CHAPTER XIX. A STORM AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

Long after dark that same evening the two lads came limping into camp to the no small relief of the anxious watchers, who had built a roaring fire to guide them back. After a fine supper they told the story of their day’s adventures which, as may be imagined, caused no small astonishment among their hearers. The fact that they had recognized the pony on which the wild-looking man rode, together with their description of the man himself, served quite sufficiently to identify him as the same fellow who had been seen by Ralph on the two former occasions. But so far as solving his identity was concerned, they were as far off as ever.

After a late sleep the next day, a visit was paid to the hole down which poor White-eye had terminated[181] his career, thereby causing Harry Ware and young Simmons so much trouble. The carcass of the bear lay there, and although tracks showed that animals—foxes and wolves in all probability—had been sniffing around it, the body had not been molested. When Mountain Jim had skinned it, they had a fine “silver tipped” grizzly’s skin to take back with them.

Harry had remained in camp during this expedition so as to rest his sprained ankle as much as possible. Mountain Jim had collected various herbs and pounded them into a paste which, when laid on the injured member, did it more good than all the liniments in the professor’s medicine chest. But it was still painful, for the exertions he had made in getting back to camp on the previous evening had not improved it.

After a consultation it was decided that the party could not well continue to the bow of the Columbia River without getting two more ponies to replace the dead and stolen animals. Mountain[182] Jim said that he knew of a ranch not more than fifteen miles off across the mountains, at which he could purchase the needed animals cheaply. It was decided, therefore, that he and Ralph should leave early the next day for the ranch and bring back two ponies with them. The others would have liked to go along; but in view of the apparent hostility of the mysterious man it was decided best to leave a strong guard in camp.

Bright and early the next morning the camp was astir. But Mountain Jim was hardly out of his blankets before he gave an angry exclamation and pointed to where the stores had been piled under a canvas.

The cover had been raised during the night, and by the disorder that prevailed among the supplies it was plain that several articles had been taken. But who or what could have done the rifling?

Bears were the culprits, according to Mountain[183] Jim’s first declaration, but he revised his opinion when Ralph’s quick eyes detected the print of a foot in the soft ground near by. A slight, misty rain had fallen in the night and the ground showed plainly the impression of a human foot, or rather of what was, apparently, a very old and broken pair of boots.

“Humph!” grunted Mountain Jim, “I guess it’s your friend that’s been and done this, Master Ralph. Yes, by hooky! there’s the hoof print of the pony he stole. I’d know it among a dozen. See here, that off fore shoe is broken.”

“Well, of all the nerve!” gasped Ralph. “To visit our camp on a thieving expedition mounted on a stolen pony from our pack train; can you beat it?”

“You can’t,” chorused the boys.

“Can’t even tie it,” commented Percy Simmons, standing with his hands in his pockets and legs far apart, surveying the scene of vandalism.

An investigation showed that some flour,[184] beans, and a big hunk of bacon had been taken, besides canned goods.

“Say, I’d like to get my hands on that fellow for just about five minutes,” declared Mountain Jim angrily. “The skunk’s broken every law of the woods. If he had been hungry and asked for grub he’d have been welcome, but not to sneak it off this way. I’d just like to get hold of him.”

“Couldn’t we notify the Northwest Mounted Police?” asked the professor mildly.

“There ain’t no station closer than MacLean’s,” was the reply, “an’ that’s a good sixty miles off the other way. Besides that, we don’t go much on police in matters of this kind.”

Mountain Jim’s face took on a grim look. It was just as well for that mysterious individual that he was not within reach of those clenched and knotted fists right then. However, even with the draught that had been made on their stock of provisions, they still had a large enough[185] supply to last them to the Big Bend, where Mountain Jim assured them they could get anything they wanted “from a pin to a threshing machine” at a store kept by a French-Canadian.

However, as they all felt a desire to push onward, they did not waste much time discussing the visit of the thief in the night. Instead, Mountain Jim and Ralph busied themselves with preparations for their start, and soon after breakfast they jogged off to an accompaniment of a chorus of good-wishes and farewells. Their road lay down the little valley in which they had camped, and before long an elbow of craggy cliff shut out the little canvas settlement from view.

The road was level for a short distance and they made good time, the ponies loping along as if they enjoyed it. Soon Mountain Jim consulted his compass and declared that the time had come for climbing a ridge and making “across country” for the ranch where he hoped to get the ponies.

[186]

Accordingly, they spurred up a steep mountain side covered with dark and somber pines and tamarack, among which the wind sighed dismally. The going was much the same as Ralph was already getting accustomed to in that rugged, little-traveled country. Rocks, fallen trees and deep crevasses crossed their paths in every direction, causing frequent detours.

Hour after hour they traveled through this sort of country, making but slow progress. At noon they stopped for a bite of lunch, and tethering the ponies in some scant grass which grew in a rocky clearing, they seated themselves on a log for their meal. Their canteens of water came in refreshingly, for they had not passed any streams or springs.

So engrossed had they been in making their way over the difficult country that they had been traversing, that up to this time they had not paid any attention to the weather. They now saw that great black clouds were rolling up beyond the[187] snow-covered summits to the northwest of them.

As they ate, the clouds spread out as if a sable blanket had been drawn across the sky by unseen hands. Before long the sun was blotted out and the forest grew unspeakably gloomy.

“Reckon we’re in for a change in the weather,” said Mountain Jim dryly, looking up.

“It seems that way,” was Ralph’s reply; “it’s getting as dark as twilight. Hadn’t we better be getting along?”

Mountain Jim nodded.

“I’d like to get across the bed of the valley yonder before that hits in,” he said. “It looks like it’s going to be a hummer, and in that case the water will rise in the creek bed below, uncommon sudden.”

They finished their meal hastily and remounted. Before them lay the steep mountain side, at the bottom of which was the creek of which Mountain Jim had spoken. At that time of year it was probably dry, but if the storm[188] proved to be a bad one it might fill with great suddenness, and for a short time be transformed into a roaring torrent, next to impossible to cross.

As they rode down the shaly mountain side, their ponies slipping and sliding and scrambling desperately to keep a footing, there came a low, distant rumble of thunder. The sky to the northwest turned from black to a sort of purplish green. Through this ugly cloud blanket a shaft of lightning zipped with a livid glare. The thunder rolled and rumbled among the mountains, reminding Ralph of Rip Van Winkle’s experiences in the far-off Catskills.

“She’ll hit in most almighty quick,” opined Mountain Jim; “wish we’d brought slickers with us.”

“I don’t mind a wetting,” rejoined Ralph stoutly.

“It’s worse than a wetting you’ll get, if it’s[189] bad; half a drowning is more like it,” grunted Mountain Jim. “Geddap, Baldy, shake a foot.”

But hasten as they would, before they had gone more than a few hundred yards further the rain began to fall in huge globules; drops they could not be called, they were too large. The thunder roared closer and a sudden chill struck into the air. The dark woods were lit up in uncanny fashion by the blinding blue glare of the lightning.

Suddenly, there was a flash of brilliant intensity and simultaneously a ripping crash of thunder, followed by a sound like some mighty mass crashing earthward.

“Tree hit yonder,” said Mountain Jim laconically, “reckon we’d better be looking for shelter. We came close enough to getting hit in that brulee.”

Ralph agreed with him. But where were they to go to get from under the lofty trees that invited the lightning to pass through their columnular[190] trunks earthward? Suddenly Mountain Jim gave a shout:

“There we are yonder. The Hotel de Bothwell,” he cried with a grin.

Ralph looked and saw a small opening under some rocks not far distant. It was only a small cave seemingly, but at least, in case anything in their vicinity was struck, it would keep them out of harm’s way.

Amidst incessant flashes of lightning and peals of thunder they made for the place.

“Have to hitch the ponies outside,” said Mountain Jim. “Too bad there ain’t room to take ’em in, too; but it can’t be helped.”

However, the space in front of the cave mouth was fairly open and free from trees, so that it was not as bad as if they had had to tie their mounts in the dense forest. In the downpour the mountaineer and the boy made the terrified ponies fast, and then made a dash for the dark mouth of the cave. It appeared to be little more[191] than a recess formed by the piling of a mass of huge rocks one on top of another, reminding one of a giant’s game of blocks. Had the professor been there, he would have ascribed the presence of the Titanic rock pile to glacial action; but to Mountain Jim and Ralph, the place stood for nothing more than a welcome means of shelter.

They were just about to enter it when a low moaning groan came from the back of the place and a huge, tawny body flashed past them, almost knocking Ralph over.