Part 24 (1/2)

”I've seen sheep and goats go around a ledge on a sheer precipice that wasn't over four inches wide, and stop to scratch themselves on the way!”

”I'm going to climb up there and see how steep that place is!” Bob cried.

”Hooray! Us, too,” said Alice and Lucy. ”Come on, Joe.”

Mills was smiling, and Joe thought once more of the story of the Englishman. He told the story now, and Mills smiled again.

”Is it that far, Mr. Mills--now, honestly?” the girls asked.

”Go ahead and try it,” the Ranger said, still smiling. ”I'll come along, like Joe's friend.”

The five of them started out, worked around the head of the lake, and began at once to climb the long, steep, rough shale pile at the foot of the first cliff. Above this first cliff was another slope, before the cliff began on which they had seen the goats. It was hard going, with thick patches of timber-line scrub spruces which held you like iron and tore like barbed wire, and sharp, irregular rocks of all sizes, and slopes of loose, small stones that gave way underfoot, and even patches of snow. They toiled on, Mills in the rear this time, still smiling, until at last they reached the foot of the first cliff, and looked far down at the lake and their tents. They could see the people there, the horses, even Joe's fire pit and a tin kettle.

”Why, I could almost throw a stone down on 'em,” said Bob, ”yet I feel as if we'd come a long way.”

He looked at his watch.

”Gee whiz, we've been gone 'most two hours already!” he cried. Then he looked up at the cliff above, which was almost perpendicular. The girls looked at it, too. Joe looked at it, and longed for Spider and a rope to tackle it. But he did not see how any one could safely climb it without a rope. Mills looked at the four of them--and still smiled.

”Well,” he said, finally, ”going on?”

”You win,” Bob admitted reluctantly. ”We're the goats.”

”No, the trouble is, we're not!” laughed Lucy. ”If we were, we could keep on.”

So they started back, sliding down a snow-field by sitting down and ”letting her go”--which was rapid, but very damp.

”The goats win,” said Bob, as they reached camp almost three hours later.

”And yet we could see you all the way,” his father said ”Now I realize what Rocky Mountain air is.”

That night they had a big camp-fire, and a sing--all the songs every one knew, with Val playing on a harmonica he fished sheepishly out of his saddle-bag. Then they all ”turned in” early, to be ready for a long trip the next day.

CHAPTER XIV--Up the Divide in a Rain, With a Lost Horse On the Way, and a Howling Snow-Storm At the Top

Joe was still sleepy when the Ranger shook him by the shoulder.

”Get up,” said Mills. ”We're in for a rain before night, sure. I want to get as far as we can before it begins. Get breakfast, and put up some stuff handy for lunch, so you can get it without unpacking.”

Joe crawled out into a new, strange world. For the first time since he'd been in the Park it was not a clear day. The clouds hung low, way down over the tops and sides of the mountains, gray, dull clouds, with ghostly strings of vapor moving around on the under side. Sperry Glacier was invisible, and the vapors were half-way down the wall where the goats had been. Here, in the deep bowl of Avalanche Basin, with its towering, precipitous sides, the result was that Joe felt exactly as if he were shut in down at the bottom of a huge well, a well with a gray smoke cover over it. Even the bright green water of the little lake, without any sunlight, had turned a dull, chalky green, and looked ominous and unreal, as if you would catch dead fish in it.

”I don't like this--I feel as if I were in a prison,” he said to the Ranger, as he kindled his fire.

”You may like it less before we get to Granite Park,” Mills answered.

”Put your poncho over your saddle to-day--you're going to need it.”

Then he woke the camp.