Part 15 (2/2)

”Hold on,” laughed Scout Ward. ”You can't shoo us this way, unless you'd rather travel alone. What's the matter with our going, too?”

”Sure,” said Scout Van Sant.

”But your trail lies down creek, you said.”

”Not now. As long as you're in trouble your trail is our trail.”

Wasn't that fine! But--

”You'll miss your connections with the rest of your party,” I objected.

”What if we do? We're on the Scout trail, now, for business,--and pleasure can wait. You couldn't handle that man alone--could you?”

Well, I was going to try. But they wouldn't listen. And they wouldn't let me carry anything. They slung their packs on their backs, we crossed the creek on some stones, and taking the trail on the other side we followed fast and steady, the horse's hoof-prints pointing up the creek.

One shoe had a bent nail-head.

The Red Fox Scouts stepped along without asking any odds, although I was traveling light. They walked like Indians. Scout Van Sant took the lead, Scout Ward came next, and I closed the rear. Pretty soon Scout Van Sant dropped back, behind me, and let Ward have the lead. I surmised he did this to watch how I was getting on; but I had that soup in me, and my second wind, and I didn't ask any odds, either.

The hoof-prints were plain, and the trail was first rate; sometimes in the timber and sometimes in little open patches, but always close to the foaming creek.

After we had traveled for about two hours, or had gone seven miles, we stopped and rested fifteen minutes and had a dish of soup. The creek branched, and one part entered a narrow, high valley, lined with much timber. The other part, which was the main part, continued more in the open.

The hoofs with the bent nail-head quit, here; and as they didn't turn off to the left, into the open country, they must have crossed to take the gulch branch. An old bridge had been washed out, but the water was shallow, and Scout Van Sant was over in about three jumps. After a minute of searching he beckoned, and we skipped over, too. A small trail followed the branch up the gulch, and the hoof-prints showed in it.

Now we all smelled smoke again. It seemed to me that I had been smelling it ever since that first time, but you know how a smell sometimes sticks in the nose. Still, we all were smelling it, now, and we kept our eyes and ears open for other sign of a camp.

The water made a big noise as it dashed down; the gulch turned and twisted, and was timbered and rocky; it grew narrower; and as we advanced with Scout caution, looking ahead each time as far as we could, on rounding an angle suddenly we came out into a sunny little park, with flowers and gra.s.s and aspens and bowlders, the stream dancing through at one edge, and an old dug-out beside the stream.

It was an abandoned prospect claim, because on the hill-slope were some old prospect holes and a dump. By the looks, n.o.body had been working these holes for a year or two; but from the chimney of the dug-out a thin smoke was floating. We instantly sat down, motionless, to reconnoiter.

CHAPTER XI

THE MAN AT THE DUG-OUT

We couldn't see any sign, except those hoof-marks, and that fire. n.o.body was stirring, the sun shone and the chipmunks scampered and the aspens quivered and the stream tinkled, and the place seemed all uninhabited by anything except nature. We grew tired of waiting.

”I'll go on to that dug-out,” whispered Scout Ward. ”If the man sees me he won't know me, especially. I can find out if he's there, or who is there.”

That sounded good; so he dumped his pack and while Scout Van Sant and I stayed back he walked out, up the trail. We saw him turn in at the dug-out and rap on the door. n.o.body came. He hung about and eyed the trail and the ground, and rapped again.

”There's plenty of sign,” he called to us; ”and there's a loose horse over across the creek.”

”Well, what of it?” growled a voice; and he looked, and we looked, and we saw a man sitting beside a bowlder on the little slope behind the dug-out.

The man must have been watching, half hid, without moving. It was the beaver man. He had an automatic pistol in his hand. This was my business, now. So, just saying, ”There he is!” I stood up and went right forward. But Scout Van Sant followed.

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