything to do with it. Yet it did give me a scare for a minute, too.”

He dashed off in the direction of the booming sound, eager to see what he was certain now had caused the shower of mud. He soon came upon it. In a little clear space amidst the pines he found himself in marshy ground. Rank green grass and flowers of bright colors grew here, and brilliantly colored dragon-flies shot hither and thither through the moist, warm air. The atmosphere[115] held a steamy, unwholesome sort of dampness.

Suddenly there came a rumbling sound which quickly changed to a roar like that of a locomotive blowing off steam, and from the center of the clearing there shot up a clear stream of steaming water. But in a flash its purity was sullied and it turned a dark muddy color. The rumbling increased in violence and a miniature geyser of mud and steaming hot water was shot upward to a considerable height.

Ralph made a swift dash for the shelter of a Douglas fir and looked on curiously while the convulsion of nature lasted. Then he ventured out to examine the geyser more closely. To his disappointment he found that he could not approach the depression from which the mud and water had been spouted upward. The ground was far too swampy to permit such a proceeding and the boy was compelled to look on at the strange sight from a distance.

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The convulsions occurred with almost clock-like regularity, at intervals of about ten minutes. As he watched, Ralph thought of the professor, and how delighted the man of science would have been to behold such a sight. He made careful mental notes of the operations of the mud geyser, however, so that he could be sure to give an accurate account of it to the professor when he returned.

Suddenly, behind him, he heard an odd, rustling sort of noise and noticed a movement in the tall grass. He parted the vegetation to see what could be causing the disturbance. The next instant he leaped backward with a spring that would have done credit to a gymnast.

He had almost stepped on a huge rattlesnake that was coiled in the grass. All at once he became aware that in his backward spring he had nearly landed on another of the reptiles, a snake fully five feet in length. This caused the boy to beat a precipitate retreat, choosing open ground[117] for the purpose. It was not till then that he began to notice that the entire vicinity of the hot springs was fairly alive with the scaly reptiles. Undoubtedly they had been attracted there by the warmth of the ground and had a den in the neighborhood.

“Ugh!” exclaimed the boy with a shudder, “I never did like snakes. I guess I’ll get out of this as quickly as possible. Some of those fellows beat anything I saw in Arizona. I don’t fancy their company.”

He retraced his steps to the point where he had left the trail of the missing ponies and took it up once more. It led down into the valley and Ralph, thinking of the scores of serpents that must haunt the vicinity of the geyser, followed it with a thankful feeling that he had seen the rattlers in time to avoid them.

The traveling down the side of the ridge on which he was now was almost as hard as his clamber up the opposite acclivity. To make matters[118] worse he encountered several muskegs smelling strongly of sulphur, and undoubtedly fed by the sulphurous springs higher up the hill. But the boy was grateful for one thing that the softer ground did for him. It made the traveling harder, but, at the same time, it held the prints of the runaways’ hoofs as clear as day; and as well as Ralph could judge from the look of their prints they were fairly fresh, and told him that he could not be far from the strays.

This encouraged him greatly, and he made good time down the hillside, strewn though the way was with obstacles. He was traveling forward thus, when from a patch of flowering shrubs ahead there came a rustle and a crackling.

Ralph’s heart jumped into his mouth. Mountain Jim had declared that the ponies had been scared by a cougar or a bear. Could the creature be just beyond him in that clump of shrubs?

He examined his rifle carefully.

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“I don’t want to be treed again,” he said to himself.

So far as he could see, the rifle was in perfect working order. He stood stock still and waited for a recurrence of the disturbance in the bushes.

But following the rustling that had first attracted his attention no sound came. Ralph’s excited imagination showed him a tawny side a dozen times or more, only to be followed by the discovery that it was some dead or faded leaves and not the flank of a bear or cougar that he had spied.

“If something doesn’t happen pretty quick, I’m going to blow up!” exclaimed the boy to himself as he waited, hardly daring to breathe.

All at once there came from the patch of bushes a renewed rustling. It was coming toward him. Ralph clutched his rifle tightly and bit his under lip to keep his nerves under control. The sound was growing nearer now. Was it a bear, or a stealthy, cat-like cougar that was destined[120] to emerge in an instant from its place of concealment?

“It’s coming,” thought Ralph, with a bound of his heart, “I hope I can shoot straight and finish it with one shot.”

He threw up his gun in anticipation and the next instant burst into a loud laugh.

From the bush had emerged, not a bear nor a mountain lion, nor even a deer.

Facing Ralph, and quite as much astonished as he, to judge by its attitude, was a large Canada hare. For an instant boy and hare stood looking at each other, while Ralph shook with laughter over his feelings of trepidation as to what the brush would bring forth.

“Talk about the mountain and the mouse,” he chuckled to himself. “This sure is a modern version of the old fable.”

“Skip along, bunny,” he added the next instant, as the hare, with a spring and a whisk of its stumpy tail, vanished down the mountain side[121] seeking cover, “I wouldn’t take as easy a shot as that, especially when I was looking for big game.”

But the next minute he was destined to get another surprise. Something was coming toward him from another direction, from his right. He could hear its footsteps as it advanced somewhat heavily, cracking branches and twigs.

Then among the tree trunks and underbrush he saw something move. A brown object it appeared to be.

“A deer!” flashed through Ralph’s mind. “I’m in luck to-day.”

With eager eyes riveted on the spot where he had last seen the brown object, Ralph raised his rifle. His hands trembled but he steadied them with an effort, fighting off the attack of “buck fever,” as a hunter’s excitement at the prospect of big game is termed.

Suddenly the brown object appeared again, bobbing about behind a clump of brambles.

“It’s a deer’s head, sure!” breathed Ralph.

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He drew a careful bead on the object, devoutly hoping that his sights were adjusted right for the range, which was about a hundred yards.

“Now for it,” he said to himself, as he prepared to press the trigger.

But the shot was never fired, for just as Ralph was about to send a bullet crashing from his weapon there stepped into view from behind the brush, the figure of a man!

Ralph shook as if from a fever. Another instant and he might have been a murderer! The man had revealed himself in the nick of time. But hardly had Ralph discovered his mistake when the man saw him. Without a word he dashed off like a wild animal, crouching and diving as he went, and in a flash was out of sight.

In the brief interval that Ralph had had to scrutinize the man he had so nearly shot, he had not received more than a general impression as to what he looked like. But this impression was startling enough. It was of a creature bearded[123] with a hairy growth that reached almost to his waist, half naked and with long, unkempt hair and wild eyes.

But even so, he had a queer intuition that this half wild creature and the silent watcher on the rock were one and the same individual.