Part 19 (2/2)

We spread. I took the right, Kit Carson the left, and Jed Smith was put in the middle because he was the littlest. It would have been good if we could have left our blanket rolls, but we did not dare to. Of course, if we were chased, we might have to drop them and let them be captured.

We crossed a cow-path, leading into the gulch. It held burro tracks, pointing down; and it seemed to me that if there was any ambuscade down there it would be along this trail. Naturally, the enemy would expect us to follow the trail. Maybe the other Scouts had followed it and had been surrounded. So we crossed the trail, and I signed to Carson and to Smith to move out across the gulch and around by the other side.

We did. Cedars and spruces were scattered about, and gooseberry bushes and other brush were screen enough; we swung down along the opposite side, and the smoke grew stronger. But still we could not hear a sound.

We closed in, peering and listening--and then suddenly I wasn't afraid, or at least, I didn't care. Through the stems of the trees was an open park, at the foot of the gulch, and if there was a camp n.o.body was at home, for the park was afire!

”Come on!” I shouted. ”Fire!” and down I rushed. So did Carson and Jed Smith.

We were just in time. The flames had spread from an old camp-fire and had eaten along across the gra.s.s and pine needles and were among the brush, getting a good start. Already a dry stump was blazing; and in fifteen minutes more a tree somewhere would have caught. And then--whew!

But we sailed into it, stamping and kicking and driving it back from the brush.

”Wet your blanket, Jed,” I ordered, ”while we fight.”

A creek was near, luckily; Jed wet his blanket, and we each in turn wet our blankets; and swiping with the rolls we smashed the line of fire right and left, and had it out in just a few minutes.

Now a big blackened s.p.a.ce was left, like a blot; and the burning and our trampling about had destroyed most of the sign. But we must learn what had happened. We got busy again.

We picked up the cow-path, back in the gulch, and found that the burros had followed it this far. We found where the burros had been grazing and standing, in the brush, near the burned area, and we found where horses had been standing, too! We found fish-bones, and coffee-grounds dumped from the little bag they had been boiled in, and a path had been worn to the creek. We found in the timber and brush near by other sign, but we missed the second warning sign. However, where the fire had not reached, on the edge of the park, we found several pieces of rope, cut, lying together, and in a soft spot of the turf here we found the hob-nail prints of the Elk Patrol! By ashes we found where the main camp-fire had been, and we found where a second smaller camp-fire had been, at the edge of the park, and prints of shoes worn through in the left sole--the shoes of the beaver man! We found a tin plate and fork, by the big camp-fire, and wrapped in a piece of canvas in a spruce was a hunk of bacon. By circling we found an out-going trail of horses and burros. We found the out-going trail of the beaver man--or of a single horse, anyway, but no shoe prints with it. But looking hard we found Scout sole prints in the horse and burro trail.

By this time it was growing dusk, and Jed Smith was sick because he had drunk too much water out of the creek, when he was tired and hot and hungry. So we decided to stay here for the night. From the signs we figured out what might have happened:

According to the tracks, the burro thieves had joined with this camp.

Our fellows had sighted the burro thieves, back where the ”Look out”

sign had been made, and had circuited the draw so as to keep out of sight themselves, and had taken the trail again on the ridge. They had followed along that cow-path, and had been ambushed. The cut ropes showed that they had been tied. This camp had been here for two or three days, because of the path worn to the creek and because of the coffee grounds and the fish bones and the other sign. It was a dirty camp, too, and with its unsanitary arrangements and cigarette b.u.t.ts and tobacco juice was such a camp as would be made by that town gang. The sign of the cut ropes looked like the town gang, too. The camp must have broken up in a hurry, and moved out quick, by the things that were forgotten.

Campers don't forget bacon, very often. The cut ropes would show haste, and we might have thought that the Scout prisoners had escaped, if we hadn't found their sole prints with the out-going trail. These prints had been stepped on by burros, showing that the burros followed behind.

What the beaver man was doing here we could not tell.

So we guessed pretty near, I think.

Little Jed Smith had a splitting headache, from heat and work and water-drinking. His tongue looked all right, so I decided it was just tiredness and stomach. One of the blankets was dry; we wrapped him up and let him lie quiet, with a wet handkerchief on his eyes, and I gave him a dose of aconite, for fever. (Note 51.)

At this time, we know now, General Ashley and Thomas Fitzpatrick were being hustled along one trail, captives to the gang; the beaver man was on a second trail, with our message; and Jim Bridger was on his lone scout in another direction, and just about to make a camp-fire with his hob-nails and a flint.

The dusk was deepening, and Kit Carson and I went ahead settling camp for the night. We built a fire, and spread the blankets, and were making tea in a tin can when we heard hoof thuds on the cow-path. A man rode in on us. He was a young man, with a short red mustache and a peaked hat, and a greenish-shade Norfolk jacket with a badge on the left breast. A Forest Ranger! Under his leg was a rifle in scabbard.

”Howdy?” he said, stopping and eying us.

Kit Carson and I saluted him, military way, because he represented the Government, and answered: ”Howdy, sir?”

He was cross, as he gazed about.

”What are you lads trying to do? Set the timber afire?” he scolded. He saw the burned place, you know.

”We didn't do that,” I answered. ”It was afire when we came in and we put it out.”

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