Toward the end of the season they had worked well past the main ridge on
which were situated Welton's operations and the Service Headquarters.
Several deep cañons and rocky peaks, by Thorne's instructions, they
skipped over as only remotely available as a timber supply. This brought
them to the ample circle of a basin, well-timbered, wide, containing an
unusual acreage of gently sloping or rolling table-land. Behind this
rose the spurs of the Range. A half-hundred streams here had their
origin. These converged finally in the Forks, which, leaping and
plunging steadily downward from a height of over six thousand feet, was
trapped and used again and again to turn the armatures of Baker's
dynamos. After serving this purpose at six power houses strung down the
contour line of its descent, the water was deflected into wide, deep
ditches which forked and forked again until a whole plains province was
rendered fertile and productive by irrigation.
All this California John, who rode over to show them some corners,
explained to them. They sat on the rim of the basin overlooking it as it
lay below them like a green cup.
"You can see the whole of her from here," said California John, "and
that's why we use this for fire lookout. It saves a heap of riding, for
let me tell you it's a long ways down this bluff. But you bet we keep a
close watch on this Basin. It's the most valuable, as a watershed, of
any we've got. This is about the only country we've managed to throw a
fire-break around yet. It took a lot of time to do it, but it's worth
while."
"This is where the Power Company gets its power," remarked Bob.
"Yes," replied California John, drily. "Which same company is putting up
the fight of its life in Congress to keep from payin' anything at all
for what it gets."
They gave themselves to the task of descending into the Basin by a steep
and rough trail. At the end of an hour, their horses stepped from the
side of the hill to a broad, pleasant flat on which the tall trees grew
larger than any Bob had seen on the ridge.
"What magnificent timber!" he cried. "How does it happen this wasn't
taken up long ago?"
"Well," said California John, "a good share of it _is_ claimed by the
Power Company; and unless you come up the way we did, you don't see it.
From below, all this looks like part of the bald ridge. Even if a
cruiser in the old days happened to look down on this, he wouldn't
realize how good it was unless he came down to it--it's all just trees
from above. And in those days there were lots of trees easier to come
at."
"It's great timber!" repeated Bob. "That 'sugar's' eight feet through if
it's an inch!"
"Nearer nine," said California John.
"It'll be some years' work to estimate and plot all this," mused Bob.
"If it's so important a watershed, what do they _want_ it plotted for?
They'll never want to cut it."
"There ain't so much of it left, as you'll see when you look at your
map. The Power Company owns most. Anyway, government cutting won't hurt
the watershed," stated California John.
As they rode forward through the trees, a half-dozen deer jumped
startled from a clump of low brush and sped away.
"That's more deer than I've seen in a bunch since I left Michigan,"
observed Bob.
"Nobody ever gets into this place," explained California John. "There
ain't been a fire here in years, and we don't none of us have any
reason to ride down. She's too hard to get out of, and we can see her
too well from the lookout. The rest of the country feels pretty much the
same way."
"How about sheep?" inquired Elliott.
"They got to get in over some trail, if they get in at all," California
John pointed out, "and we can circle the Basin."
By now they were riding over a bed of springy pine needles through a
magnificent open forest. Undergrowth absolutely lacked; even the soft
green of the bear clover was absent. The straight columns of the trees
rose grandly from a swept floor. Only where tiny streams trickled and
sang through rocks and shallow courses, grew ferns and the huge leaves
of the saxifrage. In this temple-like austerity dwelt a silence unusual
to the Sierra forests. The lack of undergrowth and younger trees implied
a scarcity of insects; and this condition meant an equal scarcity of
birds. Only the creepers and the great pileated woodpeckers seemed to
inhabit these truly cloistral shades. The breeze passed through branches
too elevated to permit its whisperings to be heard. The very sound of
the horses' hoofs was muffled in the thick carpet of pine needles.
California John led them sharp to the right, however, and in a few
moments they emerged to cheerful sunlight, alders, young pines among the
old, a leaping flashing stream of some size, and multitudes of birds,
squirrels, insects and butterflies.
"There's a meadow, and a good camping place just up-stream," said he.
"It's easy riding. You'd better spread your blankets there. Now, here's
the corner to 34. We reëstablished it four years ago, so as to have
_something_ to go by in this country. You can find your way about from
there. That bold cliff of rock you see just through the trees there you
can climb. From the top you can make out the lookout. If you're wanted
at headquarters we'll hang out a signal. That will save a hard ride
down. Let's see; how long you got grub for?"
"I guess there's enough to last us ten days or so," replied Elliott.
"Well, if you keep down this stream until you strike a big bald slide
rock, you'll run into an old trail that takes you to the Flats. It's
pretty old, and it ain't blazed, but you can make it out if you'll sort
of keep track of the country. It ain't been used for years."
California John, anxious to make a start at the hard climb, now said
good-bye and started back. Bob and Elliott, their pack horse following,
rode up the flat through which ran the river. They soon found the
meadow. It proved to be a beautiful spot, surrounded by cedars, warm
with the sun, bright with colour, alive with birds. A fringe of azaleas,
cottonwoods and quaking asps screened it completely from all that lay
outside its charmed circle. A cheerful blue sky spread its canopy
overhead. Here Bob and Elliott turned loose their horses and made their
camp. After lunch they lay on their backs and smoked. Through a notch in
the trees showed a very white mountain against a very blue sky. The sun
warmed them gratefully. Birds sang. Squirrels scampered. Their horses
stood dozing, ears and head down-drooped, eyes half-closed, one hind leg
tucked up.
"Confound it!" cried Elliott suddenly, following his unspoken thought.
"I feel like a bad little boy stealing jam! By night I'll be scared. If
those woods over behind that screen aren't full of large, dignified gods
that disapprove of me being so cheerful and contented and light-minded
and frivolous, I miss my guess!"
"Same here!" said Bob with, a short laugh. "Let's get busy."
They started out that very afternoon from the corner California John had
showed them. It took all that day and most of the following to define
and blaze the boundaries of the first tract they intended to estimate.
In the accomplishment of this they found nothing out of the ordinary;
but when they began to move forward across the forty, they were soon
brought to a halt by the unexpected.
"Look here!" Bob shouted to his companion; "here's a brand new corner
away off the line."
Elliott came over. Bob showed him a stake set neatly in a pile of rocks.
"It's not a very old one, either," said Bob. "Now what do you make of
that?"
Elliott had been spying about him.
"There's another just like it over on the hill," said he. "I should call
it the stakes of a mining claim. There ought to be a notice somewhere."
They looked about and soon came across the notice in question. It was
made out in the name of a man neither Bob nor Elliott had ever heard of
before.
"I suppose that's his ledge," remarked Elliott, kicking a little
outcrop, "but it looks like mighty slim mining to me!"
They proceeded with their estimating. In due time they came upon another
mining claim, and then a third.
"This is getting funny!" remarked Elliott. "Looks as though somebody
expected to make a strike for fair. More timber than mineral here, I
should say."
"That's it!" cried Bob, slapping his leg; "I'd just about forgotten!
This must be what Baker was talking about one evening over at camp. He
had some scheme for getting some timber and water rights somewhere under
the mineral act. I didn't pay so very much attention to it at the time,
and it had slipped my mind. But this must be it!"
"Do you mean to say that any man was going to take this beautiful timber
away from us on that kind of a technicality?"
"I believe that's just what he did."
Two days later Elliott straightened his back after a squint through the
compass sights to exclaim:
"I wish we had a dog!"
"Why?" laughed Bob. "Can't you eat your share?"
"I've a feeling that somebody's hanging around these woods; I've had it
ever since we got here. And just now while I was looking through the
sights I thought I saw something--you know how the sights will
concentrate your gaze."
"It's these big woods," said Bob; "I've had the same hunch before.
Besides, you can easily look for tracks along your line of sights."
They did so, but found nothing.
"But among these rocks a man needn't leave any tracks if he didn't want
to," Elliott pointed out.
"The bogy-man's after you," said Bob.
Elliott laughed. Nevertheless, as the work progressed, from time to time
he would freeze to an attitude of listening.
"It's like feeling that there's somebody else in a dark room with you,"
he told Bob.
"You'll end by giving me the willy-willies, too," complained Bob. "I'm
beginning to feel the same way. Quit it!"
By the end of the week it became necessary to go to town after more
supplies. Bob volunteered. He saddled his riding horse and the pack
animal, and set forth. Following California John's directions he traced
the length of the river through the basin to the bald rock where the old
trail was said to begin. Here he anticipated some difficulty in picking
up the trail, and more in following it. To his surprise he ran
immediately into a well-defined path.
"Why, this is as plain as a strip of carpet!" muttered
Bob to himself. "If this is his idea of a dim trail, I'd like to see a
good one!"
He had not ridden far, however, before, in crossing a tiny trickle of
water, he could not fail to notice a clear-cut, recent hoof print. The
mark was that of a barefoot horse. Bob stared at it.
"Now if I were real _good_," he reflected, "like old
what-you-may-call-him--the Arabian Sherlock Holmes--I'd be able to tell
whether this horse was loose and climbing for pasture, or carrying a
rider, and if so, whether the rider had ever had his teeth filled.
There's been a lot of travel on this trail, anyway. I wonder where it
all went to?" He paused irresolutely. "It isn't more than two jumps back
to the rock," he decided; "I'll just find out what direction they take
anyway."
Accordingly he retraced his steps to the bald rock, and commenced an
examination of its circumference to determine where the trail led away.
He found no such exit. Save from the direction of his own camp the way
was closed either by precipitous sides or dense brush. The conclusion
was unavoidable that those who had travelled the trail, had either ended
their journeys at the bald rock or actually taken to the bed of the
river.
"Well," concluded Bob, "I'm enough of a sleuth to see that that barefoot
horse had a rider and wasn't just looking pasture. No animal in its
senses would hike uphill and then hike down again, or wade belly deep up
a stream."
Puzzling over this mystery, he again took his way down the trail. He
found it easy to follow, for it had been considerably travelled. In some
places the brush had been cut back to open easier passage. Examining
these cuttings, Bob found their raw ends only slightly weathered. All
this might have been done by the men who had staked the mineral claims,
to be sure, but even then Bob found it difficult to reconcile all the
facts. In the first place, the trail had indubitably been much used
since the time the claims were staked. In the second place, if the
prospector had wished to conceal anything, it should have been the fact
of his going to the Basin at all, not his whereabouts after arriving
there. In other words, if desiring to keep his presence secret, he would
have blinded the _beginning_ of the trail rather than its end.
He kept a sharp lookout. Near the entrance to the cañon he managed to
discover another clear print of the barefoot horse, but headed the other
way. Clearly the rider had returned. Bob had hunted deer enough to
recognize that the track had been made within the last twenty-four
hours.
At Sycamore Flats he was treated to further surprises. Martin, of whom
he bought his supplies, at first greeted him with customary joviality.
"Hullo! hullo!" he cried; "quite a stranger! Out in camp, eh?"
"Yes," said Bob, "they've got us working for a change."
"Where you located?"
"We're estimating timber up in the Basin," replied Bob.
The silence that followed was so intense that Bob looked up from the bag
he was tying. He met Martin's eyes fixed on him.
"The Basin," repeated Martin slowly, at last. "Since when?"
"About ten days."
"We! Who's we?"
"Elliott and I," answered Bob, surprised. "Why?"
Martin's gaze shifted. He plainly hesitated for a next remark.
"How'd you like it there?" he asked lamely, at length. "I thought none
of you fellows ever went there."
"Fine timber," answered Bob, cheerfully. "We don't usually. Somebody
does though. California John told me that trail was old and out of use;
but it's been used a lot. Who gets up there?"
"The boys drive in some cattle occasionally," replied Martin, with an
effort.
Bob stared in surprise. He knew this was not so, and started to speak,
but thought better of it. After he had left the store, he looked back.
Martin was gazing after him, a frown between his brows.
Before he left town a half-dozen of the mountain men had asked him, with
an obvious attempt to make the question casual, how he liked the Basin,
how long he thought his work would keep him there. Each, as he turned
away, followed him with that long, speculative, brooding look. Always,
heretofore, his relations with these mountain people had been easy,
sympathetic and cordial. Now all at once, without reason, they held him
at arm's length and regarded him with suspicious if not hostile eyes.
Puzzling over this he rode back up the road past the Power House. Thence
issued Oldham to hail him. He pulled up.
"I hear you're estimating the timber in the Basin," said the gray man,
with more appearance of disturbance than Bob had ever seen him display.
Bob acknowledged the accuracy of his statement.
"Indeed!" said Oldham, pulling at his clipped moustache, and after a
little, "Indeed!" he repeated.
So the news had run ahead of him. Bob began to think the news important,
but for some reason at which he could not as yet guess. This conviction
was strengthened by the fact that from the two mountain cabins he passed
on his way to the beginning of the trail, men lounged out to talk with
him, and in each case the question, craftily rendered casual, was put to
him as to his business in the Basin. Before one of these cabins stood a
sweating horse.
"Look here," he demanded of the Carrolls, "why all this interest about
our being in the Basin? Every man-jack asks me. What's the point?"
Old man Carroll stroked his long beard.
"Do they so?" he drawled comfortably. "Well, I reckon little things make
news, as they say, when you're in a wild country. They ain't been no
work done in the Basin for so long that we're all just nat'rally
interested; that's all."
He looked Bob tranquilly in the eye with the limpid gaze of innocence
before which Bob's scrutiny fell abashed. For a while his suspicions of
anything unusual were almost lulled; the countryside _was_ proverbially
curious of anything out of the course of events. Then, from a point
midway up the steep trail, he just happened to look back, and just
happened through an extraordinary combination of openings to catch a
glimpse of a rider on the trail. The man was far below. Bob watched a
long time, his eye fixed on another opening. Nothing appeared. From
somewhere in the cañon a coyote shrilled. Another answered him from up
the mountain. A moment later Bob again saw the rider through the same
opening as before, but this time descending.
"A signal!" he exclaimed, in reference to the coyote howls.
On arriving at the bare rock, he dismounted and hastily looked it over
on all sides. Near the stream it had been splashed. A tiny eddy out of
reach of the current still held mud in suspension.
X
On his arrival at camp he found Elliott much interested over discoveries
of his own. It seemed that the Easterner had spent the afternoon
fishing. At one point, happening to look up, he caught sight of a man
surveying him intently from a thicket. As he stared, the man drew back
and disappeared.
"I couldn't see him very plainly," said Elliott. "He had a beard and an
old gray hat; but that doesn't mean much of course. When I got my nerve
up, and had concluded to investigate, I could hardly find a trace of
him. He must wear moccasins, I think."
In return Bob detailed his own experiences. The two could make nothing
of it all.
"If we were down South I'd say 'moonshiners,'" said Elliott, "but the
beautiful objection to that is, that we aren't!"
"It's some mystery to do with the Basin," said Bob, "and the whole
countryside is 'on'--except our boys. I don't believe California John
knew a thing about it."
"Didn't act so. Question: what possibly could everybody in the mountains
be interested in that the Forest Service would object to?"
"Lots of things," replied Bob promptly, "but I don't believe the
mountains are unfriendly to us--as a unit. I know Martin isn't, and he
was the first one I noticed as particularly worried."
Elliott reflected.
"If he's so friendly, perhaps he was a little uneasy about _us_," he
suggested at length. "If somebody doesn't want the Forest Service in
this neck of the woods--if that somebody is relying on the fact that we
never come down in here farther than the lookout, why then it may not be
very healthy here."
"Hadn't thought of that," said Bob. "That looks cheerful. But what's the
point? Nine-tenths of this timber is private property anyway. There's
certainly no trespass--sheep, timber or otherwise--on the government
land. What in blazes is the point?"
"Give it up; but we'd better wear our guns."
Bob laughed.
"I'd have a healthy show against a man who really wanted to get me with
a gun. Presumably he'd be an expert, or he wouldn't be sent."
It was agreed, however, "in view of the unsettled state of the country,"
as Bob gravely characterized the situation, that the young men should
stick together in their work.
"There's no use taking chances, of course," Bob summed up, "but there's
no sense in making fools of ourselves, either. Lord love you, I don't
mind being _haunted_! They can spring as many mysterious apparitions as
they please, so long as said apparitions don't take to heaving bricks.
We'd look sweet and lovely, wouldn't we, to go back to headquarters and
tell them we'd decided to come in because a bad man with whiskers who'd
never been introduced came and looked at us out of the trees."
In pursuance of this determination Bob and Elliott combined forces
closely in their next day's work. That this was not a useless precaution
early became apparent. As, momentarily separated by a few feet, they
passed a dense thicket, Bob was startled by a low whistle. He looked up.
Within fifty feet of him, but so far in the shadow as to be
indistinguishable, a man peered at him. As he caught Bob's eyes he made
a violent gesture whose purport Bob could not guess.
"Did you whistle?" asked Elliott at his elbow. "What's up?"
Bob pointed; but the man had vanished. Where he had stood they found the
print of moccasins.
Thrice during the day they were interrupted by this mysterious presence.
On each occasion Bob saw him first. Always he gestured, but whether in
warning or threat Bob could not tell. Each time be vanished as though
the earth had swallowed him the instant Elliott turned at Bob's
exclamation.
"I believe he's crazy!" exclaimed Elliott impatiently.
"I'd think so, too," replied Bob, "if it weren't for the way everybody
acted down below. Do you suppose he's trying to warn us out or scare us
off?"
"I'm going to take a crack at him next time he shows up," threatened
Elliott. "I'm getting sick of this."
"No, you can't do that," warned Bob.
"I'm going to tell him so anyway."
"That's all right."
For this experiment they had not long to await the opportunity.
"Hi, there!" shouted Elliott at the place from which the mysterious
apparition had disappeared; "I give you fair warning! Step out and
declare yourself peaceably or accept the consequences. If you show
yourself again after five minutes are up, I'll open fire!"
The empty forest gave no sign. For an hour nothing happened. Then all at
once, when Elliott was entangled in a tiny thicket close at Bob's elbow,
the latter was startled by the appearance of the man not ten feet away.
He leaped apparently from below a rounded rock, and now stood in full
view of its crown. Bob had time only to catch cognizance of a blue eye
and a long beard, to realize that the man was saying something rapidly
and in a low voice, when Elliott's six-shooter exploded so near his ear
as almost to deafen him. At the report the man toppled backward off the
rock.
"Good Lord! You've killed him!" cried Bob.
"I did not; I fired straight up!" panted Elliott, dashing past him.
"Quick! We'll catch him!"
But catch him nor see him again they did not.
Ten minutes later while working in a wide open stretch of forest, they
were brought to a stand by the report of a rifle. At the same instant
the shock of a bullet threw a shower of dead pine needles and humus over
Elliott. Another and another followed, until six had thudded into the
soft earth at the young man's feet. He stood quite motionless, and
though he went a little pale, his coolness did not desert him. After the
sixth shot silence fell abruptly. Elliott stood still for some moments,
then moved forward a single step.
"Guess the show's over," he remarked with a curt laugh. He stooped to
examine the excavation the bullets had made. "Quaint cuss," he remarked
a trifle bitterly. "Just wanted to show me how easy it would be. All
right, my friend, I'm obliged to you. We'll quit the gun racket; but
next time you show your pretty face I'll give you a run for it."
"And get shot," interposed Bob.
"If it's shoot, we'll get ours any minute. Say," went on the young man
in absolutely conversational tones, "don't you see I'm mad?"
Bob looked and saw.
"Maybe you think shooting at me is one of my little niece's favourite
summer-day stunts?" went on Elliott. "Well, uncle isn't used to it yet."
His tone was quiet, but his eyes burned and the muscles around his mouth
were white.
"He's probably crazy, and he's armed," Bob pointed out. "For heaven's
sake, go slow."
"I'm going to paddle his pantalettes, if he commands a gatling," stated
Elliott.
But the mysterious visitor appeared no more that afternoon, and
Elliott's resolutions had time to settle.
That night the young men turned in rather earlier than usual, as they
were very tired. Bob immediately dropped into a black sleep. So deep was
his slumber that it seemed to him he had just dropped off, when he was
awakened by a cool hand placed across his forehead. He opened his eyes
quietly, without alarm, to look full into the waning moon sailing high
above. His first drowsy motion was one of astonishment, for the luminary
had not arisen when he had turned in. The camp fire had fallen to a few
faintly glowing coals. These perceptions came to him so gently that he
would probably have dropped asleep again had not the touch on his
forehead been repeated. Then he started broad awake to find himself
staring at a silhouetted man leaning over him.
With a gesture of caution, the stranger motioned him to arise. Bob
obeyed mechanically. The man bent toward him.
"Put on your pants and sweater and come along," he whispered guardedly.
Bob peered at him through the moonlight and recognized, vaguely, the man
who had been so mysteriously pursuing them all day. He drew back.
"For the Lord's sake do what I tell you!" whispered the man. "Here!"
His hand sought the shadow of his side, and instantly gleamed with a
weapon. Bob started back; but the man was holding the revolver's butt to
him.
"Now come on!" besought the stranger with a strange note of pleading.
"Don't wake your pardner!"
Yielding, with a pleasant thrill, to the adventure of the situation, and
it must be confessed, to a strong curiosity, Bob hastily assumed his
outer clothing. Then, with the muzzle of the revolver, he motioned the
stranger to proceed.
Stepping cautiously they gained the open forest beyond the screen of
brush. Here the man led the way more rapidly. Bob followed close at his
heels. They threaded the forest aisles without hesitation, crossed a
deep ravine where the man paused to drink, and began to clamber the
precipitous and rocky sides of Baldy.
"That'll do for that!" growled Bob suddenly.
The man looked around as though for information.
"You needn't go so fast. Keep about three feet in front of me. And when
we strike your gang, you keep close to me. _Sabe_?"
"I'm alone," expostulated the man.
Nevertheless he slackened pace.
After five minutes' climb they entered a narrow ravine gashed almost
perpendicularly in the side of the mountain. At this point, however, it
flattened for perhaps fifty paces, so that there existed a tiny
foothold. It was concealed from every point, and nevertheless, directly
to the west, Bob, pausing for breath, looked out over California
slumbering in the moon. On this ledge flowed a tiny stream, and over it
grew a score of cedar and fir trees. A fire smouldered near an open
camp. On this the man tossed a handful of pitch pine. Immediately the
flames started up.
"Here we are!" he remarked aloud.
"Yes, I see we are," replied Bob, looking suspiciously about him, "but
what does all this mean?"
"I couldn't get to talk with you no other way, could I?" said the man in
tones of complaint; "I sure tried hard enough! But you and your pardner
stick closer than brothers."
"If you wanted to speak to me, why didn't you say so?" demanded Bob, his
temper rising.
"Well, I don't know who your pardner is, or whether he's reliable, nor
nothin'. A man can't be too careful. I thought mebbe you'd make a chance
yourself, so I kept giving you a show to. 'Course I didn't want to be
seen by him."
"Not seen by him!" broke in Bob impatiently. "What in blazes are you
driving at! Explain yourself!"
"I showed myself plain only to you--except when he cut loose that time
with his fool six-shooter. I thought he was further in the brush. Why
didn't you make a chance to talk?"
"Why should I?" burst out Bob. "Will you kindly explain to me why I
should make a chance to talk to you; and why I've been dragged out here
in the dead of night?"
"No call to get mad," expostulated the man in rather discouraged tones;
"I just thought as how mebbe you was still feeling friendly-like. My
mistake. But I reckon you won't be giving me away anyhow?"
During this speech he had slowly produced from his hip pocket a frayed
bandana handkerchief; as slowly taken off his hat and mopped his brow.
The removal of the floppy and shady old sombrero exposed to the mingled
rays of the fire and the moon the man's full features. Heretofore, Bob
had been able to see indistinctly only the meagre facts of a heavy beard
and clear eyes.
"George Pollock!" he cried, dropping the revolver and leaping forward
with both hands outstretched.