RALPH’S VOLCANO.
Mountain Jim’s examination of the trails left by the errant ponies
showed that they had scattered in three distinct directions. This
confirmed him, he said, in a belief he had previously formed that the
animals had been frightened during the night by a bear or mountain
lion, the latter called, in that part of the country, a cougar.
No tracks of either wild beast was to be seen, but that by no means
proved that they had not been in the vicinity. Horses can scent either
a cougar or a bear at a considerable distance when the wind is toward
them, and there are few things that more terrify a pony than the near
presence of one of these denizens of the northern wilds.
Jim assigned himself to one trail, Persimmons and Hardware to another
and Ralph to a third. The professor and Jimmie were to remain in camp
and wash dishes and set things to rights, and then Jimmie was to assist
the professor in gathering specimens of rock from the cliffs in the
vicinity.
It was odd to see how, in an emergency, a man like Mountain Jim, who
probably had little more scholarship than would suffice to write his
own name, took absolute leadership over the party. The professor, whose
name was known to a score of scientific bodies all over the country
as a savant of unusual attainments, obeyed the son of the Rockies
implicitly. Such men as Jim are natural leaders, and in situations that
call for action automatically assume the supremacy over men of theory
and book learning.
Jim explained his reason for assigning Ralph to follow a lone trail
while the other two lads had been ordered to accompany each other.
Ralph had plainly shown his skill as a ranger and had the experience of
his life on the Border behind him. The other two, while self-reliant
and plucky, had not had the same experience, and therefore the guide
deemed it best not to send either out alone.
With hearty “So-longs” the three searching parties set out, striking
off in a different direction up the mountain side. It was rough
country, with beetling masses of gray rock cropping out now and then
amidst the somber green of the Douglas firs and great pines. Here and
there cliffs of great height and as smooth as the side of a wall,
towered sharply above the forest, and beyond lay a “hog-back” ridge of
considerable height. Beyond this, although they could not see them from
the valley, the boys knew that mountain range after mountain range was
piled up like the billows of an angry sea, with the higher peaks of
the Rockies raising their crests like snow-crowned monarchs beyond and
above all.
Each boy carried a canteen of water, his rifle, and a supply of bread
and chocolates. Of course they also carried their small axes, slung
in canvas cases at their belts, and matches in waterproof boxes. These
same waterproof match safes were, in fact, among the few “Dingbats”
approved by Mountain Jim.
“Dry matches have saved many a man’s life,” he was wont to say.
It was lonesome in the deep woods into which Ralph plunged, after
bidding adieu to his comrades. The trail, too, was hard to follow, and
kept the lad on the alert, which was as well perhaps, for it kept him
from thinking of the solitude of the mountain side. No one who has not
penetrated the vast solitudes of the Canadian Rockies can picture just
what the boding silence, the utter solitude of the untrodden woods is
like. And yet the life in the wilds grows upon men till they love it,
as witness the solitary prospectors, packers and trappers to be met in
all the wilder parts of the American continent.
As he trudged along toilsomely, Ralph kept a look out for game as
well as for the trail, for the camp larder needed replenishing with
fresh meat, and he was anxious to bring home his share. In this way he
covered some three or four miles, now losing the elusive trail, now
picking it up again. The mountain side was steep and rocky and strewn
with the fallen trunks of forest giants. But Ralph’s muscles were
tough, and clean living and athletics had given him sinew and staying
power, so that he was conscious of but little fatigue after a long
stretch of such traveling.
Almost as skillfully as Coyote Pete might have done in those days in
the southwest, the boy read the trail. Here the ponies had galloped.
There they had paused and nibbled grass; in other places, broken boughs
or abrasions on a fallen tree trunk marked their path. There were two
of the ponies; but just which pair they were, Ralph had, of course, no
means of determining.
One thing was plain, they must have been badly frightened; for as has
been said in the mountain solitudes, as a rule, ponies will stick close
to camp. They appear to dread being separated from human companionship,
and few packers or trailers ever find it necessary to tether their
animals.
At last the ridge was topped and beyond him, by clambering on a rock,
Ralph looked into a deep valley with ridge on ridge of mountains rising
beyond it, and beyond them again some snow-capped peaks of considerable
height. He scanned the valley as closely as he could, but big timber
grew thickly on its sides and bottom and he was not able to see much.
There were some open spaces, it is true, but in none of these could he
see anything of the missing ponies.
Ralph sat himself down on the flat-topped rock he had climbed, and
pulling a bit of chocolate out of his pocket, began to nibble it. He
was munching away on his lunch when he saw an odd-looking gray bird,
not unlike a partridge, sitting in a hemlock not far from him. The
bird did not appear to be scared and regarded the boy with its head
cocked inquisitively on one side.
“Well, here goes Number One for the pot,” thought Ralph to himself.
He raised his rifle, and taking careful aim fired at the gray bird. But
his hand was shaking somewhat from the exertions of his climb, during
which he had had to haul himself over many rough places by grabbing
branches, and his bullet flew wide.
“Bother it all,” exclaimed the boy impatiently. “I am a muff for fair.”
But to his astonishment, although the bullet had nicked off some leaves
and showered them over the bird’s head, it had not moved. It still
sat there giving from time to time an odd sort of croaking sound, not
unlike the clucking of a barnyard “biddy.”
“I know what you are now,” chuckled Ralph to himself, for the fact
that the bird did not stir helped him to recognize its species from
a description given the night before by Mountain Jim, “you’re a
‘fool-hen,’ and you are certainly living up to your name.”
He fired again, and this time the “fool-hen” paid the penalty of its
stupidity, for it fell out of the tree dead. Ralph ran forward, picked
it up and thrust it into the hunting pocket of his khaki coat.
“It was a shame to shoot you,” he muttered to himself; “too easy. I
believe the stories that Jim told about knocking fool-hens out of trees
with stones, now that I’ve seen what dumb birds they are. But this
isn’t finding those ponies,” he went on to himself. “Guess I’ll strike
off down in the valley. There may be some sort of pasture there where
they’ll have stopped to feed.”
Suddenly he stopped and sniffed the air suspiciously. An odd, rank odor
was borne to him on the light wind.
“Sulphur spring!” he exclaimed half aloud. “Reckon I’ll take a look at
it. It can’t be far off; it’s strong enough to be right under my feet.
At any rate I shan’t need any other guide than my nose to find it.”
Sniffing the tainted air like a hound on the trail, Ralph set out down
the mountain side. As he went the odor grew more pronounced. A few
minutes later he came upon a pile of rocks heaped in an untidy mass on
the mountain side. From the midst of them a stream of yellowish white
fluid was flowing.
“Phew!” exclaimed the boy, “here’s my sulphur spring, sure enough. I
guess if it was near to civilization there’d be a big health resort
here. Smells bad enough to be good for anything that ails you; but--not
for me, thank you.--Hullo! What in the world was that?”
Ralph paused and listened intently. Through the forest came a dull
booming sound, and the earth appeared to shake as if agitated by a
small earthquake. The boy looked about him apprehensively.
“Well, what in the world!” he began. And then, “It can’t be anybody
blasting. Mountain Jim said there was no mining hereabouts. What can it
be?”
For some odd reason the recollection of the man on the rock recurred to
him. His heart began to pound rather faster than was comfortable.
“Pshaw!” he exclaimed, to quiet his nerves, “I’ve got nothing to fear.
I’ve got my rifle and--Great Scott! It’s raining!”
That was the boy’s first thought as a gentle pattering resounded amidst
the trees about where he stood.
He looked upward; but the sky was clear; the sun shining brightly.
Clearly the pattering was not caused by rain.
“What in the world can it be?” he exclaimed, considerably startled.
“Sounds as if somebody was throwing stones or gravel at me.”
The next minute a large globule of mud struck him in his upturned face.
Apparently it had fallen from the sky. It was followed by a perfect
storm of the mud dobs. They pattered about him in a shower, spattering
his clothes and hands.
“It’s raining mud!” gasped the astonished boy, completely at a loss to
account for the phenomenon.