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diff --git a/33725.txt b/33725.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4554cd5 --- /dev/null +++ b/33725.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6115 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Unexplored!, by Allen Chaffee, Illustrated by +William Van Dresser + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Unexplored! + + +Author: Allen Chaffee + + + +Release Date: September 14, 2010 [eBook #33725] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNEXPLORED!*** + + +E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.fadedpage.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 33725-h.htm or 33725-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33725/33725-h/33725-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33725/33725-h.zip) + + + + + +UNEXPLORED + +By ALLEN CHAFFEE + + Author of "Lost River, the Adventures of Two Boys in the Big Woods," + "The Travels of Honk-a-Tonk," "Twinkly Eyes" (3 vols.), "Fleet-Foot," + "Trail and Tree Top," and "Fuzzy Wuzz, the Little Brown Bear of + the Sierras." + +Illustrated by William Van Dresser + + +[Illustration: Spitfire began to double in his best bucking form. +--Page 15] + + + + + + + +Milton Bradley Company +Springfield, Massachusetts +1922 + +----------------------------------------------------------------------- + +Copyright, 1922 +By Milton Bradley Company +Springfield, Massachusetts +Bradley Quality Books + +Printed in United States of America + +----------------------------------------------------------------------- + +TO + +H. F. B., + +Who would still be a boy, +Were he a thousand years of age. + +----------------------------------------------------------------------- + +INTRODUCTION + +A pack-burro camping trip in an unexplored region of the high Sierras +results in a series of adventures for three boys in the late teens, a +young Geological Survey man and the old prospector who guides them. + +They meet bears and catch rainbow trout, are carried to fight fire by the +Forest Service Air Patrol, and trail the incendiaries through a +labyrinthian limestone cave. They ride in a lumber camp rodeo and +experience earthquakes and avalanches. And in the glacier-gouged canyons, +the giant Sequoias, and sulphur springs, they trace the story of the +geological formation of the earth, and its evolution from the days of +dinosaurs. + +----------------------------------------------------------------------- + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER PAGE + I The Rodeo 1 + II The Camping Trip 31 + III Living off the Wilderness 58 + IV With the Air Patrol 84 + V A Daring Feat 95 + VI The Incendiaries 110 + VII The Cave 134 + VIII The Snow-Slide 154 + IX Ted's Fossil Dinosaur 163 + X How the Earth Was Made 176 + XI The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes 201 + XII Gold! 226 + Glossary and Pronouncing Dictionary + of Geological Terms Used and Key + to Geologic Time 263 + +----------------------------------------------------------------------- + +UNEXPLORED + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE RODEO + + +Ted Smith, flinging his long legs off a frisky bay, grinned delightedly +as his eye caught a flag-decked touring car. + +"Are you riding?" called the boy at the wheel. + +"Sure AM!" drawled the ranch boy. "How about yourself?" + +"Betcher life, Old Kid!" Ace King flung himself to the ground, disclosing +the fact of his new leather chaps--a contrast to Ted's overalls. +Greetings followed between Ted and Senator King in the back seat, and +Pedro Martinez, a black-eyed young fellow who sat a pinto pony alongside. + +The slanting rays of California sunshine were fanned by a breeze from +Huntington Lake, as the crowd sifted about the corral fence at Cedar +Crest. The prevailing khaki of the dusty onlookers gave way at intervals +to a splash of color. An Indian in a purple shirt was borrowing the +orange chaps of another broncho-buster; he had drawn number two from the +hat. Most of the cowmen offset their "two-quart" sombreros with +brilliant-hued bandannas knotted loosely at their throats. A few wore +chaparreras in stamped leather, and a few in goatskin--red or black or +tan--though most let it go at plain blue overalls. One of the machines +drawn up beside the soda-pop stand fluttered a flag on its nose. For the +Fourth was to be marked by a reading of the Declaration of Independence +before the rodeo and barbecue. (The day had begun with a Parade of +Horribles, in which every last lumberman took part, chanting the marching +song to an accompaniment of well-belabored frying-pans.) + +Unbidden, a band of unspeakably unwashed Digger Indians, attired in gay +and ill-assorted rags, appeared, and seated themselves on the opposite +hillside, beaming vacuously as the ox was put in the pit to roast +(together with two smaller carcasses that the camp cook winkingly +designated as wild mutton, though he was careful to bury the antlers +against the possible advent of the Forest Ranger). + +The rodeo master, a megaphone-voiced blond giant, in high-heeled riding +boots and spurs that made him limp when he walked, careened up and down +the dusty field on a high-stepping bay, while two lasso men in +steel-studded belts and leather cuffs helped round the range stock into +the adjoining small corral. + +An unbroken two-year-old with wild, rolling eyes tried to climb the fence +when the rope tightened on his throat, and a sleek mule kicked out in a +way that left a red mark on the flank of a lean white mare. Then one of +the bulls in a separate corral shoved his head under the lower of the two +log bars that fenced him in and lifted--lifted,--but could not break +through. + +"Riding, old Scout?" Ted asked the young Spanish-Californian. + +"'Fraid I'd ride the ground," admitted Pedro, with a gesture of his +plump, manicured hands. + +"Yeh!--Saw-horse's HIS mount!" jollied Ace, though the pinto looked by no +means spiritless. (And to himself he added: "Likely promised his mother +not to. Gee! I'd like to cut him loose from her apron strings for about +three months and see how he'd pan out!") + +"_He's_ got too much sense to risk his bones," championed the Senator, (a +heavy, florid man with a leonine mass of white curly hair and Ace's +daring black eyes). + +Just then a petite young woman rode up, her bobbed curly hair and +sun-flushed cheeks topping a red silk blouse joined to her khaki riding +breeches by a fringed sash that reached half way to her elkskin boots. + +"I say, Rosa, are you riding?" greeted Ace. The girl shook her head +merrily. "Dad, that's Pierre La Coste's sister,--you know, he's +fire-lookout on Red Top. Used to be one of our Scouts when we lived in +Peach Cove." + +"Yeh, we used to call him Pur-r-r," supplemented the ranch boy. + +"And that's the horse Ranger Radcliffe's been trying to give her," added +Ace, sotto voce. "Isn't he a beauty?" + +"And she won't have him?" laughed the Senator. + +"Won't have man or beast." + +Ace, now studying geology at the University of California, though he had +traveled widely since the old ranch days, still counted Ted, sandy +haired, thin and freckled, struggling to make his mother's fruit ranch a +go, his chum. Pedro, a neighbor of the old days, was his roommate in the +fraternity house at Berkeley. All three ran to greet Norris, a young man +in the uniform of the U. S. Geological Survey (son of the Forest +Supervisor), who now appeared, galloping beside Ranger Radcliffe. For he +was to pilot them on a camping trip into the high Sierras in a week or +two. + +The first entry was just being led forth to be saddled as the fifth and +final member of their expedition arrived on the scene, afoot,--Long +Lester, a lanky, bewhiskered old prospector in soft felt hat, clean but +collarless "b'iled shirt," vest, cartridge belt and corduroy "pants," +thrust into the tops of ordinary hob-nailed boots. + +"Well, you broncho-busters, out in the center!" megaphoned the man on the +big bay. "Five more riders here!--Two-fifty to ride and seven-fifty more +to go up!" Three men came forward. "We want two more entries. If you +pull-leather or fall off, two-fifty. If a fellow rides a bull with one +hand hold, he gets seven-fifty. Ten dollars if you go up!" + +Ace and Ted exchanged glances as they started forward. + +"You're sure courtin' trouble," called the Senator. + +"I reckon I am," grinned Ted, "but I'm broke." + +"You'll have to pay your winnings to get your bones mended." + +"I'll take a chance!" + +King laughed. Most of the horses he recognized as having been ridden +before. But he was secretly resolved if Ace drew a bad one, to exercise +his parental authority. + +The chums drew from the hat, Ace taking the last name. He started as he +looked at his slip. "The white-faced bull," read Ted over his shoulder. + +"Gee! Don't tell Dad!" breathed Ace. "What's yours?" + +"Spitfire!" + +The older boy emitted a long-drawn whistle. + +"All right, broncho boys," megaphoned the starter. + +The first entry, rearing and snorting, with two lassos about his neck, +had finally been blind-folded and caparisoned. + +"Johnny White from Fresno, on Old Ned from Northfork," rang the +announcement. An Indian in overalls swung himself into the saddle +simultaneously with the snatching away of lassos and blinders. + +The horse tucked his head almost between his knees, and leaped into the +air, bowing his back and grunting with each jump, while the dust rose +till no one could tell whether the rider was on or off. Then the horse +galloped to the opposite side of the corral and his unwelcome incumbent +was perceived picking himself sheepishly out of the dust. + +"Henry Clark from Table Mountain, on the pinto from Cascada," the next +entry was shortly announced. The Indian in the purple shirt stepped +forward, gorgeous in his borrowed chaps. + +"Some buckaroo!" grinned Ted. + +The pony, not quite so thin as most of the range stock, blinked startled +eyes, and the fireworks began. The gorgeous one, barely surviving the +first buck, and seeing himself riding for a fall in all his finery, leapt +nimbly to the ground while the pony went on bucking. He landed right side +up--with no damage to the purple shirt. A derisive jeer greeted +this--fiasco. + +"He sure wasn't goin' to dust them ice-cream pants," laughed one of the +crowd hanging over the fence. The Indian signified a desire to try again. +After a couple more riders were called, he was given the same mount again. + +This time he saved his finery by grabbing hold with both hands. + +"Pulling leather only gets two-fifty," adjudged the megaphone man. + +"He sure had a good hand hold," gurgled Ted. "Pretty hard on the wrists, +isn't it, Henry?" + +"Wait till we get you a medal!" boomed Ace. + +Next came a white rider, who won the nick-name "Easy Money" by riding a +mule up with a surcingle, then another Indian,--they were mostly the +youngsters working on local pack-trains,--who began by straddling the +neck of his mount and ended by going over the animal's head, landing flat +on his back. A momentary hush, and the fence lizards began collecting +around the limp form. The Indian's round brown face had turned gray. + +"Stand back and give 'm air," megaphoned the starter, fanning him with +his hat. Some one brought water, then the Indian opened his eyes, and +presently signified a desire to get up. He was helped to his feet. "He's +all right," was the final verdict as the little group led off the field. +"Somebody give 'm a cigarette." The Indian leaned against the corral +fence nonchalantly, lighting up, though with fingers that shook the flame +out of several matches. + +"Gee!" nudged Ace. "Dad's motioning us, and if he knows I've drawn that +bull, he'll sure----" + +"You're nineteen." + +"Aw, he's the Gov'ner, just the same. If you had one you'd see. Let's +stick here behind this bunch till my turn comes 'round." + +"Sure you'd better try it?" Ted laid a hand on his chum's shoulder. + +"Sure thing! What's the use of living if you never take a chance? +Besides, you've got a reg'lar rocking-horse yourself, huh?" he scoffed. + +"That's all right, I was born ridin'," Ted made light of it. + +It was now time for the bay bull. As a saddle swings around on anything +but a horse, it is easier to ride bulls and mules with a surcingle. It +took three men to get the bull into the saddling pen, two with lassos and +one with a pole, but the strap was finally adjusted around his chest, and +the mount made. + +One Shorty Somebody was the rider. And Shorty rode him,--stuck clear +across the corral. But there the bull torpedoed the middle log of the +fence and went straight through, scraping Shorty off. + +Straight into a startled ring of spectators plowed the enraged beast, +sending horses whirling and pedestrians dodging for their lives. The +petite Rosa's mount got to dancing, and finally staged a petite runaway +on his own account, but Rosa kept her head and a tight rein. A small boy +scrambled into a low-branching tree. But three lassos and a dozen mounted +men finally headed off the bull and got him into a smaller corral. + +Ted looked inquiringly at Ace, but the Senator's son evidently had his +blood up. The white-faced bull, meantime, was again trying to thrust his +massive shoulders beneath the lower bar. + +Two mules came next on the program, one rider bringing his mount to terms +so quickly that people were laying bets it was just a pack-mule, while +the other stuck when his jumped the fence. + +Ranger Radcliffe, galloping back beside Rosa's now docile mount, waved a +hand to the boys. Then a murmur rippled through the loungers that +encircled the corral, as the white-faced bull was called for. Ace's +nerves began to tingle. + +This bull had been kept in close confinement for several days past, and +it had not improved his temper. They had to throw him to put on the +straps. + +"Hold him!--Hold him!" at intervals percolated through the hum of voices, +as the great brute lay panting in the saddling pen, his eyes ringed with +infuriated white, his snorting breath--audible thirty feet away--sending +spirals of dust scudding before his nose. + +"Well, what do you say? Say it quick! I'm betting on the bull," King was +challenging the Ranger, little dreaming who the rider was to be. + +This bull was to be ridden with a saddle and one hand hold. The gate of +the saddling pen cracked as its occupant tried to rise. + +"You folks around the fence, you had better look out!" megaphoned the +starter. "This 'ere bull may not look where he's a-goin'!" + +The gate cracked again. A woman nearby screamed. Two men with lassos +ready waited on either side, their mounts aquiver. Ace's ruddy face had +grown strangely lined, but he stood his ground. + +"The fellow that rides that bull is sure foolhardy," the Senator was +remarking, pulling his hat further over his iron-gray brows against the +slant of the sun. Then the Ranger rode up with Rosa, and she was invited +to a seat behind the fluttering flag. + +"Either that or almighty sandy," amended Radcliffe. + +Like a streak of lightning the bull arose, jaws slavering. One mighty +crack and he had burst the gate, a plunge and he was plowing his way +across the field, trailing a rope that still held his saddle horn. The +starter raced after, his big bay holding back with all his might on the +rope. The dust blew chokingly into the faces of those on the Senator's +side of the corral. Then the bull caught sight of that fluttering red, +white and blue. + +For one awful instant Rosa found those staring white-rimmed eyes glaring +straight into her own. The bull's next leap would carry him over the +fence and into the machine. She blanched, but sat silent. Pedro, drawn up +beside her on his pinto, felt paralyzed. The Senator threw his engine on +as if to back away. + +"Hold him!--HOLD him!" shrilled the starter, pounding back. The rope on +the saddle horn--would it hold? Then a lasso was thrown, tightening +neatly around the hind legs of the runaway. + +"Got him stretched now!" came the triumphant shout, as the bull went down +with an infuriated snort, and lay there, chest heaving, while the +vaqueros made him fast. + +"The ride's off,--nobody goin' to ride _him_ to-day!" decided the man on +the bay. The bull was relieved of his saddle and headed protestingly back +into the small corral. + +Ace King's face was set in deep lines. He had been all nerved up to his +ride. Now that it was off, his knees felt shaky, and he climbed to a seat +on the top rail. And Pedro flushed to hide his pallor. + +But Ted's time was yet to come. One rider in between, whose horse piled +him on the ground, and the announcement came: "Ted Smith from Peach Cove, +rides Spitfire from Huntington Lake." + +"I'm sorry for that kid," stated Long Lester, who leaned lankily over the +gate, thumbs in the arm-holes of his vest. "Want up, little miss?" and he +helped a child to a vantage point beside him. + +"Go to it, old pal!" Ace thumped the contestant breath-takingly. + +"Spitfire! O-o-wah-hoo-o!" bellowed a group of cow-boys, in imitation of +the falsetto Indian yell. + +"Oo-wah-hoo-oo-oo!" the Indians bettered them. + +Senator King honked in joyous abandon. Pedro's dark eyes flashed. "Spunky +kid!" commented Radcliffe. "I'm betting he'll ride him straight up!" + +"He'll be killed!" Rosa shivered. + +"Not with those long legs to get a grip with," the Ranger reassured her. + +"Ain't that hoss a dinger!" admiringly Long Lester demanded of the +assemblage, as Spitfire danced forth with three lassos trying to hold him +for the blinders. Again he tried to climb the fence, eyes wide, nostrils +quivering. + +"I'm just itchin' to ride him," Ted replied to Ace's questioning gaze. +Every nerve in his wiry body was keyed electrically. Then the saddle was +adjusted, Ted was in the stirrups, and the blinder was jerked free. +"R-r-ready! Let 'er go!" was megaphoned. + +About that time things began to happen. Spitfire, as if feeling that his +reputation needed demonstrating, began to double in his best bucking form. + +"_Ride_ him, Ted!" yelled Ace. "Hey, Ted rides him, eh?" + +"Scratch him!" contributed Long Lester, who believed in spurs. "Say, +he's a-scratchin' him up and down!--Ya-hooooooo!" as Ted rode him +up again and again, both arms free, slapping him hip and shoulder, +hip and shoulder with his sombrero. Zip!--_Zip!_--ZOOM!--Around and +around they went, the mustang snorting loudly with each bounce, lathering +in his effort to unseat his rider. But Ted had grown to his back. + +The broncho stopped, exhausted, flanks heaving. + +"SOME riding!" gasped Pedro. + +Then a shout went up. Ted was champion rider of the rodeo! + +To the ranch boy's amazement, he now found his long legs dangling from a +seat on the shoulders of his two college friends, while they marched +about to the tune of "A Jolly Good Fellow,"--Norris himself laughingly +joining in the chorus, and Long Lester thumping him breath-takingly +between the shoulder blades. + +That was the day the camping trip had been planned. It was also the day +Ace's little Spanish 'plane, wirelessed from its hanger in +Burlingame,[1] had given them all a surprise, and a trial sail. The +pilot arrived shivering in leather jacket and heavy cap, woolen muffler +and goggles, with similar wraps for Ace, whose leather chaps now served a +purpose. For the intense cold of the upper levels it was necessary for +the pilot to lend his outer apparel, as each of the prospective camp +mates in turn took the observer's seat, with Ace piloting. + +Ted was used to flying with him,--had, indeed, given him the nick-name +which all had now adopted, as a compliment to his exploits as a birdman. +But to the other three it was a new experience. He invited Norris first. +Their route lay like a map below them, as they winged their way across +the sky, steering first due South till the rim of King's River Canyon +threatened to suck them down into its depths, then circling to the East +till they could see Mt. Whitney rising snow-capped above the surrounding +peaks, and back to the waiting boys. + +Long Lester ventured next, and as he afterwards expressed it, he thought +he was riding on the back of his neck as they soared into the blue deeps +above them, while the ocean of the atmosphere tossed them about +capriciously. This time Ace, running her into the cold strait above the +river, headed her down canyon to within a hundred feet of the forest top, +his grit based on sound mechanical training; his daring counterbalanced +by his cool headed precision. He tried no stunts, however, as he had +promised his father to indulge in no aerial acrobatics under 1,000 feet. +When they finally returned to terra firma, right side up with care, the +old prospector expressed himself as nowise envious of Elijah. + +Pedro belted himself in with a lack of enthusiasm that Long Lester did +not fail to note with sympathy, and away they soared, fearlessly on Ace's +part, whose eyes, ears and lungs were in the pink of condition. But to +the Spanish boy came first a dizzy, seasick feeling, coupled with a +conviction that he could not draw breath against the head wind, then a +chill that penetrated even the pilot's uniform, as he watched the earth +recede beneath them. The motor purred as they gained momentum and the +propellers whirred noisily, and the changing air pressures so affected +the stability of the light craft that he felt half the time as if they +were lying over on their side. He also reflected that, should the engine +stall, their descent would be a matter of seconds only. In the dry heat +they had been traveling with what seemed terrific speed. He protested +once, but Ace did not hear him. + +Then in the cold of the higher altitude, their speed was reduced and +traveling was smoother. When at last the great white bird dropped back +almost on the spot from which they had started,--the distinguishing feat +of the Spanish 'plane,--he was almost a convert, though as Lester said, +"a little green about the gills." When later the opportunity came to try +it again, he abdicated in favor of Ted. + +Norris assured them that there is air for 50 miles above the earth, and +sometimes a tidal wave of atmosphere reaching as high as 200 miles, +though after it gets about 190 degrees below zero, less is known about +it. Its density is reduced fully half at 18,000 feet,--half a mile above +the highest peaks, like Mt. Whitney, but though the air of high altitudes +is more buoyant, the cold none the less reduces the speed of the air +cruiser. + +While they were eating they discussed their itinerary. + +Norris had the large trail maps of both Sierra and Sequoia National +Forests. These he laid out and pieced together into one big sheet ten +feet long. On these maps were marked out the good camp grounds, and where +bears, or deer, quail or grouse, might be found, where supplies were +obtainable, or pack and saddle stock, guides and packers, or Forest +ranger stations (little cabins flying a flag from their peaks, to make +them show up on the map). + +There were the "roads passable for wagons," "trails passable for pack +stock," and "routes passable for foot travel only." There were areas +marked with varying tiny green tufts of grass labeled "meadows where +stock grazing is permitted," and "meadows where it is not permitted," +"meadows fenced for the free use of the traveling public" and "meadows +fenced for the use of Forest Rangers only." + +Diminutive green pine trees indicated forest areas particularly +interesting, striped red areas signalized National Forest timber sales, +cut over or in operation, black triangles denoted Forest Service fire +outlook stations, and a drawing that looked like a woodshed showed where +Forest Service fire fighting tools had been cached in various +out-of-the-way places. "TLP" indicated the free Government telephone +boxes, red doughnutty-looking circles meant good mountains to climb, with +some indication of the safest routes to the top, areas marked out in red +diamonds were labeled as geographically interesting, and those in green +as botanically of more than ordinary interest. + +A green feathery-looking line meant a canyon, a green triangle a +waterfall, a plain green line a stream offering good fishing, and a +broken green line a stream stocked with young fish, while an X meant a +barrier impassable by fish, though what that meant, not one of them could +say. + +There were various other marks, such as a hub surrounded by the spokes of +a wheel (whatever it was intended for), the key to which explained that +from that point a good view was to be obtained. + +But what most attracted their attention, all up and down the crest of the +Sierra Nevada as it stretched from North, North-West to South, +South-East, were the wide green areas "of special scenic interest," most +of which was marked "UNEXPLORED!" in great warning red letters. + +It was this part of the map that most fascinated the little camping +party. Why should they choose a route that was all cut and dried for +them, as it were,--where each day they would know when they started out +just about where night would find them and what they would meet with on +the way? Who wanted their views labeled anyway? That was all very well, +very thoughtful of the Forest Service, for inexperienced campers, who +would probably never venture into the unknown. But to Ace, the airman, to +Ted, with his experienced wild-craft, and to Pedro the romanticist, no +less than to the young Yale man whose thirst for far places had led him +into the U. S. Geological Survey, the Mystery of the Unexplored called, +with a lure that was not to be denied. Long Lester, they knew, was game +for anything,--for had he not prospected through these mountains all his +life? There was practically no place the sure-footed burros could not go, +and there was no danger they were not secretly and wickedly tingling to +encounter. + +It was a wild region, as rough and as little known as anything from +Hawaii to Alaska,--only different. The John Muir Trail, named for the +explorer,--a "way through" rather than a trail,--stretched along the +crest of the range, the roughest kind of going, (absolutely a horseback +trip, it was generally pronounced), and from its glacier-capped peaks, +from 14,500 foot Mt. Whitney, to the even more difficult though less +lofty Lyell, ran the Kings' River, North, Middle, and canyoned South +Forks, the Kern and the Kaweah, the Merced and the San Joaquin,--to name +only the largest. + +Unlike the older Eastern ranges, the Sierra is laid out with remarkable +regularity, the one great 12,000- to 14,000-foot divide, with its +scarcely lower passes, giving off ridges on the Western slope like the +teeth of a coarse granite comb. Between ridges, deep, glacier-cut +canyons, "yo-semities," (to employ the Indian name), with their swift, +cascading rivers make North to South travel difficult, though one can +follow one side of the openly forested canyons to the very crest of the +main ridge. + +Here and there was a grove of Big Trees, varying in size from the Giant +Forest of Sequoia National Park to the few mediocre specimens at Dinkey +Creek. But as a rule the hot, irrigated valleys of the Sacramento and San +Joaquin gave way to patches of the small oaks and pines of the foothills, +and these in turn, several thousand feet higher up the Western slopes, to +yellow pine and incense cedar, Sequoias and giant sugar pines. Higher +still came the silver fir belt, and after that, the twisted Tamaracks and +dwarfed and storm-tossed mountain pines, reaching often in at least a +decorative fringe along the rock cracks to the very peaks, all the way up +to 12,000 feet. (Tree line in the White Mountains of New Hampshire comes +soon after 5,000.) Above that, of course, only snow and ice could clothe +the slopes. + +Hell-for-Sure Pass was one name that attracted Ace's eye on the map. He +judged that it must mean stiff going,--but even had they actually planned +to climb that way, he would have preferred to wait and discover for +himself the reason for its nomenclature. There was also Deadman Pass, +(another name to tickle the imagination), Electra Peak, Thousand Island +Lake, The Devil's Post Pile, Volcanic Ridge, Crater Creek, Stairway +Creek, Fawn Meadow,--and dangerously near, Bear Meadow,--Vermilion +Cliffs, Piute Pass, Disappearing Creek, Lost Canyon, Table Mountain, +(reminiscent of the Bret Harte days), Deadman Canyon, (flavoring more +strongly of the gold days of '49), and Rattlesnake Creek, (doubtless +deserving the title.)--To say nothing of such ordinary features as 13,500 +foot University Peak, (a mere wave of the sea of peaks surrounding +champions Lyell and Whitney), Diamond Peak, 13,000 feet, Mt. Baxter, +likewise around 13,000, Mt. Pinchot, and a score of others (occurring at +short intervals in a solid phalanx). Whoever wants to climb a mountain +everybody climbs, seemed to be the final verdict of the party. There are +other peaks almost as high as Whitney, (certainly quite high enough to +suit the most fastidious sportsman), and probably even more difficult of +ascent. Why not discover something new under the sun? In other words, why +not strike off at random into the Unexplored? They would head right into +the thick of the thickest green patch on the map, and wander as fancy +dictated. If they felt like climbing, they would climb. If they felt like +lazing, (as Pedro put it), they would laze. If they came to a river they +could cross, all right. If they could not cross, why, all right, who +cared? + +There was rumor of vast caves that riddled the back country. There were +hot springs, soda springs,--who knew what? Good pasturage was never hard +to find. The verdant meadows left by the glacier lakes could be counted +on up to the very backs of the 9,000-foot ridges. Most of them were half +to a mile wide, and at the head waters of the big rivers, they had heard, +were meadows nearer ten miles in length. + +With one exception, every lake in the Sierras is a glacier lake (that +exception being Huntington, a "made" lake four miles long that falls +three thousand feet through a flume to add power to an electric plant). +These lakes lie all the way up to as high as 8,000 feet above sea-level, +Norris's theory being that in time they will be found higher still. The +glaciers left by the last ice age naturally melted first in the lower +reaches, and as those that now cap the peaks and flow down between ridges +like the arms of a starfish, melt in their turn, they will leave their +icy, green-blue crystal pools higher and higher up the mountainsides. +Just North of Mt. Ritter, Norris told them, lies a glacier lake at an +altitude of 12,000 feet, while the glaciers still to be found are slowly, +slowly grinding out the basins of the lakes that will one day, (possibly +centuries hence), lie where now linger these evidences of the last +glacier epoch. + +Where these lakes have in their turn disappeared they have left these +rich-soiled meadows. Where these level-lying meadows failed them +pasturage for their burros, Norris guaranteed that there would be plenty +of hanging meadows,--long, narrow, bowldery strips of weed enameled +verdure slanting up and down the moraine-covered canyon sides, beginning +away up at timber line, where springs the source of their life-giving +moisture. + +Before the group broke up that day, word came that Rosa's brother had +broken his leg, there at the fire outlook on Red Top. (A pack-mule had +crowded his horse off the trail on the steep slope of an arroyo, and the +horse had fallen, though breaking his otherwise sure descent into the +creek below by coming sharply up against a tree trunk.) + +"The worst of it is," worried Radcliffe, "with men so scarce, I don't +know who to send in his place. Besides, it's a week's horseback trip from +here,--and fires breaking every day,--and he needs a doctor." + +It was not till the deed was done that Ace returned to announce, with the +smile of the cat who has licked the cream, that Rosa had insisted on +taking her brother's place. He, Ace, had found the spot from her sure +knowledge of the topography of the place. (She had kept house there for +her brother the summer before, in the wee, wind-swept cabin.) And leaving +Rosa there, as she pluckily insisted, Ace brought her brother back, +covering in minutes, as the bird flies, what it would have taken a week +to traverse on horseback. Those mountain trails corkscrew up and down the +canyon sides till instead of calling a certain distance a hundred miles +according to the map, one states it, "a week into the back-country,"--or +in the case of the trailless peaks, (among which Long Lester felt most at +home), the same distance might be a matter of a four-weeks' camping trip, +with no human habitation, and the likelihood of not even a ranch at which +to purchase supplies, in between. + +Then the Senator sent the 'plane back to San Francisco, and its hangar in +Burlingame, before--as he said--his young hopeful could start anything +more. He himself was to spend the next month fishing around Kings' River +Canyon, putting up at the canvas hotel. But he took as much interest in +the camping trip as if he had been a member of it,--as, indeed, did +Ranger Radcliffe, though word of a fresh forest fire breaking cut short +his part in the powwow. + +The question now arose, should they go horseback, or afoot with +pack-burros,--a string of which Long Lester yearned to pilot. + +True, a mountain-bred pony will hop and slide up and down mountain ledges +that would make an Eastern horse's hair literally stand on end. They have +been born and bred to it, physically and mentally. They have been known +to sit back almost on their haunches and slide when they could get down +no other way. Some of them will walk a log twenty feet above the surface +of a stream. (The Eastern rider will find that hard to believe, until he +recalls the feats of circus horses.) But not all horses are alike, any +more than people. Why should the plains horse and the park horse and good +old Dobbin, the farm horse, be equine mountaineers and prospectors? + +"Shank's horses" and the pack-burros won the final ballot,--to Pedro's +open dismay. But they would first ride the well-defined two-days' +horseback trail from Giant Forest to the Kings' River Canyon, and Giant +Forest is an automobile stage ride from Fresno, which is another short +day's ride from Huntington Lake. + +(Strange are the threads of destiny! Not one of that group so much as +dreamed that they were embarking on anything but a five weeks' camping +trip.) + +[Footnote 1: Pronounced Blingam.] + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE CAMPING TRIP + + +A week later Norris and the boys arrived at the lumber camp on the Canyon +rim, where they were to await Long Lester,--Ace in a piratical and +plutocratic black Stetson sombrero, hiking boots and flannel shirt, a red +bandanna at his throat, and to supplement his khaki riding breeches he +had bestowed lovingly in his duffle bag the Mexican leather chaps. He +also displayed the eight-inch leather belt of the cow country, and elbow +length leather cuffs studded with silver nails. + +Ted let it go at his second best blue overalls and heavy shoes, a green +plaid gingham shirt, with a brown one to change off and straw hat. Pedro +lounged gracefully about in corduroy trousers and elkskin boots, (which +Norris warned him would last about a week on such rough going), and a +wool jersey in the same soft tan. He took their guying good naturedly, +however, and in mockery of Ace's more picturesque accoutrement, gave a +first class imitation of a motion picture director with the Senator's son +for his prize Bad Man. Norris wore his second best uniform, and all had +sweaters and a change of socks and things, to say nothing of an extra +pair of shoes. + +When word came that the old guide had had "some investment business" come +up to delay him, they decided to establish a make-shift camp. There was +not one chance in a hundred of any rain, but they decided a lean-to would +be convenient anyway. They got some shakes of an old lumberman whose +function it was to split the giant shingles from three foot lengths of +log. + +Four poles for corner-posts made a substantial beginning. Smaller ones +morticed to lie crosswise gave something to which to nail the shakes, +which were overlapped shingle-fashion on both sides and roof. The +tarpaulins would make a curtain across the front. The floor was bedded +down a foot deep with springy silver fir boughs, laid butts down and +toward the foot. To this could be added fresh browse as it grew dry and +harsh. + +Tables were made by borrowing a saw of the lumbermen and slicing a four +foot log into eight inch slices, then gouging these out on the under side +so that stout legs could be fitted in. Stools were made from short +lengths of a smaller log, and behold! the open air dining-room and +kitchen were furnished, at cost of a few hours' fun. + +Norris even made a sort of steamer chair of poles, using a double +thickness of his tarp for the seat and back. + +Next came a stone fireplace, with an old piece of sheet iron across the +top, and a great flat hearth-stone on which to warm the plates. + +Each tin can as it was opened had its top neatly removed and was washed +and set aside as a chipmunk-proof container, and Pedro fashioned a +refrigerator by replacing the two sides of a cracker box with screen +wire, (bartered from the cook of the lumber camp), hinging the door with +discarded shoe tongues. + +Cord was strung for clothes-line, and a supply of several kinds of fuel +brought in. The down logs were simply run into the fireplace, butt ends +first, and shoved closer as they burned. Ted devised a rake for gathering +together the dry twigs and cones and bark with which the ground was +strewn, by using nails for teeth, set in a small board fastened at an +angle to the stick that served as handle. + +Following Norris's lead, each fellow heated water and took a sponge bath +daily, (except Ace, who took a cold plunge in the glacier-cold stream), +and afterwards washed out his change of socks and underwear and his +towel. The dish-washers also laundered the dish towels after each meal. +That way, everything was always ship-shape. And, be it noted, any cook +who burned the nested aluminum pans and kettles had to clean them +himself, and though Norris had made that easier by bringing along a box +of fine steel-wool, it was amazing how few scorched dishes occurred! Of +course where pots were used over the fire, the outsides got sooty, but +after all, it was only the insides that affected one's health. + +The boys found that they slept warmer by doubling their blankets into +sleeping bags, pinning them shut with horse-blanket safety-pins, with +their tarps for a windproof outer layer. And many's the sleeping bag race +they ran,--or rather, hopped, to the amazement, no doubt, of the wild +folk who very likely watched from the shadows. Agile Ted won the grand +prize at one of these stunts by hopping the full length of a fallen log +in his bag, without once falling off. + +There were also pine-cone battles and bait-casting contests, Pedro +excelling in the throw by reason of his big arm muscles. Thus day +succeeded cool and perfect day, and night followed star-strewn night, for +nearly a week. The tooth-brush brigade sallied forth as soon as the sun +began slanting its long morning rays through the forest aisles, and the +boys often began nodding at a ridiculously early hour around the +bon-fire, tired from their strenuous day in the open. But each day found +their spirits higher, their muscles harder, their eyes brighter,--and +their appetites more insatiable. Ted was plumping up and Pedro trimming +down on the self-same medicine. + +The chipmunks soon became so tame that they ran all over the place, over +the boys' feet, on up to their shoulders, and into their pockets for the +goodies they sometimes found. But they never ran under any one's palm. +Pedro got one cornered and caught him with his bare hands, and put him on +a leash, but the furry mite spent the next half hour straining to get +away, too unhappy to eat,--cowering, trembling, when the boys stroked his +orange striped back with a gentle finger,--and Pedro finally gave him +back his freedom, (and a pyramid of peanuts). + +"Camp Chipmunk" it was finally voted to call the place, and the name was +inscribed on the side of a huge fallen log with bits of yellow-green live +moss. + +Though the chipmunks could easily have gone to the creek, as they must +have before the boys came, they displayed a preference for drinking out +of the same water pail the boys did, and they sometimes took an +unexpected and unappreciated plunge bath. + +Besides the very tiny chipmunks, there were some of the ground-squirrel +size with the same orange and black. They were duller of wit, and more +timid, but they used to chase the little fellows to within an inch of +their lives. One day a big Sayes chipmunk attempted to fish a cheese rind +out of the fireplace. The ashes were still hot, and he plunged into the +soft stuff over his head, he was out and away, with a piercing squeal, +almost instantly, trailing white ash behind him. + +The boys used to bury nuts just to see how fast the littlest chipmunks +would smell them out. After repeatedly finding the Dutch oven bread +nibbled around the edges, Pedro hung the bread-bag from the clothes-line +one night. He was awakened next morning by the shout Ted sent up when he +found two chipmunks running down the string and squeezing their way +delightedly into the bag. + +Some one always had to watch while the meal was being laid, for the +mouselike villains would be right up on the table sampling the butter, if +some one did not keep an eye out. Or they would climb up the leg of the +table and peek over the edge with their beady eyes, wondering how far +they dared approach without danger to their agile persons. But the +funniest thing was when two chipmunks would quarrel,--as generally +happened when one unearthed a nut that another had buried. Nickering in +the angriest way imaginable, the two tiny things would come at each other +with ears laid back, in what appeared for all the world like a +head-butting contest. Around and around they would whirl in a spiral +nebula, till one got a head start on a race for home and mother. + +Each morning they awoke to the hack-hack-hack of the sawyers and the +steady grating of the log saw, the twitter of the donkey engine and the +volcanic remarks with which the bull-puncher was urging his team forward. +The yellow sunshine sifted aslant through the giant trees, birds sang, +and chipmunks chattered. A water-packer passed them one day with his mule +plodding along under 40 gallons disposed in canvas bags on a wooden +frame, and beyond, across the singing creek, they could see the swampers +burning the brush they had cut from the pathway of the tree next to fall. + +Breakfast dispatched, the boys hurried over to watch the two-bitted axe +biting its huge kerf in the side of a ten-foot trunk. When it had eaten a +third of the way through the giant trunk, the sawyers began on the +opposite side, nearly as high as the top of the kerf, resting the long +instrument on pegs driven into two holes that had been bored for the +purpose. Iron wedges were driven after the saw. The instant the tree +began to lean, the head chopper had driven a stake about 150 feet from +the base on the side of the kerf, declaring that the falling tree would +drive that stake into the ground, so accurately could they gauge the +direction of its fall. The swampers had cleared the way between. Then +came the cracking of neighboring branches, as the mammoth trunk swayed +and toppled to the forest floor. There was a crash that shook the ground, +which rebounded with a shower of chips and bark dust, and the stump gaped +raw and red where for perhaps 2,000 years it had upborne the plumed +Sequoia Gigantea. + +The boys, far above whose heads the fallen trunk towered, scrambled up +the rough bark and raced each other up and down the novel roadway that it +made. Then, the excitement over, they suddenly realized that they were +hungry and ran another race back to camp. + +Later they watched as the donkey engine, stronger than ten oxen, was made +fast to a stump and stoked till it could move itself into position to +haul the log lengths to the waiting ox team. Peelers with axes and long +steel bars had been peeling off the thick red bark, which the boys found +could be whittled into odd shapes and rubbed velvety at the cut ends. The +sawyers were sawing the trunk into lengths short enough to ride on box +cars, and the chain tenders were driving the "dogs" or steel hooks into +the forward segment preparatory to attaching the chain that was to draw +the log after the panting donkey engine. The block shifter was ready with +his pulley, and the gypsy tender was gathering down wood. + +Suddenly, just as the chain had stretched till the log began to move, +some weak link snapped and with a rebound like that of a cannon it +flashed over the hillside, catching one man and toppling him over with a +broken leg. The camp cook, whose accomplishments varied from the ability +to deliver an impromptu and usually unsolicited sermon to that of calling +off the numbers at a stag dance, was summoned in haste and from a long +black bag that went with the framed diploma that hung at the head of his +bunk, this unusual individual administered surgical treatment. The +injured man took it philosophically,--his out of door constitution would +repair the damage with more than average speed,--and the work of getting +out the big log proceeded as before. + +They also watched, fascinated, as the logs at a camp further back were +sent down a crude slide that slanted sheer to a sizeable lake. Ace +threatened to try riding a log some time, but Norris rendered one of his +rare ultimatums on that score. + +"Let's take plenty to eat!" bargained Pedro, who was beginning to suspect +it was no afternoon stroll he had embarked upon. "Hadn't we better 'phone +old Lester to lay in some extra supplies?" + +"There is always fish," Norris reminded him. + +"One gets tired of fish. I say let's take plenty of grub, if we're going +away off where for weeks we may not see a living soul to buy a pound of +bacon of. Eating's half the fun of camping. And if we get up there on the +John Muir Trail, we can't even catch fish, can we--always?" + +"That's the stuff!" seconded Ace. "If we aren't tied too tightly to the +problem of rustling grub, we will be freer to roam where we please. But +gosh! Won't it take a whole train-load of burros to pack enough stuff? +Five men, three times a day, that's fifteen meals. And thirty days would +make it 450 meals. Besides we'll eat just about double the normal number +of calories,--the way I feel already. And twice 450 meals is 900." + +"Whoa, there!" begged Norris. "How much can a burro carry, anyway? We +can't take all our food, or we'll have such a pack-train we won't have +time for anything but donkey driving, and if we carry feed to keep them +going on the trail, we'll have to take more burros to pack the feed, and +they will have to have feed too, and--there's no end to it." + +"Well, of course we'll fish, when we can," amended Pedro. "And we can +take compact rations, dried stuff, instead of watery canned goods. +They're just as good, aren't they? Only the water's been taken out of +them, and we can put it back in each night before we eat it. What's the +use of packing tin cans that are mostly full of water?" + +"I wouldn't call canned peaches mostly water," retorted Ace, who though +less dependent than the plumper Pedro on his three square meals per day, +was even more particular what those three meals tasted like. + +"It isn't only the juice," said Pedro. "The peaches themselves are half +water. Dried peaches are the same thing except for that, and two pounds +of dried peaches will go a whole heap farther than a two-pound can, let +me tell you!" + +"All right," said Ace. "Dried peaches! What else? Mr. Norris, you've had +a lot of experience on these back-country trips." + +"H'm!" said the young Survey man, his eyes lighting reminiscently. "Did +you ever eat black bean soup with salt pork and garlic to flavor it?" + +"I have," said Pedro. "It's a meal in itself, with black rye bread and +dill pickle. And what about fried frogs' legs and watercress? Broiled +mushrooms, stewed mushrooms and onions, and crayfish soup?" + +"Sounds good to me," Ace admitted. "But have we a mushroom expert in our +midst? I'm not ready to commit suicide just yet." + +"Nor I," laughed Norris. + +"Nobody asked you to," Pedro looked aggrieved. "Goodness knows I'm no +expert, but I do know a few kinds, and I know those few kinds for sure." + +"Hot dog!" commented the Senator's son. "Go to it, ol' boy!" + +"Then," Norris continued, "there've been times in my life when I didn't +turn up my nose at corned beef hash browned." + +"And spuds!" Ace completed the recipe. "And onions." + +"Dehydrated," Norris admitted. "Can't carry potatoes for more than the +first few days, and dried onion is just as flavorful as fresh." + +"An onion a day--" began Ace. + +"Keeps everybody away," finished the young Survey man laughingly. "And +that reminds me of apples,--dried apple pie, apple pudding, apple +dumplings, (baked or boiled), apple fritter, (made with pancake flour), +and apple pan-dowdy with cinnamon." + +"Pan-dowdy!" queried both boys. + +"Yes, when the cook has to roll it out with a bottle, or an oar handle, +or a smooth stone instead of a rolling pin, and perhaps bake it in the +frying pan, and he hesitates to label the result, he terms it pan-dowdy, +and then nobody has any kick coming if it isn't exactly flesh, fish or +fowl, if you get me." + +"We get you!" grinned Ted, who had thus far been a silent partner to the +plans. But as usually happened at such times, he had been doing a lot of +thinking. He now added his contribution: "How about rainbow trout broiled +with pork scraps, and served with horseradish? Let's take a bottle of +horseradish." + +"Dried horseradish and a grater," amended Pedro. + +"All right. Then there's trout baked with tomato and onion sauce, trout +baked in clay, trout boiled for a change, with lemon, (we could start the +trip with a few), trout skewered, griddled, baked in ashes, baked on a +stone, fried--of course, and roasted and stuffed with sage. Let's take +sage. Then how about cold boiled trout salad with mustard dressing, and +fish chowder a la canned milk, with dry-dated--what do you call it? +Dehydrated potatoes and evaporated onions? Eh? And garlic isn't such a +bad idea. It's the handiest little bit of flavoring I know of,--if we all +go in for it alike." + +"We'll all go in for it good and strong," winked Ace. + +"Strong is the word," chuckled Norris. + +"Anyway," Ted defended his suggestion. "I've camped through the +back-country a heap in my time, and I've generally found it isn't the +sameness of the fish-three-times-a-day that lays you out, but the lack of +flavorings. Now I even take caraway seed to give a different flavor to a +batch of biscuit, and raisins, or some anise seed, or a little strong +cheese, that you can grate into it or on it and then toast it till it +melts. Then there's cinnamon and cheese toast for dessert, and plain +cinnamon and sugar melted on white bread makes it just bully! And why do +we have to eat white bread all the time anyway?" + +"Of course we'll have cornmeal and buckwheat in our pancake mixture," +said Norris. + +"Bully! But why not take part rye flour too, and part oatmeal to mix in? +It bakes fine and flaky. And there's oatmeal cookies mixed with peanut +butter and sweetened!" + +"Good!" Norris pronounced. + +"Y'r _all right_, kid!" Ace thumped affectionately on his thin shoulder +blade, "y'r all right," but at the threatened repetition of the bearlike +caress, Ted dodged. + +"Another idea," Pedro broke in. "Why eat bread all the time anyway? Why +not macaroni and cheese, and spaghetti and tomato paste?" + +"And garlic?" teased Ace. + +"Surest thing you know! And vermicelli, and noodles, and all those +things. They're all made of flour, and they're different." + +"A little bulky," protested Norris. + +"Oh, well, for the start of the trip, then. They're not so heavy, parked +up on top of a burro's regular pack." + +"Good!" agreed the leader of the expedition. "We may come to cattle +ranches where we can get beef and mutton occasionally, though not after +we get into the higher altitudes. And we can start off with a few fresh +eggs, for compactness and safety broken a dozen at a time into glass +jars. After that--I don't know whether you fellows would like scrambled +eggs or not, made of egg powder. Personally I don't. Nor the famous +erbswurst." + +"Aw!" drawled Ted, barely concealing his impatience. "The thing that +stands by you best on a hard trip, after all, is jerky and pemmican. I +think old Lester jerked some venison himself last fall, and he's probably +got it yet. And he'll grind us some pemmican, if we get him word before +he starts." + +"Gee Whiz! Those are emergency rations!" vetoed Ace. + +"We'll have to have a long distance conversation with him to-night," said +Norris. "Meantime we mustn't forget pilot biscuit and peanut butter for a +pocket lunch and shelled peanuts, of course, and rice, and tea and +coffee, and sugar, and baking powder." + +"There are two things that can compactly," conceded the Castilian boy at +this point. "The best grade of canned beets and spinach are pretty solid +weight. I'll make no kick if we load on some of that until we get to the +steeper grades." + +"Hey!" shouted Ace. "In all this time nobody's mentioned bacon." + +"We took that for granted," laughed Norris. "I'll bet Long Lester would +never start out without it, whether we told him to or not. But I'm +awfully afraid we'll use more tea than coffee. It's bulky, and worse, it +loses flavor." + +"Oh," said Ted, "I know the answer to that. Powdered coffee isn't one +quarter so bulky, and put up in little separate tins, we keep opening +them fresh, don't you see?" + +"I've never yet seen a powdered coffee that could compare with the real +thing," Ace complained. + +"Why couldn't Les buy the real thing and then get it powdered and sealed +into little separate tins for us?" + +"He could," agreed Norris, "I suppose,--if we're going to be as fussy as +all that." (Ace flushed.) "But with our woods' appetites----" + +"Oh, and citric acid tablets," the Senator's son hastened to change the +subject. "For lemonade, you know." + +The discussion was cut short by Pedro's discovery that a bear had invaded +the lean-to. + +The American black bear, and his California cousin whose coat has +generally lightened to the cinnamon brown of the soil, is all but tame in +the National Parks, where for years he has been unmolested. A friendly +fellow even in the wild state,--for the most part,--he roams the Giant +Forest as much a prized part of the landscape as the Big Trees +themselves. He has learned to visit the garbage dump regularly every +night, and it causes no sensation whatever to meet one on the trail. It +was much the same about the lumber camp. + +But to have him visit uninvited, and serve his own refreshments from +their selected stores, was a less attractive trick. Nor did he show the +slightest inclination to take alarm and vacate when the boys returned. On +the contrary, he snarled and showed his teeth when they would have driven +him from the maple sugar can, and even Ace felt at the moment that +discretion was in order. It was not till Old Shaggy-Sides had pretty well +demolished everything in sight, and then carried the ham off under his +arm, that he took a reluctant departure. + +This would never do. That night the unprotected edibles were hoisted just +too high for a possible visitor to reach, on a rope slung over the limb +of a tree. The boys still slept under the stars, for they knew enough +about bears, (all but Pedro), not to be afraid. Pedro, however, got +little sleep that night, though he would not have confessed to the fact +for anything on earth. + +"There was one bear in Sequoia Park," remembered Ace, "who got too fresh, +that way, and raided some one's tent, and they had to send for help to +get him out. When it happened half a dozen times, he was ordered shot. +But he was the only one I've ever heard of acting that way. Now I'll bet, +if we'd inquire, we'd find this bear had been half tamed, and altogether +spoiled by these lumbermen. + +"We were driving through Yellowstone last summer when one of those half +tame bears came out to beg. We stopped the machine and I fed him some +candy. Then we parked, and went up to the hotel for dinner. When we came +back, we found he had mighty near clawed the back seat to pieces,--and +why do you suppose?--To get at a side of bacon we had stowed away in +there." + +"Did he find it?" + +"We never did." + +"That reminds me of something I heard," laughed Norris. "Some friends of +mine in Sequoia left their lunch boxes in the machine while they went to +climb Moro Rock. When they came back they found a cub calmly sitting up +there behind the wheel, eating one lunch after another." + +Pedro was in for moving their headquarters to a great hollow Big Tree, +the cavity in which was as large as a good sized room, with a Gothic sort +of opening they could have made a door for. But the very next morning the +old prospector arrived with the train of pack-burros, and they were off. + +"How do you explain the Sequoias, Mr. Norris? Will we find more of them?" +asked Pedro, with a last wistful backward glance. + +"The Big Trees are by no means confined to Sequoia National Park and +other well known groves," said the Survey man. "The Sequoia gigantea is +to be found in scattered groves for a distance of 250 miles or more, up +and down the West slope of the Sierras, at altitudes just lower than that +of the belt of silver firs,--that is, anywhere from 5,000 to 8,000 feet +above sea level. And in fact, south of Kings' River, the Sequoias stretch +in an almost unbroken forest for seventy miles. Nor are they all of the +proportions so often cited, where a man standing at their base looks like +a fly on the wall by comparison with these prehistoric giants. Nor did +they all get their start in life 4,000 years ago. There are young trees +in plenty, saplings and seedlings, who will doubtless reach the +patriarchal stage some 4,000 years hence. On what kind of earth will they +look then? On what stage in the evolution of civilization? Will another +ice age have re-carved these mountains? And how will man have learned to +protect himself from the added severity of those winters?" + +"It certainly gives one something to think about," mused Pedro. "It is +only in these younger specimens that you can see what a graceful tree it +is!" He glanced from a feathery Big Tree youngster of perhaps 500 +summers, with its slender branches drooping in blue-green plumes toward +the base, with purple-barked limbs out-thrust on the horizontal half way +up, and at the top reaching ardently heavenward. Near it stood a parent +tree of perhaps middle age, born around the time of Christ, whose crown +was still firmly rounded with the densely massed foliage, now +yellow-brown, and the bark red-brown. + +The millions of two inch cones, surprisingly tiny for such a tree, hang +heavy with seeds,--they counted 300 in a single green cone. + +"With such millions of seeds," puzzled Pedro, "I should think the trees +would grow so thick that there would be no walking between them." + +"No," said Norris. "In the first place, remember that not one seed in a +million escapes these busy Douglas squirrels and the big woodcocks that +you hear drumming everywhere. Then even the millionth seed has to risk +forest fires and snow-slides, lumbermen and lightning. But I'll tell you +something funny about them. You'd naturally think, from the number of +streams in these forests, that they required a lot of moisture. Well, +they don't. Further South they grow and flourish on perfectly dry ground. +But their roots retain so much rain and snow water that their tendency is +to _make_ streams. The dense crown helps too, by preventing evaporation. +You'll find Sequoias flourishing in a mere rift in a granite precipice. +But wherever you find a dense growth, as you do here, there you will find +their roots giving out the seepage that feeds a million streamlets, and +these in turn feed the great rivers. + +"You see these trees _must_ be able to survive drouth or they could not +have survived the changes of so many thousand years. Why, these Sequoias +might have formed one continuous forest from the American River on South, +if it had not been for the glaciers that swept down the great basins of +the San Joaquin and Kings' River, the Tuolumne and the Stanislaus." + +"But why didn't the glaciers clean them off the basins of the Kaweah and +the Tule Rivers, too?" + +"Ah! There the giant rock spurs of the canyons of the King and the Kern +protected the Tule and the Kaweah, by shunting the ice off to right and +left." + +"There's one thing more I'd like to know," said Pedro. "Where will we +find the nut pines that have the pine nuts? Aren't they delicious?" + +"There are several kinds," said Norris. "There is a queer little one with +cones growing like burrs on the trunk as well as on the limbs, but that +is only found on burnt ground. Another, that forms a dietary staple with +the Indians of Nevada, is to be found only on the East slope of the +Sierra, and the little nut pine that our California Indians harvest is +away down in the foothills among the white oaks and manzanitas, so I'm +afraid whatever else we come across on this trip, we won't want to count +on pine nuts." + +"What interests _me_ more," said Ted, "is whether we are going to come +across any gold or not." + +"Now you're talking!" the old prospector suddenly spoke up. + +Ted's eyes shone. + +Ace had an experience about this time that flavored his nightmares for +some time to come. Following a lumber chute, one of these three board +affairs, up the side of a particularly steep slope one day, where at the +time of the spring floods the yellow pine logs had been sent down to the +river, he thought to try a little target shooting with Long Lester's +rifle. But at the first shot a bunch of range cattle,--of whose presence +he had not known,--began crowding curiously near. He fired again, and a +cow with a calf took alarm and started to charge him, but was driven back +with a few clods and a flourished stick. + +He fired again. This time, quite by accident, his bullet hit an old bull +squarely on the horn. The shock at first stunned the animal, and he fell +forward on his knees. Recovering in an instant, however, the enraged +animal made for Ace. + +[Illustration: Leaping aboard a log he sent it shooting to the stream +below.] + +The Senator's son had that day worn his heavy leather chaps. He had found +them burdensome enough on his slow climb upward. They now impeded him +till he could not have outrun the animal had he tried, nor was there any +tree handy between him and it. + +Then a wild thought struck him. The log slide!--It was mighty risky, but +then, so was the bull. Leaping aboard a log that still lay at the head of +the slide, he pulled the lever and sent it shooting to the stream below, +and the fallen pine needles flew out in a cloud before him, as the log +hurled down the grade. His heavy leather chaps really helped him balance +now, and his hob-nails helped him cling. + +The log came to a stand-still before it reached the river,--but Ace did +not. And the bull was hopelessly out-distanced. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +LIVING OFF THE WILDERNESS + + +On every side stretched a sea of peaks. They might have been in +mid-ocean, stranded on a desert island, had they not been on a +mountain-top instead. + +For one glorious fortnight they had camped beside white cascading rivers, +and along the singing streams that fed them, following their windings +through flower perfumed forests and on up into the granite country where +glacier lakes lay cupped between the peaks to unfathomable cobalt depths. +They had seen deer by the dozen feeding in the brush of the lower +country,--graceful, big-eyed creatures who allowed them to approach to +within a stone's throw before they went bounding to cover. They had +thrown crumbs to the grouse and quail that came hesitatingly to inspect +their camp site, protected at this season by the game laws and so +unaccustomed to human kind that they were all but tame. They had crossed +and recrossed rivers not too deep to ford, and rivers not too swift to +swim. They had scaled cliffs where nothing on hooves save a burro--or a +Rocky Mountain goat--could have followed after. + +But always the shaggy gray donkeys had kept at their heels like +dogs,--save when they got temperamental or went on strike,--waggling +their long ears in a steady rhythm, exactly as if these appendages had +been on ball bearings. The burros, five in number, had each his +individuality. There was Pepper, the old prospector's own comrade of many +a mountain trail, who, knowing his superior knowledge of the ways of +slide rock and precipices, insisted always on being in the lead. This +preference on his part he enforced with a pair of the swiftest heels the +boys had ever seen. There was old Lazybones, as Pedro had named the one +who, presenting the greatest girth, had to carry the largest pack. There +was Trilby, of the dainty hooves, who never made a misstep. He--for the +cognomen had been somewhat misplaced--was entrusted with the things they +valued most, their personal kit and the trout rods. The Bird was the one +who did the most singing,--though they all joined in on the chorus when +they thought it was time for the table scraps to be apportioned. And +finally there was Mephistopheles, whose disposition may have been soured +under some previous ownership,--since the blame must be placed somewhere. +Ace had added him to Long Lester's four when a lumberman had offered him +for fifteen dollars. The name came afterwards. But though he sometimes +held up operations on the trail, he was big enough to carry 150 pounds of +"grub," and that meant a lot of good eating. + +Despite their hee-hawing, however, the diminutive pack animals did a deal +of talking with their ears. When startled, these prominent members were +laid forward to catch the sound. When displeased, the long ears were +flattened along the backs of their necks. If browse was good, they +remained in the home meadow,--after first circling it to make sure there +was no foe in ambush. If not, they wandered till they found good +feed,--and one night they wandered so many miles, hobbled as they were, +that it took all of the next forenoon to find them and bring them back to +camp. + +They could walk a log with their packs to cross a stream, or, packs +removed and pullied across, they could swim it, if they were started up +current and left to guide themselves. They would not slip on smooth rock +ledges, they could hop up or down bowlders like so many bipeds. It was a +constant marvel to Ace and Pedro what they could do. No lead ropes were +necessary at all. + +Long Lester was meticulous in their care. Every afternoon when the packs +were removed he sponged their backs with cold water. And though the party +was on its way by seven every morning,--having risen with the first light +of dawn,--and though by ten they would have covered half of their average +twelve miles a day, the old guide never watered them till the sun was +warm, which was generally not till after the middle of the forenoon. For +a wilderness trip comes to grief when any one member, man or beast, gives +out, as he knew from a lifetime of experience in that rugged and +unpeopled region. + +They had figured on about three pounds of food per day per person, for +the four weeks' trip. That loaded each burro with a grub list of ninety +pounds, and about ten pounds of personal equipment, besides the axes and +aluminums and such incidentals as soap and matches. Ease of packing was +secured by slipping into each of the food kyacks a case such as those in +which a pair of five gallon coal oil cans come. + +Their kit included neats' foot oil, (scrupulously packed), for the +wearing qualities of their footwear along those stony trails depended in +large degree on keeping the leather soft. No mosquito netting was +necessary in the mountains,--it was too dry and cool for the +insects,--but each member of the party had a pair of buckskin gloves, six +good pairs of all wool socks,--worn two at a time to pad the feet against +stone-bruise,--extra shoe laces, and a pair of sneakers to rest his feet +around camp. Norris carried a pocket telescope, and Long Lester a hone +made of the side of a cigar box with fine emery cloth pasted on one side, +coarse on the other. They saved on blankets by doubling each into three +crosswise,--except the old guide, who was too tall,--and on the higher, +colder elevations they found that to wear a fresh wool union suit, and +socks warm from the fire, to sleep in, was as good as an extra blanket, +if not better. + +Everything was to be turn and turn about,--Ace had been the most +insistent member of the party in not leaving Long Lester to do the lion's +share,--they were obliged, each in turn, even Norris, to learn certain +fundamental rules of cookery. Long Lester got it down to this formula: + +Put fresh vegetables into boiling salted water. + +Put dried vegetables (peas and beans) into cold, unsalted water. + +Soak dried fruit overnight. + +To fry, have the pan just barely smoking. + +To clean the frying pan, fill it with water and let it boil over, then +hang it up to dry. Jab greasy knives into the ground,--provided it is not +stony. + +You can fry more trout in a pan if you cut off their heads. + +As the boiling point drops one degree for every 800 foot rise, twenty +hours' steady cooking will not boil beans in the higher altitudes unless +you use soft water. They may be best cooked overnight in a hole lined +with coals, if put in when boiling, with the lid of the Dutch oven +covered with soil. + +Three aluminum pails, nested, provided dish pan and kettles for hot and +cold water. Butter packed in pound tins kept fresh indefinitely in those +cool heights, and salt and sugar traveled well in waterproof tent silk +bags. Long Lester had figured on a minimum of a quarter of a pound each +of sugar and bacon per day per person, three pounds of pepper and +twenty-five of salt. + +Of course the one thing each member carried right on his person was a +pepper tin of matches, made waterproof with a strip of adhesive tape. For +the snow fields, they also had tinted spectacles, as a precaution against +snow-blindness. + +Axmanship came to be the chief measure of their campcraft. Ace had wanted +to bring one of the double-bitts he saw the lumbermen using, but the old +guide vetoed it as more dangerous to the amateur than a butcher knife in +the hands of a baby. + +The light weight single-bitt was the axe he had brought for the boys, +reserving a heavier one for himself. These he had had ground thin, but so +that the blade would be thickest in the center and not stick fast in the +log. Both axe-heads wore riveted leather sheaths. + +They took turn and turn about getting in the night wood. Fortunately the +boys, (Norris, too), had watched the lumbermen like lynxes, even Ted +thinking to get a few points from them. They noted, for one thing, that +the professional choppers struck rhythmically, landing each blow with +precision on top of the other, working slowly and apparently at +ease,--certainly untiringly,--and making no effort to sink the axe deeply. + +They had also noticed that a lumberman will clear away all brush and +vines within axe reach before beginning, lest the instrument catch and +deliver him a cut. + +They had learned, in logging up a down tree, not to notch it first on the +top, then discover too late that they could not turn the thing over to +get at the under side; but to stand on the log with feet as far apart as +convenient, and nick it on first one side, then the other, with great +nicks as wide as the log itself. + +Pedro had to be shown how to chop kindling, as his first attempt resulted +in a black and blue streak across his cheek where a flying chip struck +him. Long Lester had to show him how to lay his branches across a log. +And the old man insisted on his so doing, every time, for, he said, he +knew a man who had lost an eye by failing to observe this precaution. He +also barely saved the boys' axe from being driven into the ground by the +well-meaning tenderfoot and nicked on some buried stone. But when he +found the Spanish boy starting to kerf a prostrate log that lay on stony +ground, he expressed himself so fluently that Pedro never again, as long +as he lived, forgot to place another log under the butt, or else clear +the stones from the ground around it. + +The boys also learned to look for the hard yellow pine, when there was +any to be found, for their back-log, but for a quick fire to select fir +balsam, spruce or aspen. (Of course if they couldn't get these, they used +whatever they could lay hands on.) + +Pedro made the mistake, about this time, of tying a burro to a tree with +two half hitches, which, when the burro tugged, were all but impossible +to undo. After that he used the regular hitching tie. As the burros were +always turned out at night, without even a hobble save for the leader, it +became necessary to be able to lasso them in the morning if they failed +to come at call. There was also the diamond hitch that had to be acquired +if each was to do his share with the pack-animals, all of which occupied +fascinated hours around the night-fire. + +So much for the first two weeks. It was now time to circle around and +start back--some other way. Ace had done the packing the day they climbed +above timber line for an outlook. As Trilby had cut her foot, (or his +foot, to be accurate), the boy had added her pack to that of broad-backed +Mephistopheles, in whose kyacks he had--much against Long Lester's +teachings--entrusted the entire remainder of their food. Pepper carried +their personal equipment, and now that half their supplies were eaten, +the Bird and Lazybones carried firewood for them from the wooded slopes +below, that they might luxuriate beside a night fire. So far, so +good. But the peak of their night's bivouac was flanked by higher peaks +that cut off their anticipated view, and before the little party could +scale these, they must descend the gorge of another leaping, singing +stream that lay between. + +As the pack train followed nimbly down the glacier-smoothed slope, and +along a ledge where the cliff rose sheer on one side, dropping as sheer +on the other, Mephistopheles gave a sudden shrill squeal, and before any +one knew what it was all about, went hurtling over the edge. The boys +stared speechless as the luckless animal hit the cascades below and went +tumbling through the rapids and over a waterfall, till the body was +whirled to the bank and caught in a crevice of the rock. + +Here they were, ten days' hike from the nearest base of supplies, and the +entire remainder of their food,--they did not mourn the burro--three +thousand feet below, or more likely washed a mile down stream by this +time, what had not sunk to the bottom. + +They might have been in mid-ocean, as Ted had remarked,--stranded on a +desert island,--but for their trout rods, and one rifle. The game laws +could be disregarded in their extremity. But they were days from the last +deer they had sighted, and their main dependence must be on the fishing. + +Ahead, the trail wound down into a grove of rich tan trunks against the +green of juniper. Gray granite worn into fantastic shapes,--castles and +giant tables,--dwarfed and twisted trees rooted in rock crevices, white +waters roaring against the canyon wall like a storm-wind in the +tree-tops, fallen trunks, patches of flaming fire-weed. This was the +wilderness against which they must pit their wild-craft if they would eat. + +By the time the sun slanted at five o'clock, Norris called a halt by the +side of a moist green meadow where the burros would find browse, and all +hands turning to and unpacking the kyacks, they hobbled the animals with +a neat loop about their fore-legs. Then they cut, each of them, a good +armful of browse for his bed. Long Lester strode off with his rifle in +search of anything he might find for the pot, while Norris and the boys +scrambled down to the river with their trout rods. + +He broke trail along a narrow ledge, just such a one as the luckless +burro had gone hurtling over when his pack scraped the rising wall. +Almost a sheer drop, and the rapids roared in torrents of white foam. +Pedro clung to every root and every rock crack for fear of growing dizzy. + +"My fault entirely," Ace reproached himself, as he thought of the lost +flour and bacon, rice, onions, cheese, smoked ham, dried fruit, coffee, +canned beets and spinach, tinned jams, and other compact and +rib-stretching items of their so lovingly planned duffle. "Never should +have packed it all on one burro." + +The Senator's son had a dry fly outfit that was his treasure. Ted used +the crudest kind of hook and line for bait casting. The subject was one +of keen rivalry between them. + +"Dad always prayed: 'May the East wind never blow,' when we went fishing +down in Maine," dogmatized Ace. + +"Well, Pop was born in Illinois, and he used to say, 'When the wind is in +the South, it blows your bait into a fish's mouth.'" + +"Huh! That may be poetry, but we don't have much of any wind out here +except the west wind. And if we wait for a cloudy day in this neck o' the +world, we'll wait till September." + +"All the same," insisted Ted, "trout do bite best when it rains, because, +don't you see, the big fellows lie on the bottom, just gobbling up the +worms the rain washes down to them." + +"They won't rise to a fly in the rain." + +"Well, I dunno anything about dry flies, though I sh'd think they +couldn't _see_ the fly up on the surface, with the water all r'iled the +way it gets in a storm." + +"No more can they when the sun glares." + +"Well, then, you better choose the shady spots. I don't see sign n'r +symptom of even a wind cloud to-day."--And yet, even as he gazed +argumentatively at the horizon, a pink-white bank of cumulus began +drifting into view in the niche between two distant peaks. + +"Gosh! It's sunset already," exclaimed Ted. + +"At half-past five!"--Ace peered at his wrist watch, then held it to his +ear. "Besides, it's in the East----" + +"Looks more like a fire starting off there," contributed Norris. "Whew! +See old Red Top, there?" + +"Red Top!--Where Rosa is?" + +"I think it must be." + +"Radcliffe's plumb worried, with the woods so dry, I'll bet," Ted +surmised. "And short a coupla fire outlooks, at that, I heard there in +the Canyon." + +At this point they reached the mouth of the creek that had wriggled down +from some spring, and Ace elected to follow it upstream with his Brown +Hackles, which he dropped on the water with the most delicate care lest +their advent appear an unnatural performance to the wary troutlets +watching from the shady pools. + +The slender stream raced dazzlingly in the reddening sunshine, as Ace +tickled the placid surface of each pool, and the upstream side of each +fallen log, careful lest his shadow fall betrayingly across his miniature +hunting grounds. He kept a good ten feet from the bank. And before the +red glow had started climbing the Western slope, he had a full string of +little fellows,--the prettiest rainbow trout he had ever seen. + +Ted, sighting another creek, climbed back along the canyon wall to follow +it down-stream with his bait can and his short, stiff willow rod, cut for +the occasion with his good old jack-knife. His bait was the remnant of +the ham sandwich he had saved that noon for the purpose,--though he had +little dreamed at the time how much would depend on their next fishing +jaunt. + +Keen to out-do his chum by back-country methods, he pushed through the +brush that made the gully a streak of green against the granite, until he +came to a bend. Here, he knew, there would likely be a pool. He +approached warily from above, lengthening his line. He cast well above +the bend, so that his bait would sink to the bottom. He was rewarded at +once with a bite. With a quick flip, he drew the fish away, and began his +string. + +For some time he followed down-stream before he saw another +likely-looking place. An upturned stump awoke his sporting blood. Safe +refuge for a trout in more ways than one, it offered a 50-50 chance of +losing his hook. But Ted lifted skyward at the instant of the bite, and +all was well. + +An eddy of foam, the shade of an overhanging bowlder, then another +upturned stump, (on these wind-swept mountain sides there were many +such), and Ted's spirits rose by degrees. + +Meantime Pedro passed the rapids, climbed to a point well above, and +selected a smooth green stretch of river for his operations. It had meant +stiff going, and would mean more before he made his way back up the +canyon wall, but something about their present crisis had challenged his +reserves. + +Pedro always used a spoon when he wasn't fishing for pure sport. On this +sunny stretch, so clear in the red glow of approaching sunset that the +bottom was plainly visible, he could see the fat old patriarchs lazing +the late afternoon away. But he was soon rousing them to find out what +that little shining thing could be that darted so rapidly through their +habitat,--that tiny bit of metallic white so unlike anything their jaded +appetites had yet negotiated. + +The bright silver blade, only a quarter inch in width, perhaps three +times as long, spun against the current, cavorting along jerk by jerk, +(with time between jerks for the scaly ones to think it over), soon began +to get results. As the trout were all on the bottom resting till twilight +should set in, Pedro craftily allowed the spinner to sink till it all but +raked the bottom before beginning that tantalizing play. + +Norris, too, tried a spinner, though he chose rapid water. There was one +great beauty, green above and orange beneath, that baited his fancy. For +some time he dangled the lure before he felt the heavy fish. Then a long +rush, that sent his line whistling out like lightning, a moment's quiet, +followed by another rush, and he had landed a great beauty of a +five-pounder with the hook hard fast in his jaws. + +After that Norris returned to camp, where Ace and Ted were already +jubilantly comparing notes. Long Lester came in with a bag of birds and +rabbits. + +Of course their catch had to be broiled. Pedro arrived in time to join +them in "which will you have, or trout,"--for the game had been saved for +breakfast. The boys ate with relish, though without salt, and later +listened to Long Lester telling tales with his boots to the bon-fire, +bronze faced, nonchalant. At 8,000 feet, the air grew noticeably cooler +with the turning of the wind down-canyon, and the boys heaped down-wood +liberally in a pyramid. The dry evergreens snapped in a shower of sparks +as the full moon, silvering the snow-clad peaks, deepened the shadows +under the trees. + +On the fragrance of crushed fir boughs they finally slept, all thought of +the morrow drowned in dreams. + +Out of the painted sunsets and yellow sands of the Salton Sea, land of +centipedes and cactus, blistering sun, and parching thirst, and all +things cruel and ugly, had come Sanchez, a Mexican, with his son and an +old man who had been his servant, to lay ties for the narrow gauge +railway that was to zig-zag up the canyon walls for a lumber +company. King's Lumber Company had fired them for reasons that will +appear. Suffice it now that all their blistering bitterness and parching +hate had focused on these forests. + +Rosa, alone on the Red Top fire outlook scaffold, had seen a pin-point of +light the night before that she took for a camp-fire, but whose, she +could not know. + +Breakfast, such as it was, disposed of, the four deceptively meek looking +burros were lined up in the lupin perfumed meadow, in semblance of a +pack-train, (the hundred pounds of duffle divided between them that they +might make faster time, as well as a safe-guard against further +accidents). A committee of the whole now decided they must catch more +fish and dry them, then lead a forced march to Guadaloupe Rancho, and if +they found range cattle, they would bring down a calf and square it later +with the owner. + +For two days Norris, Ace and Ted caught fish, while Pedro dried them, and +Long Lester scoured the woods for game birds, rabbits,--anything and +everything he might find. Then came two strenuous days during which they +bore in the general direction of Red Top. + +Without warning, they came to a sheer ledge fringed with minarets, and +stared across a glacier-gouged canyon a mile wide. Progress in that +direction was effectually checked. They found themselves with a view of +such miles of snow-capped peaks that they stood speechless, with little +thrills running up and down their spines at the sheer beauty of the scene. + +To the right, the way was clear across a rock-strewn elevation where the +only trees were squat, twisted, with branches reaching along the ground +as if for additional foothold against the never-ceasing trade winds. +Again they were brought to a halt by a peak of granite blocks. + +"Do you know, fellows," said Norris, suddenly, "mountain-building is +still going on, under our very feet." + +"Is there going to be an earthquake?" gasped Pedro. + +"There are likely to be slight earthquake shocks any time in this region. +The last big 'quake, that caused any marked dislocation, was in 1872, +though, so we have nothing to worry about. But I'm going to be able to +show you some rock formations that will illustrate what I was telling you +the other day." + +"You mean," brightened Ace, "showing how these 14,000-foot peaks attained +their present height?--How there were two up-lifts?" + +"Yes, and we are standing, this very minute, on a basalt step that some +earthquake has faulted from the main basalt-capped mass. Just see how the +whole story is revealed right there in this gorge! You can see the +streaks of basalt, which we know lie in horizontal layers, and rest on +vertical strata of the Carboniferous and Triassic age." + +"Whoa--there!" groaned Long Lester. "Would you mind telling us that +again, in words of one syllable? I calc'late it must be a mighty +interesting yarn, from the hints you've let out now and ag'in, but how'n +tarnation----" + +"Yes," grinned Ted, "do tell it, Mr. Norris, so's Les and I can get it +too." + +"'Bout all I've got any strangle hold on," complained the old man, "so +fur, is thet these yere valleys was gouged out by the glaciers, a good +long spell ago. Now there's one thing I'm a-goin' to ask you, Mister, +before we go any further. What did you mean by that there--coal age?" + +"That," vouched Norris, "was when most of the coal was formed, away back +before man appeared on earth,--before there were any of the plants and +animals as we know them to-day. + +"Picture a time when the water was covered with green scum, and the air +was steamy, when the swampy forests were composed of giant ferns and club +mosses and inhabited by giant newts and salamanders, dragon-flies and +snakes." + +"How--how do you know all thet?" gasped Long Lester. + +"Partly by the fossils. It's a big study,--geology, we call it,--and the +scientists who reason these things out use what has been discovered by +astronomy and chemistry and a lot of other sciences. It's a long story." + +"But a _thriller_," Ace assured them, as Norris lighted his pipe on the +lee of a bowlder. "Can't we rest here a few minutes, Mr. Norris? Those +burros were about winded. Can't get 'em to budge yet. Come on, fellows, +snuggle up," as Norris seated himself compliantly, back against the +bowlder. They all crept close, for the wind was blowing hard. + +"Where did this earth come from in the first place?" asked Ted. + +"Well, of course you know that our sun is only one of millions of stars, +and very far from being the largest, at that. Some larger star, in +passing the sun, by the pull of its own greater gravity, separated some +large fragments from that fiery, gaseous mass, and started our planetary +system. We don't want to go too far into astronomy." + +"But astronomy shows you how they know all this," Ace assured the old +man, who appeared divided between wide-eyed amazement and incredulity, +(as, indeed, were Ted and Pedro). + +"Our earth, like the other planets, was one of the knots of denser matter +on the two-armed luminous spiral which began circling the sun. There were +smaller particles which were attracted to the earth by earth gravity and +which increased the size of the earth till it was far larger than it is +now. Ever since, the earth has been shrinking periodically, and when it +shrinks, its surface becomes wrinkled, and these wrinkles we call +mountain ranges." + +"Of course," interpolated Ace, shining eyed, "the crust of the earth got +cooled, while the inside was still a mass of molten metal and gas, which +kept boiling over on to the crust,--couldn't you say, Mr. Norris?" + +"You've got the idea." + +"I s'pose that's _the hot place!_" chuckled the old man. + +"Probably where they got the idea. In time the metals and heavier +substances sank, while the lighter ones rose as granite rocks, till there +was an outer shell miles thick. + +"The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, in Alaska, is a volcanic region where +the ground is hot and breaks through with one even now,--I was there +several years ago,--but generally speaking, this earth has a crust 150 +miles thick. + +"As I was saying, the continents are built of the lighter granite, +chiefly, while the oceans lie on the heavier basalt." + +"But I thought you said we were on a chunk of basalt now," said Ted. + +"We are. You know the Pacific has flowed where now you see these peaks, +as the high lands have been worn down between successive upbuildings." + +"But--where did the water in the ocean come from in the first place?" +marveled the old prospector. + +"Out of the earth," smiled Norris. "Up through hot springs, geysers and +volcanoes. The water vapor was always here, you know,--mixed with the +molten rock and gases." + +"I swan!" ejaculated the old guide. "I thought I knew something about +rocks, but--this beats anything in my kid's fairy books." + +"You bet!" Ace agreed. "You just wait till you hear----" + +"I expect we'd better start on now," Norris rose. "Do you chaps realize +what a predicament we are in?" and shading his eyes with a lowered hat +brim, he peered off across the hummocky granite slopes, which shone +mirror-like in places under the noon-day sun. + +A moving speck in the sky to the North drew an exclamation from him. In +another moment a sound that increased to a hum like that of a giant +motor-boat descended from the skies, and the speck disclosed itself as a +mammoth aeroplane. + +"Signal them!" cried Norris. "What can we signal them with? Get out your +pocket mirrors, quick!" + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +WITH THE AIR PATROL + + +"Signal them!" chorused the three boys, acting on Norris's suggestion, +(flashing their distress with their pocket mirrors), while Long Lester +stood measuring the flight of the aeroplane. + +His practiced eye also detected a faint bluish haze that rose behind the +ridge at the North,--a haze altogether unlike that which foretells a +storm. In fact, the sun glinting from the wings of the giant wings and +from the glacial-polished slopes beneath forbade that explanation. + +Like most backwoodsmen, the old prospector said the least when he felt +the most. His lean body suddenly grew tense. "It's a fire," he told +himself. "An everlastingly big one, too." + +"That's a DeHaviland," decided Ace, as the huge bombing-plane came +nearer. "Must be the Fire Patrol!" + +A moment more and the buzzing apparatus began sinking into a "pancake" +landing,--fortunately, just above the wide sweep of the granite butte. +Could it be engine trouble, Norris wondered, or had it seen their +signals? Lucky they were on an elevation. + +With the sound like a saw-mill in full blast, the great ship jolted to +terra firma, within shouting distance,--and hardly had she come to a full +stop than the boys had raced to her side. + +"I say!" exclaimed a familiar voice, as the observer climbed out. It was +Ranger Radcliffe! "Where did _you_ folks drop from?" + +Norris explained the marooned camping expedition. + +Radcliffe's face was lined with fatigue and anxiety. "Big fire off +there!" he motioned. "Been directing a hundred men. Broke out in three +places, all within twenty-four hours, and not even an electric storm to +account for it. Want to help?" And as the little party voiced unanimous +consent, he proceeded to draft them in, at the Government nine dollars +per day. + +He could have compelled their services, as he had that of a party of +campers down towards Kings' River. In a few words, his voice vibrating to +his high nervous tension, the young forest officer had them all thrilling +with patriotic fervor. + +"Now get your things," he directed. "May have to fight it for a week! You +can turn your burros out to forage for themselves, and I guess you'll +find them again when this is over. If you don't the Government will +probably square it with you." + +The chums swiftly retraced their steps to where the animals waited +patiently, removing the packs and sending the little donkeys down the +trail to better pasturage. They might wander, but they would be safe. +With their swift heels they could defend themselves from even a mountain +lion. And they were apt to keep to the mountain meadows, where was food +and water. + +Their run at such an altitude had given Pedro a touch of mountain +sickness, and he had to lie flat till his heart beat more normally and +his nose stopped bleeding. + +The big 'plane carried a relay of provisions for the fire fighters +already established, whom it had brought for the purpose from the Zuni +Mine. As corned beef and hardtack were distributed, the hungry campers +thought they had never tasted anything so good in their lives. Not even +the Thanksgiving turkeys of later years were ever spiced with such +appetites. + +This fire,--or rather, these three fires, so mysteriously concomitant, +the Ranger explained when the boys returned, had broken so far from any +ranch or work camp that they were hard pressed for men to fight it. + +"You fellows will have a mighty important part to play for the next few +days," he assured them, "or I miss my guess." + +"Hurray!" shouted Ace. "Three cheers for the U. S. Airplane Patrol!" For +he knew something of the work started at the close of the war. Following +regular daily routes, this patrol not only detects fires and follows up +campers or others who may have started them, (carelessly or otherwise), +but in times of emergency carries the fire leader from one strategic +point to another,--where as likely as not there are neither roads for him +to go in his machine, nor even horseback trails,--till he has shown the +volunteer firemen how to trench and back-fire. + +They needed some one, the Ranger said, to hold the top of the next +ridge,--between which and the boys lay that inaccessible canyon it would +have taken them days to have scaled afoot. By day they were merely to +watch for flying brands. Their chief work would come at night, when the +wind would turn and blow down canyon, and they might successfully +back-fire. + +The fire had started in two places on the opposite bank of the Kawa, and +in one place this side of the river, and was eating its way along the +slopes with the wind which swept them by day. It certainly looked like +the work of incendiaries. + +Ace begged permission to wireless for his little Spanish 'plane, in its +hangar in Burlingame, that it might be employed in some volunteer +capacity, and Radcliffe accepted his offer. + +The huge DeHaviland required all of the flat surface afforded by the +butte, for its preliminary run. They were off with a roar. As they glided +across to the flat-topped ridge on the other side of the canyon, they +could see the ravenous flames climbing tall pines and firs, racing from +limb to limb, through the forest roof, devouring the steeps, doubtless +richly coated with underbrush and down-wood. The roar and crackle of it +filled their ears sickeningly, as they thought of the naked mountainsides +that would be left,--mere skeletons of barkless tree trunks, where they +had camped on brown pine needles,--smooth, silent, inches deep, soft +under their tired feet, dry as tinder and aromatic with Nature's finest +perfume. + +How the devourer would relish the pitch and resin oozing from the juicy +bark! How secure it must feel, on those slopes never climbed by man, with +the autumn rains months away, and the fire fighters like so many ants +trying with axe and shovel to mark off on the hot forest floor a boundary +beyond which the fiery tongues must not lick. + +Had the wind not been in the other direction, they would have been +overwhelmed with the smoke that billowed darkly till it could have been +seen 50 miles away, the red sun scarcely lightening the gloom. Even where +they landed, an occasional hot breath scorched their faces and set their +eyes to smarting, while their winged ship nosed frantically up and away +again before she should meet Icarus' fate. + +"Some day," Radcliffe had told them that day at the rodeo, "the Forest +Service Air Patrol, which serves now to give warning of the tiniest +smoke, and so saves men and millions where every minute counts, will +fight with glass bombs of fire extinguisher, whose trajectory falling +from a 'plane in rapid flight will have to be calculated to a nicety, but +which, delivered while the fire is in its infancy, will do the work of +many men." + +The worst difficulty would be at night, when though the fire shows +plainer, the pilot would have to depend largely on his own sense of +equilibrium to tell him at what angle his ship was inclined. True, +acetylene gas lamps properly protected from the wind could be made to +light up the ground below when alighting, but at an altitude of even a +mile, little can be seen of the landscape to guide one on one's course. +The 2,000-foot firs of the Sierra slopes appear but as green-black +billows. + +As the great ship raced toward the flaming forest, their talk at the +barbecue raced through the mind of the Senator's son. "Some day," +Radcliffe had challenged them, "you want to see Glacier National Park, +with its ice-capped peaks and its precipices thousands of feet deep, its +glacier-fed lakes and Alpine scenery. And of course you must all see the +geysers of the Yellowstone, its petrified forests and mud volcanoes." + +"And bears?" Ted had laughed with a glance at Pedro. + +"Yes, all sorts of wild animals. And some time you want to explore the +cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde and the 14,000-foot peaks in Rocky Mountain +National Park. By that time you will be ready to go to Southern Alaska +and try Mt. McKinley, which is worth while not so much because it is the +highest mountain in North America, (Mt. Whitney is nearly as high), but +because it stands the highest above the surrounding country of any +mountain in the world. Mt. Whitney is just an easy climb above a sea of +surrounding peaks; you don't realize the height at all. + +"Then you know we have a National Park in Hawaii?--But Roosevelt,--or +Greater Sequoia Park,--is going to remain an unspoiled wilderness for a +good many years to come, with three great canyons larger than that of +Yosemite itself." + +"Kings' River and the Kern," Ace had agreed, "but what is the third?" + +"Tehipite." + +"Oh, of course." + +"We wanted to go over the John Muir Trail right along the crest of the +Sierras to Yosemite." + +"You've hundreds of miles of almost unexplored country! Enough vacation +places to last a lifetime! Rivers alive with trout! Bears! Cougars!" the +Ranger had commented. + +"And rattlers," Long Lester had added grimly. + +"And rattlers. And they're the only living thing we need fear." + +"Not excluding range cattle?" Pedro had wanted to be assured. + +"Not when you're all together. Of course if you were alone you might +break a leg or something that would leave you helpless, and you'd sure be +a long way from anything to eat unless you had it with you. + +"But unless we look alive the Big Interests are going to wrest away these +beauty spots that we have set aside for our National playgrounds," +Radcliffe had declared. + +"That's just what Dad says!" Ace had remembered. + +"And why? Not because they need the irrigation and water power of the big +falls, for they can have it after the streams leave the parks, but +because it would cost them a good deal less to secure these things of +Uncle Sam than it would to build their projects outside Park limits. +There isn't a beauty spot in the West that some commercial interest +hasn't designs on." + +"That's one thing I mean to fight!" Ace squared his chin as the +DeHaviland whisked them to their particular ridge, a table mountain, or +butte, where half a dozen recruits had already been landed with tools and +grub. + +"Sure seems as if these fires had been set," mused Long Lester, as +Radcliffe bade them good-by,--for he had to be in a dozen places at once, +that day. + +"But who did it?" demanded Ace fiercely. + +"No savvy dat kind feller," said a Canadian half breed, who was just +starting off with a pick. "'E's bad feller, dat!" + +"Sure is!" agreed Ace. "I don't savvy him either,--any one who would +deliberately burn--_that!_" with a wave of his arm toward the forested +gorge, up which already rose a noticeable heat. The red tongues, racing +through the spruce and cedar tops, shone through the smoke gloom, whence +issued a distant roaring which was the wind created by the super-heated +stretch of territory. + +To the left, a gleaming-eyed cougar crept through the shadows, himself a +shadow. To the right, a huge, furry looking shadow ran clumsily, +flat-footedly. A tiny shadow hopped from almost under their feet, and +above their heads flapped a small covey of lighter shadows. Writhing +above the dark tops of the doomed trees rose the yellow-gray smoke that +was their departing shades. + +The faces of the fire-fighters were grimly blackened with smoke and +grime, their shirts clung wet with perspiration to their swelling +muscles, and their dry throats clacked when they tried to swallow. + +"I'd sure like to find the fellow that started _that!_" muttered Ace. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A DARING FEAT + + +As sunset turned the wind down canyon, all hands made a sally down the +mountain side in the hope of establishing a line of back-fire, but the +ground soon became too hot for them, while the air was filled chokingly +with ash and char-dust. They had to retreat to the ridge. It was a night +never to be forgotten. + +When the wind turned at dawn,--with their line still intact,--the +exhausted party took turn and turn about, snatching a few hours' sleep, +wrapped in their blankets on the rocks, or making coffee. + +Ace had forgotten all about his wireless message when, shortly after +noon, his own ship arrived. It had had a search for him, and had landed, +apparently, on the very ledge of basalt where the DeHaviland had picked +them up. + +The beauty of the Spanish ship was that it was built to land on a space +no bigger than a house roof. It carried two propellers at the top. The +pilot had only to start these and it sucked itself straight up into the +air. Then he twirled the propeller on the front and sailed away, as +easily as you please. + +He landed by reversing these operations. He could alight on a shed roof +if he had to, (provided, of course, that the roof was flat). The only +danger would be if the propellers should go on strike. + +"I've been getting a wireless message," said the pilot. "There! Better +take it, Mr. King," to Ace. + +Ace's eyes grew dark as he interpreted the frantic ticking that his +apparatus gave him. "Why--_Rosa's_ sending this!--She's marooned--there +at the Red Top fire-outlook!--'Fire on three sides, on fourth, rapids of +Kawa River Gorge. Send help--if you can,'" he translated, while the boys +waited, breathless. "Three men where first-fire started--silver +buttons--shining in the sun." + +"That sounds like Mexicans!" said Pedro. + +"Now what?" asked Norris. "Where's the Ranger, do you suppose?" But just +then he saw a flaming branch blown across their line. Like tinder the +dried firs burst into a shower of sparks, and with a call to the men, he +darted after it. Ace remained behind to wireless, and Ted to quench their +cook-fire, while Ace's pilot flung off his coat and ran after the fire +fighters. + +Ace King did one thing supremely well. He knew his ship. He was born to +fly. + +"Hey, Ted," he brought a certain line of reasoning to a head, "the Ranger +can't _land_ with that DeHaviland, if he does go after Rosa. You know the +layout on Red Top." (The boys had passed that way.) + +"Yeh,--Caesar!--That's right. No place there half large enough for the +bombing-plane!--That poor kid!" He shuddered. "What's the answer?" for he +saw that Ace had some plan. "I'm with you!" + +"Just this. We can't leave her there to be burned alive. Radcliffe can't +do any more than we can about it. Besides, he's got his hands full, +wherever he is. But a forest guard was _killed_ last year directing fire +fighters from a plane. Went into a tail spin and fell into the flames." + +"I know. It's mighty dangerous flying over a fire. Isn't there anything +Rosa can do?" + +"That's just what----" Ace hesitated, deep in thought. + +"I've heard of people taking refuge in caves, but where would she find +the cave?--'N' I've heard of 'em going to a rock-slide and piling up a +barricade of stone and lying behind it while the fire swept that way. It +cuts off some of the heat and flying sparks----" + +"Look here!" Ace vociferated with the suddenness of a machine gun. "I'm +going for her." + +"What----!" + +"Yes, sir! I can land there, anyway. Then if it queers the machine, I'll +take Rosa down to the rapids. I know a fellow that was in a big fire in +Montana. When it cut them off, each man soaked his blanket and got under +it in midstream while the fire jumped to the other bank. They made a sort +of tepee around their heads, got clear under water, and just came up for +an occasional breath. Gee! He says it roared like a thousand trains as +it swept over them. So that's what we'll do--that is, unless we can get +back in the ship." + +Unconsciously he patted his machine, and Ted knew what it would mean to +him to lose it. + +"Perhaps--perhaps you _can_ bring it back," he ventured. + +"Sure thing!" Ace gave his spirits a toss. "Anyway, here goes!--Good-by." + +"What's the idea?" yelled Ted aggrievedly. "Going to leave your side-kick +behind?" and he climbed into the observer's place. + +"Coming!" Ace wirelessed the girl. "Be on meadow--we'll pick you up." + +"If our propellers don't go on strike," he added to himself. Still he +knew he could slow to 80 miles an hour and pancake down. He would first +circle well away from the fire, with its super-heated air column, till +they came to the gorge of the Kawa. There would be a narrow zone, he +figured, of less destructive atmosphere, the air channel over the +2,000-foot canyon. + +With a peek at castor oil and gasoline, they started, looping and curving +straight to 15,000 feet, then Westward, away from the fire zone. Though +the day was fair, the spiral of hot air rising above the flaming forest +kept them pitching and lurching in a short chop that made Ted look green, +and gave even Ace a cold feeling at the pit of his stomach. + +The sea of snow-clad peaks slid by beneath them, the sun flashing from +the granite slopes. Rising and falling, rising and falling in the rough, +upper air, they felt as if they were in a swift elevator. A cloud to the +West looked like a fleecy carpet beneath them. The West wind kept +swinging the machine till Ace had continually to bring it back in line +with the rapids of the Kawa which was his objective point. + +It took but instants, though it seemed ages to both boys. Now it was time +to race quivering down the gorge of canyon-cooled air. Would they make +it against the devastating breath of the flames!--Now they were looking +straight down into that picture of red and--black. Rosa, watching +frantically from the wee patch of green which was her mountain meadow, +looked like a dot with waving arms. The air became a stretch of dizzy +rapids. The combined roar of the flames and the river beneath nearly +drowned the nearer sound of the descending 'plane. + +[Illustration: Raced quivering down the gorge of canyon-cooled air.] + +With heart that fluttered near to bursting, Ace accomplished the quick +swoop, Ted snatched the girl aboard, and they were up again. + +The miracle had been accomplished!--The mountains lay like a relief map +beneath them, greenest down the canyons that branches Westward from the +gleaming crest of the main divide, the snow-capped peaks gleaming silver +in the sunlight. The fire zone lay like a small inferno behind them. + +Back at fire-fighting headquarters, Ace's nerves took toll of him in +trembling knees. He had been all steel. Now he literally dropped in his +tracks, and in ten minutes was fast asleep. + +Rosa, now that the danger was all over, broke down and wept hysterically, +to Ted's infinite embarrassment. + +Norris was just returning with the triumphant fire-fighters. They had +actually not missed them. When, four hours later, Ace awoke and responded +to Pedro's "Come and get it!" as he ladled out the ham and beans, he +found himself a hero, and Ted his press agent. + +"This country would do well to emulate France," Norris was explaining. +"France offers a government subsidy to encourage commercial aviation. Our +Congress has thus far refused to realize the need of appropriations. For +it is by trade that aviation will develop. + +"We need above all things more airplane fire patrols. We have the men, +trained aviators left from the war,--we have the equipment, and the men +could protect not only our National Forests, but at the same time keep a +watchful eye on the millions of acres of state lands and timber privately +owned, which lie adjacent to Government holdings. + +"Do you fellows realize that in five years, areas have been burned that +would more than fill the state of Utah! At that rate how long will our +forests last? And think what a paper famine alone would mean!" He paused +for lack of breath to express the intensity of his feeling. + +"Hundreds of men have given up their lives in the service,--fighting +fire." + +"Yes," said Ace, "but Dad says there's a bigger fight to put up in +Congress for forestry appropriations." + +"Your father is doing good work," stated Norris. + +"He's trying to, you bet!" + +"These fire-fighting 'planes can sail over the highest peaks in the +United States. They can travel 14 hours without a landing. They can +communicate with those below by radio. And they don't have to have smooth +landing places, merely ground that is free from stumps. We have over +twenty million acres of National Forests alone, (not counting those in +Alaska), and they are worth $220,000,000." + +"Gee! And there's just as much risk as in dodging enemy 'planes," Ted +enthused, "flying over fires, and finding landing places when your motor +goes on strike." His eyes glowed across at Ace. + +"Huh, you're safe enough above a thousand feet," minimized Ace, modestly. +"These accidents practically all happen below a thousand feet." + +But by now supper was eaten, and it was time to get back to work. Norris, +acting on Radcliffe's suggestion, had been stationing the men at +intervals to back-fire as far down the ridge as they could stand the +heat. If anything, the fire seemed bigger than it had the night +before,--a maelstrom of the inferno. + +They worked in pairs, Ace being his, Norris's, right hand man. He now +assorted the six miners along the slope, planning himself to take the +extreme Western post, where the ridge ran lowest and where the rocky +crest dwindled to a dangerous line of mountain pines. + +Ted and Pedro he directed to the opposite end of the ridge, where, like +the tooth of a comb, it joined the main crest of the Sierra,--another +strategic point. + +"If worst comes to worst," his final words were, "take refuge in some +cave. This is a limestone region,--as you may have noticed,--and it's +likely riddled with caves. Keep an eye out for indications of cave +mouths. I saw one yesterday, somewhere down there, when I didn't have +time to investigate." + +"All right," acquiesced the boys, though inwardly scorning the +possibility. + +Rosa remained at camp to have food ready for the men on their return. + +She began by taking stock. There was flour and lard, but no bread. She +would have to bake for eleven hungry men. There were rice, beans, onions +and tomatoes, dried fruits and coffee, and fresh meat for one meal, and +for the next, erbwurst and pickles, macaroni to be baked with cheese, and +tea. She hoped--for more reasons than one--that the Ranger would bring +more supplies. She got out the Dutch oven and the gallon coffee pot, and +with the hatchet provided with the outfit, started getting in a supply of +down-wood. + +As on the day of the rodeo, she was attired in trim khaki riding breeches +and high-heeled moccasin boots,--good on horseback but mighty hard to +walk in, where the ground was rough. Her bobbed curly hair, red silk +blouse and fringed sash added a touch of the Rosa that underlay her +gritty side. She would surprise Radcliffe with her ability to cook for a +fire crew. + +The huge loaf safely ensconced in a Dutch oven buried in red coals, she +sallied forth on a little exploring expedition. She wished she might find +some fir sugar to cap the feast. She had, once, when camping in the +Thompson River Valley. She had found the delectable sweet on a Douglas +fir. Some of the dry white masses had been all of two inches long, though +most of it had been in the form of mere white drops at the tips of the +needles. There had also been a quantity of it in a semi-liquid condition +on the ground underneath the tree, where some rain had dissolved it from +the branches. + +Just where should she search? The Indians had told her that time to look +on the dry Eastern slopes of the range, in open areas where the trees got +lots of sunlight, but where the ground has not dried out too quickly +after the spring rains, as moisture is necessary as well as +sunlight,--(so long as it does not rain and melt off this excess of the +tree's digested starch). She had a hunch that she could find some on the +desert side of the Sierras, that being, of course, unattainable--unless +Ace could take her over in his 'plane. It would do no harm to look on +this side. + +Neither did it do any good. She returned to camp empty-handed save for +some cones of the sugar pine, which she proceeded to roast that the nuts +might fall out of the spiny masses. + +She found the deserted camp over-run with chipmunks. The little striped +rascals had ravaged all the food supplies they could nibble into. She +watched a couple of them actually shoving on the tin lid that she had +left insecurely loose on the syrup can. Finally sending it clattering to +the stony ground,--as she watched from behind two trees that grew close +together,--the wee things sat up there on the edge of the can, dipping +out its contents with their hand-like paws and licking them. Then one +tried to reach down and drink it outright, at which he fell in, and Rosa +felt impelled to fish him out and launder him,--to his terror,--before +turning him loose, then put the syrup on the fire to sterilize. + +Meantime what of the fire fighters? Ted and Pedro, with their pick and +shovel, had descended rapidly into that deathly silence of the doomed +forest slopes, deserted alike by song birds and chipmunks, the hum of +insects and sound of any living thing, save alone the never-ceasing roar +of the ravenous flames. + +The fire had been eating slowly through a stretch of manzanita chaparral, +whose hard stems resisted them as the evergreens could not. Though the +wind still blew up-canyon, they approached the river gorge at right +angles, and were able to make their way to the lower levels in the +shelter of the East side of a dry creek bed, where the hot blast could +not reach them. + +They were stooping to drink at a spring when the terrified neigh of a +horse sounded from a clump of saplings almost behind them. In the same +instant the stretch of seedling firs that clothed the creek bank, +showering into sparks at the far end, shot toward them sky rockets of +leaping flame. Turning in a panic to race out at right angles from this +unexpected peril, they thought to make time on horseback. The animal +was tied and hobbled with a rawhide lariat! + +Frantically the hobbled horse jerked at the rawhide. + +Pedro plucked Ted by the arm and tried to drag him on, for the fire was +snapping through the underbrush at the speed of an express train. Its +sound was that of many trains, and its wind hot as the breath of a blast +furnace. + +But as Ted had stooped to cut the thongs, his parched nostrils had caught +a cooler breath. It seemed to issue from a cranny in the rocks behind the +clump of saplings. Then it was too late: The shooting tongues of red were +upon them. Dragging Pedro down beside him,--for the roar drowned his +voice,--he waited, reasoning that the two- or three-foot seedlings would +go like tinder, leaving a strip of ground hot, to be sure, but no longer +flaming. + +If they could but endure its passing! He turned to press his scorched +face against the rock wall. + +To his amazement, he fell into a cave mouth, tripping Pedro, who stumbled +after him. Quick as thought they dragged the horse in after them and held +him, trembling and snorting, his eyes rolling wildly, during that +blistering moment until the line of fire had passed them. + +"We're safer now than before," declared Ted. "This made a fine back-fire, +didn't it?--Let's rest awhile." His nerves were taking toll of him. +"Ground's too _hot yet_ anyway." + +For perhaps an hour they rested, flat on the floor of the cave,--after +having tied the horse to a bowlder just outside. He was a fine animal, +black as jet and as high-spirited as Spitfire himself. Ted appraised him +with longing eyes, for he loved horses as Ace loved his ship. But who +could he belong to, and how did he come to be there? + +His bridle was embellished with silver. "Mexican handiwork, that!" Pedro +thought. But the mystery was no nearer solution. + +The answer came sooner than they expected. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE INCENDIARIES + + +The red glow of the sun on the snow-clad peaks of the main ridge had +begun glinting through the smoke gloom when voices seemed to echo from +within the very rock against which they were leaning. The boys crept to +look behind it. Then their eyes rounded in astonishment. As Ted would +have spoken, Pedro clapped his hand over his mouth with a look that bade +silence. Crouched motionless at the side of the cave mouth,--for a deep +cave it now disclosed itself,--the two boys peered at the spectacle that +greeted their eyes. + +Three Mexicans, aglitter with the silver buttons of their native costume, +appeared suddenly from some black depth, carrying torches. + +With these one of their number kindled a bon-fire, whose flame revealed a +couple of burros standing patiently under their packs, tied to a mammoth +stalagmite. For the red flare behind the three figures of the Mexicans, +showed a cave roofed with amber-tinted icicles of smoke-stained rock, +beneath which up-rose for each a pyramid of the same formation. + +The Mexicans might have been father and son and old servant, from their +general appearance and from the fact that most of the work of +supper-getting was performed by the shabby, white-haired one, while the +fat middle-aged one struck the younger a blow that was not reciprocated. +They were talking in a tongue that Ted could not translate, though from +the peppery tone of it, he judged they were quarreling. Pedro assured him +later they were not. (He knew Mexican.) They were merely regretting that +their horse had been burned. + +The fat one, evidently too fagged to move, was demanding that one of the +others go see for sure, while they argued that it was no use, the animal +could not have survived. They must have been exhausted, lame, besides, to +judge from the creaky way they moved. The fat one poured some verbal +vitriol on their heads for not having brought the horse inside, while the +white haired one deprecated that they had not intended to be gone so long. + +"It's the fat one's, and now he'll have to hoof it like the others; he'd +sure break the back of a burro," translated Pedro in huge enjoyment, to +his mystified companion. "Wonder if they're the fire bugs Rosa saw?" + +"Let's listen and find out," said Ted. + +As the blaze by which they dried their mysteriously muddy feet died down +to red coals, from the pack of one of the burros the old peon extracted +some ready-made tamales and proceeded to add the heat of cooking to the +hotter peppers within their enwrapping corn husks. This fiery mixture +they quenched from a round-bellied bottle passed from lip to lip, though +the fat one took his first and longest. + +"They're the fire bugs, all right," said Pedro softly into Ted's ear. And +it was agreed that they might safely creep in along the shadows till +Pedro could hear more plainly. + +Sanchez was the name of the fat leader, and his son and his servant the +others proved to be. They had, it developed, a grouch against the lumber +company down on the Kawa, (in which, as it happened, Ace's father had an +interest). They had been fired from the crew, and no punishment was too +great for a company that would do that to a workman who merely asked his +accustomed afternoon siesta. + +"_Detestablemente!_" (And other remarks that sounded like fireworks.) +The pigs of _Americanoes!_ Pedro convulsed Ted with his recital when they +had crept back to the cave mouth, despite the seriousness of the +situation. + +That they would start more fires at their first opportunity had also been +established by their conversation. + +"We can't let 'em go," argued the ranch boy. + +"We can't capture them," the Castilian was as positive. "We are unarmed, +and they have their daggers." + +Ted pondered, peered out at the still, smoking ground, soothed the +nervous horse, then came to a conclusion, which he unfolded to his +comrade. + +He must go for help. He would ride that horse, find Norris, get Ace to +wireless Radcliffe, and summon help. But--he eyed Pedro doubtfully, +knowing his uncourageous bearing at the rodeo. + +"But what?" insisted the Spanish boy. But had he not guessed it! Of +course he would remain behind to keep track of the desperadoes. + +But how could Ted start with the ground so hot? He would have to wait +awhile, then make up for lost time by break-neck riding. + +So be it. They were hungry now, and ate the ration of tinned corned beef +and hardtack from their pockets. Ted also fed the horse some hardtack, +and brought him several hatfuls of water from the spring,--scorching his +soles as he crossed the charred ground. + +Pedro propped his tired body in a sitting posture with one ear cocked for +the conversation within. Ted flung himself flat on his back in the smoky +gloom, which obscured even the light of the moon. He was mentally +exploring that cave,--remembering what Norris had once told them of the +region and wondering into what limed recesses the Mexicans were likely to +retire when capture threatened. That the cave had its depths he felt +assured by their having so suddenly appeared with their torches. And what +could Pedro do if they tried to leave before help came?--My, but he must +ride! Three such incendiaries loose in those dry forests, and there would +be no end to the harm they could do! + +The limestone of which these caves were formed,--sediment of the shells +of myriads of sea creatures,--had been deposited in the primeval ocean +that once flowed over that whole region from the Gulf of California. +Uplifted by contractions of the earth crust, it had been cut as the +surrounding granite could not have been by the percolating rains and +streams, flowing along the cracks of the uplift. + +This cave was probably a network of water-worn passageways extending no +telling how far underneath the ridge. There were reputed to be caves +almost as large as Mammoth in these unexplored recesses of the Southern +Sierras. Could this be one of them, or was it just a two- or three-cavern +affair, he wondered? On that depended a very great deal of their success +in the coming capture, for once entrenched within these labyrinthian +caves, the Mexicans could hold them at bay until they had made good their +get-away. It had been so, he had been told by military men, in chasing +Mexicans over the border. + +Perhaps there were other caves in the region. Where, indeed, had these +men secreted themselves while the fire had raged in a semi-circle about +them? In a cave, the air would be damp and cool, no matter what was going +on outside, and they could have been genuinely comfortable with the +inferno raging over their very heads. Unless, of course, the smoke +suffocated them! That would all depend on the air passages that fed their +particular cavern. Some of those caves across the Mexican border were +miles in extent, and had exits galore. + +Pondering the pendant stalactites that had gleamed like onyx in the +firelight, he pictured the water percolating drop by drop through the +limestone crevices, dissolving the lime and forming the stalactites a +drop at a time through the years. How wonderful it was! He wished he too +might study. Perhaps, if he could make a go of his mother's fruit +ranch?--He was half asleep. He roused himself by trying to recall what it +was that Norris had told them about stalactites. + +The rain water, charged with the carbonic acid gas of the atmosphere, +seeps in from the surface and falls drop by drop. Each slow drop remains +long enough upon the ceiling to deposit some of its dissolved lime in a +ring to which the next succeeding drop adds another layer. + +In time this ring lengthens into a pipe-stem of soft lime. It fills and +crystallizes, thickens and elongates, as the constant drip, evaporating +from the outside, deposits more and more of the lime. Thus these stone +icicles are formed, sometimes an inch a year. + +At the same time the drops that fall to the floor, solidifying one at a +time, build up a slender pyramid beneath,--a stalagmite,--which reaches +higher and higher as its stalactite hangs lower and lower. In time these +two formations meet in a slender pillar, the pillar thickens through the +same slow process and if the pillars stand close enough together,--as +where the drip follows a long rock fissure,--the pillars will eventually +join in a solid partition. + +This _dripstone_, as the material of the formation is termed, began as +soft carbonate of lime; it hardens into _gypsum_ or, sometimes, +alabaster, or calcite. + +The boy peered once more into the carved gallery, waiting till an +up-flare of the dying fire again illumined the fantastic ceiling, whose +fairy architecture gleamed opalescent in the orange glow. He thought of +the old fairy tales of gnomes hammering on their golden anvils in their +jeweled caves in the hearts of the mountains, and wondered if such lore +had not arisen from the fact of just such cave formations, coupled with +the echoes the slightest sound set to reverberating. After all, most folk +tales had some foundation. + +Once these Mexicans were captured and the forest fire brought under +control, he meant to ask Norris if their camping expedition might not +include an exploration of some of the caves he had assured them +honeycombed this part of the Sierra. + +He little dreamed in what fantastic fashion his wish was to come about, +as he lay there waiting till he could start his ride for help! + +Nor did Pedro, drowsing, exhausted, beside him, dream of the test that +was to be made of his courage while he remained behind. He seemed so +fagged that Ted did not even wake him, when at last he deemed it time to +sally forth. + +Ted loved nothing better than a good horse. + +The plainsman, he used to argue, may have his twin six, the airman his +ship, but for the outdoor man, give him the comrade who can take the +mountain trails, the needle carpeted forest floor, the unbridged streams, +the glacier polished slopes. + +The black horse wore the high Visalia saddle, against which his rider +could rest on steep grades. It would be more dangerous, should the animal +throw him, though of course the high horn would help him to pull leather +should need arise. He had lengthened the stirrups, Western fashion, till +his long legs dangled easily and he could have raised himself scarce an +inch above the saddle by standing in his stirrups. His long, lean legs +would give him a good hold where the going was rough, and if he had only +a quirt, or even a pair of drop-shank spurs, he would have felt confident +of making time. (For he knew how to use the spurs so that they would not +torture his animal.) He regretted that the mysterious owner had not +fitted the poor brute with the old spade bit, for should the horse fall, +on the uneven ground, it would be likely to cut his mouth badly. He had +once seen an animal bleed to death from such a hurt. Well, they must not +fall! + +Mechanically he opened the reins, as was his habit:--His own horse had +been trained to hitch to the ground, and all he had to do when he +dismounted in a hurry was to drop rein. He was glad to find that the +saddle was rim fire, (or double-rigged), as it would stay in place, no +matter what acrobatics they might be forced to perform. So far, so good! + +With right hand on the saddle horn, left grasping rein and mane, he swung +up, and before ever he touched leather, they were off. + +Would his mount prove broncho? Had his probably Mexican owner uglied his +disposition? That remained to be discovered. And on that detail would +depend much of the success of his race for help. For with Norris at the +far end of the ridge, there would be several hours of tough going, he +surmised. + +"Yes, sir, you shore gotta _slope_ some!" he told the mustang, in +imitation of the cowmen. "Or those Greasers will just naturally fade out +of the landscape." + +As the night wind blew the smoke down canyon, he could very nearly tell +his way, and the time as well, by the stars. Being early in July, he knew +that in the constellation of Hercules, almost directly above, the hero's +head pointed South. It was something Norris had told them one night when +they had to travel late to find a fit camping spot. The crest of the +ridge lay South, and along the crest he should find more open going. He +would then have to veer to the West. As Venus rose brilliantly in the +East, he knew he had now about two hours and a half till sunrise. + +Breasting the wind, he headed around the twisting stems of unyielding +manzanita, then up, straight South, over slide rock and fallen tree +trunks, turning aside for only the larger bowlders. The mountain-bred +horse was lithe as a greyhound, as he alternately climbed and slid, or +made wide leaps over the uneven slope. + +The ridge attained, however, he found it harder going than he had +imagined, by reason of the broken shale, weathered by the frost of +unnumbered winters. But just on the other side,--that furthest from the +fire zone,--stretched a smooth granite slope, where the going would be +unobstructed. But these smooth slopes, bed of that prehistoric river of +ice, slanted slowly but surely to the cascading mountain stream whose +roar now assailed his ears. One slip on that smooth surface and his horse +would never stop till he had reached the rapids! The boy wondered if the +animal were sufficiently sure-footed. The answer would mean, at the very +least, the difference between a broken leg and a sound one, for the boy +speeding to secure help in the capture of the fire bugs. But there seemed +a fighting chance, and he would take it. + +At intervals the granite was blocked out by cracks, and he found the +slight unevenness of a crack lent his mount a surer footing. At times it +was fairly level and he ventured a gallop; again it was precarious even +at a walk. + +Suddenly a monotonous "chick-chick-chick" buzzed beneath their feet. The +horse leapt violently to one side,--just in time to evade the coiled +spring of four feet of green-black rattlesnake, on whose sinister form he +had all but trod. By that instant leap he had avoided the speedy death of +the injected virus of the stroke. Ted's heart was in his mouth. + +On--on--on he urged the black. It became mechanical; he ceased to think. +Exhausted alike by his long vigil and the strain he had been under, he +now sat his horse in a daze, just keeping his nose generally Westward, +while he skirted the crest of the ridge. He felt half numb as he rounded +the end of the crest where Norris was to have been stationed. To his +stupefaction, the fire fighters had completed their trench and gone! + +Where could they be? Probably back at the camp, which he had skirted by +this detour, never dreaming he would find any one but Rosa there. +Well,--he was "outa luck!" Back he went the way he had come, till he +thought it time to climb the ridge. A flare of cook-fire through the +graying dawn showed him where to head, and the huge sun was just slipping +blood-red through the smoke gloom as he took the last log at a leap and +dropped off beside the moving figures. + +The men were all there,--as was Ranger Radcliffe, whom the DeHaviland had +evidently returned with fresh supplies. It took but few words to acquaint +them with the situation. + +By the time Ted had drank a quart of coffee with his breakfast, he was +able to pull himself together again and lead the posse to the hidden +cave mouth. The Ranger would have to be the one to go, to make the +arrest, and he deputized Ace to help him. That meant leaving Norris to +head the firemen. (It never occurred to any of them that they would not +be right back with Pedro and the Mexicans. The foam-flecked horse Ted +left to Rosa's care.) + +The cave mouth accomplished, Radcliffe entered first, with revolver +cocked, though Ace almost trod on his heels. Ted staggered after with a +flaming pine knot flickering in his almost nerveless hand. + +The cavern was absolutely empty! + +To Pedro, left in the cave mouth to watch the Mexicans, the night had +been the crucial test. + +He had been asleep when Ted departed, while the Mexicans had slept within +the cave. He awoke to find the three dark visages bending over him, their +verbal fireworks hissing about his ears. At first "caballo" was all he +could make of it,--(the horse). Then as Sanchez the stout, soared +rhetorically above the others, he gathered that they dared not leave him +and they could not carry him. "El Diablo!" How much simpler to thrust a +dagger between his ribs. "Muerte!--Presto!" But no, wait! For the time +being he would walk between them carrying two extra torches. There must +be another exit to the cave, but could the burros make it with the packs? +Try it they must, for this way their choice lay between the fire fighters +and the flames. The doomed forest still glowed red and black down canyon, +and with the morning light, the wind veered till the smoke assailed them +chokingly. There was no time to be lost. + +Never for an instant dreaming that Pedro understood, they gave him the +torches he was to bear, and started into the depths of the cavern. And +the boy? Too frightened at first to have spoken had he tried to, he had +the wit to see that protest would be useless. They were three to one, +armed, and desperate, and they counted him a likely witness to their +incendiarism. + +Besides, now that the wind had changed, he could not have gone ten paces +without having been blinded by the smoke till he could not see where he +was heading. This side of the canyon was going to go like tinder, too. +Besides,--this came later,--how could he allow the fire bugs to get away? +His job was to keep tabs on them, and that he would now have an +exceptional opportunity to do, he cheered himself. + +At first the flare of the torches revealed merely the cavern of onyx +stalactites he had seen the night before. This formation wound in a +narrowing labyrinth until they made a sharp turn to the left. Presently +they came to a pit of inky water, around which they had to skirt on a +sloping shelf. The burros could not make it and they left them there. +Either, Pedro argued, they meant to return that way or else they had +other supplies awaiting them. But now they could no longer smell the +smoke. From somewhere came pure air, damp and refreshingly chilly. The +sounds of the outer world were cut off completely. On and on they +wandered as in a dream. Pedro began surreptitiously pinching himself to +make sure he was not having some weird nightmare. + +They came to a grotto that might have been brown marble, whose curious +carvings he had no time to study. From this they had to crawl on hands +and knees through an opening into another twisting passageway, floored +with muddy water and barely high enough for them to stand erect. Their +voices echoed and reechoed. Then came arches of stalactites almost +meeting the stalagmites beneath them, through which they edged their way +as through a frozen forest. + +This opened into a vast cavern hung as with icicles of alabaster, which +their torch light warmed to onyx. + +"If these fellows weren't so free with their knives," Pedro told himself, +"it would be an adventure worth having. But they certainly have too much +dynamite in their dispositions to suit me,"--for the Mexicans were now +quarreling among themselves. The boy and the old man were for turning +back before they lost themselves,--for at every turn there were branching +ways. + +But Sanchez, the heavy-handed, was for going on,--and on they went, +shivering in the unaccustomed chill. + +Pedro wondered what the rescue party would do when they found them gone. +If only he could leave some sign of his whereabouts! Could he drop his +handkerchief at one turning of the ways, his hat at another, without +detection? Or was it already too late? Why had he not thought of that +before?--Tucking one torch into the crook of the other elbow for a +moment, he dropped his bandanna as again they took the left-hand of two +turns. + +But now their little flare of light revealed a blind passageway. The +water-worn rock had been hollowed out by some eddying pool, no doubt, +while the main stream had flown on past. How he wished he knew more of +cave formations! Should he find opportunity to escape, how would he ever +find his way out again? + +Retracing their steps, they took the right hand turn. Here was another +high roofed vault,--he could not see how high, he could only guess from +the reverberation of their voices,--whose stalactites had become great +pillars that gleamed yellowly. The floor sloped toward them till they had +stiff climbing. On one wall was a limestone formation like a frozen +cataract. And thrust into the wall beside it he saw a torch stick. Who +had left it there, and what ages ago, he wondered? In this cavern some of +the stalactites hung as huge as tree trunks, and had not Sanchez bade the +others keep an extra eye on him, the lad might easily have hid behind one. + +Some of these huge pillars were cracked with age, and again the thought +occurred to him that if only he might insert himself into one of the +cracks,--a few were all of a foot in width,--he could easily escape +detection in that uncertain light. But now he was under surveillance +every instant. Besides, (tardy thought), was he not pledged to keep an +eye on the villains? He smiled through his fears at the recollection that +they, not he, were captive. + +Meantime Ace and Radcliffe, (leaving Ted to sleep off his exhaustion in +the cave mouth), were examining the onyx cavern and the ground outside +for some sign as to what had happened, and which way Pedro and the +Mexicans had gone. Radcliffe had his electric flash, and at the turn of +the winding passageway discovered scratches on the sandstone floor where +the burros had left hoof marks. But had they taken the turn to the right +or that to the left? There were hoof prints both going and coming, in +each passageway. Which had been made the more recently? They could not +tell. + +Ace hoped that the Ranger would propose each following a different +direction, but instead, Radcliffe remarked that they ought to have +brought a ball of twine to unwind as they went, as people had been known +to get lost in unknown caves, and stay lost for days. The best +alternative was to make a rough map of their turnings in his note-book. + +They advanced along the right hand passageway, whose breath seemed like +that of another world from that of the parched mountain side,--cool and +moist and wonderfully exhilarating. Had it not been for his uneasiness as +to Pedro's whereabouts, Ace would have enjoyed this expedition into the +unexplored. His was a nature that craved the tang of adventure, even more +than most. It was one of the things that had led him to take up geology, +for in the U. S. Geological Survey his life would lead him, likely, to +far places. + +He wished, though, that Ted were with them. A good pal certainly doubles +one's enjoyments. + +They had gone what seemed like miles, (though cave miles are deceptive, +so completely is one cut off from space and time), bearing always to the +right, when Radcliffe's light suddenly burned out, leaving them in +primeval darkness. At first breath they tried to laugh at their +predicament, then the utter blackness seemed to press upon them till it +suffocated, and Ace suppressed a sudden desire to scream. His panic +moment was dissipated by Radcliffe's discovery of a bit of candle. Ace +had, of course, that most important part of a camper's equipment, a +waterproof match-box, linked to his belt, and in it a few matches. But +even then it meant going back the way they had come, for without a good +light they could do nothing. Perhaps it was just as well, for they were +bound on no hour's adventure, and should have brought food as well. How +Radcliffe wished he had his acetylene lamp! + +To their surprise they found Norris at the cave mouth trying to arrange +his coat under the sleeping Ted. And around him lay the coiled lariat he +had taken from the saddle-horn of Ted's recent mount, also three +canteens, some cooked food, and a supply of hard candles from the fire +crew supplies. There were also the boys' sweaters,--Radcliffe, of course, +had his woolen uniform,--and to cap the climax, a ball of twine and the +Ranger's pet lamp, with its tin of carbide powder. + +To their amazed query Norris explained that he had explored dozens of +caves in his time, including some hundreds of miles of that honeycomb +formation that underlies a portion of Kentucky, to say nothing of the +caverns of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, the Black Hills of South +Dakota, and the Ozarks. Of the caves of California, however, he as yet +knew nothing. + +Had he not been needed to head the fire crew, he would have loved nothing +better than to have gone with them. + +"I knew this was a cave region," he told them as they ate and refreshed +themselves before going back into the black depths--for they had been +gone several hours, it seemed. "Fissured limestone--I noticed it +yesterday when we were down here trying to back-fire. Then what feeds the +Kawa? Not these little flood creeks that dry up almost before the spring +floods are over. Where does all that snow water go to? Some underground +passageway, of course. It seeps through the porous rock to subterranean +channels. By the way, I see there are tracks of muddy feet inside here, +and _your_ feet are dry! The mud must have been left by the Mexicans." + +"That's a fact!" exclaimed Radcliffe. "Ace, did you notice any mud along +that passageway? Then we surely took the wrong turn." + +"Not necessarily," said Norris. "They might have _come_ from some muddy +cavern, but gone back another way. However, I was going to give you a +little idea of the probable layout of a cave. This one, if--as I +suspect--it feeds the Kawa--likely descends to other levels, till the +lowest one is very nearly on that of the river. Seeping through, here and +there, the rains and melting snows probably collect into a stream." + +"Wish you could go with us, old chap," said the Ranger. "But----" + +"You'll get along all right, with these things," sighed Norris, "and if +you don't show up again within a few hours, we'll follow your twine," and +he tied one end of the cord ball to a manzanita bush, handing the ball to +Ace. At that moment Ted awoke and insisted that he join them. Norris +reluctantly returned to the fire crew. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE CAVE + + +Electing the turn to the left, Radcliffe led the way with his carbide +lamp. Ace and Ted followed with their candles. + +This time their choice was quickly verified by the discovery of the +burros, standing patiently with their packs before the pool. (That +accounted for the muddy footprints.) Skirting this on the shelving ledge +as had Pedro and the Mexicans, they traversed the winding passageway that +led to the grotto of brown cauliflower-like encrustations. But here, when +they found that the left-hand passageway meant going on hands and knees, +they chose the other turn. (They came that near to catching up with the +fugitives!) + +With the suddenness of events in a dream, they came into a vast chamber +that at first glimpse, lighted as it was by the carbide lamp, gave the +impression of a baronial ruin. The boys whistled simultaneously under +their breath. At the far end stood a huge stone elephant,--or so it +appeared at the first startled glance,--and beside him a gnome and +several weird beasts vaguely reminiscent of the monsters of prehistoric +times. + +When Ted could speak, he whispered, "What are they? Fossils?" + +Ace laughed. "I should say not. They're nothing but dripstone, can't you +see?--They'd be 'some fossils'! Why, if we could find just one fossil as +big as that, our fortunes would be made--absolutely." + +"Gee! Then I'm sure going to keep my eyes peeled." + +"I thought," put in Radcliffe, "that fossils were little stone worms. +I've found those aplenty." + +"Fossils," explained Ace, (fresh from first-year geology), "are any +remains of plants or animals that lived, either on land or in the sea, in +ancient times. A lot of those we find to-day were shell-fish and other +marine life." + +"Gee!" grinned Ted, "doesn't he talk like a professor? I'm going to call +you professor after this, old Scout!" + +"Go on," the Ranger urged, ignoring this sally, "I'm interested." + +"So am I, honestly," amended Ted contritely. + +"There were land animals, too, that got buried in the accumulating +sediments and fossilized. Times when the ocean over-ran the land, they +got drifted into it, and sank, and got buried under the sands that made +our sandstones----" + +"This floor is sandstone!" interpolated Ted. + +"Yes. Or they got buried in the ground-up shells that made our +limestone,--like the walls of the cave,--or some of them were buried in +mud." + +"I suppose," offered Ted facetiously, "that the mud made mudstones," and +he laughed till his voice echoed and reechoed startlingly. + +"Ha, ha! You're right!" Ace turned the laugh on him. "Go to the head of +the class. I'll show you mudstone when we come to it." + +"Why, then," ventured the Ranger, "this must be a topping place to find +fossils." + +"Provided," Ace admitted, "the cave is not of too recent formation. But +as I was about to say," (seeing their undoubted interest), "geologists +can just about piece together the history of the earth from the fossils +that have been found, but no one locality gives it all. They have +found part of the story in America and part in Africa, and parts +in Europe and Asia. And from that series of fossils--and some other +evidence--scientists have about agreed that since the earth was formed, +about twenty whole mountain ranges, one after another, must have been +formed and worn away almost to sea level." + +"How do they make that out?" Ted looked skeptical. + +"That's another long story. I'm no professor. But----" + +"You can't prove it." + +"Neither can you disprove it, any more than you can the conclusions on +which astronomy, higher mathematics, any of the sciences--are based." + +"I suppose so! Gee, I'd like to study those things for myself!" sighed +Ted, seating himself beside the others on a dry ledge while they ate +their sandwiches. + +"Find a valuable fossil and you've earned a college education," Ace +challenged him. "And you know, fossils are not necessarily fish or +insects or skeletons or tree trunks that have been turned to stone." + +"To stone?" + +"By the removal of their own tissues and replacement by mineral matter. A +fossil may be merely the print of a leaf of some prehistoric plant on +sandstone, or the footprint of some antediluvian reptile. In the National +Museum they have a cast of a prehistoric shad that shows the imprint of +every bone and fin ray." + +"How on earth could that have been formed?" marveled Ted. + +"Why, it was simply buried in fine mud, which first protects it from the +air, (and consequent immediate decay), then gradually fills every pore of +every bone, till by the time the mud has turned to stone, the bones are +ossified. Of course the animal matter has all dissolved away by this +time. Now if this mud that filled the pores happened to be silica, (a +sandy formation), it is possible to eat the surrounding limestone away +with acids and uncover the silica formation, see, old kid?" + +"Aw, that stuff makes my head ache," protested Tim. "If I see any +ossified bones lying around, or even a footprint or leaf print in the +stone, I'll know I've found a fossil. But I thought we were chasing +fire-bugs." + +"The impatience of youth!" Ace playfully squelched him, from the vantage +point of his slight seniority. + +"What does the Bible say," laughed the Ranger, "about truth from the +mouths of babes?" And he arose a bit stiffly,--for he had had a strenuous +time of it the past few days, and the cave damp had set his tired limbs +to aching. + +For upwards of an hour they followed dark and winding passageways, (rats +and lizards and occasional colonies of bats fleeing before them), +naturally without the slightest sign of the fugitives, when they came to +another grotto, the loveliest they had yet seen. It might have been a +fairy cavern, aglitter with pure crystal. The carved prisms shone +dazzlingly in the light of the carbide lamp, and the boys stuffed their +pockets with some of the jewel-like bits that had fallen to the floor. + +From this they presently entered into what seemed like a Gothic +cathedral, with a dome whose highest point must have been several hundred +feet above. The boys were fairly awed by its beauty, while the Ranger's +eyes gleamed appreciatively. On the walls were what might have been +carvings of flowers and lacework, creamy to smoke color, gypsum, Ace told +them. + +"Are these fossils?" demanded Ted excitedly. + +"I should say not, you poor fish!--You ichthyosaurus," laughed Ace +teasingly. + +"You what?" asked the Ranger. + +"That means ancient fish." + +"All right," grinned Ted. "If I'm an ich----" + +"Ich-thy-o-saur-us?" Radcliffe came to his rescue. + +"Then you're a dinosaur," grinned Ted. + +"Here, here, stop calling each other names!" commanded Radcliffe. "And +perhaps Ace will tell us about this gypsum formation." + +"Thunder! Wish Norris was here! I tell you I'm no professor. But if +you're after fossils, don't you remember what he told us, that day just +before we lost the pack burro?--That in this part of California we have +rock from the Cambrian era a mile thick, and I'll bet it's full of +fossils of the fish age!" + +"Well," Radcliffe briskly interposed, as they came to another turn, +"we'll never find those Mexicans unless we separate and hunt faster than +we've been doing. Are you fellows game for taking one way while I go back +to that last turn and try the left hand passageway? Of course the instant +you get wind of them, report back to me." They signified their gameness +by picking a precarious footing, (Ted first), along the slippery floor, +their candles thrust in their hat bands. + +Above they came to another but a smaller forest of alabaster stalactites, +shining like icicles or mosses, some white as snow, some yellow as gold, +and some so like maple sugar in appearance that Ace actually tasted it. +In one place there was a bit of what Ace said was needle gypsum, that +hung as fine as fur. + +Radcliffe, retracing his steps, (with the aid of the twine ball), till he +came to the cross roads, as it were, turned to the left and forged ahead +with his carbide lamp, treading softly as a cougar, with revolver cocked +in his right hand. Ever and anon he stopped breath-still to listen. + +Passing through the same alabaster cavern that had so impressed the +Spanish boy, his eye caught the bandanna Pedro had dropped in the +left-hand passageway. With an inward exclamation, he hurried on till he +had reached the end of the blind. Stooping with his lamp, he could see +the fresh scratches their feet had made. Darting back to the turn of the +tunnel, where he had picked up the bandanna, he took the only choice left +to him, the right hand way, with all the satisfaction of a hound on the +scent. More scratches on the sandstone floor assured him that they had +really gone this way, instead of turning back the way they had come, and +presently he too was standing in the gallery of the sloping floor and +yellowed pillars, at whose far end the dripstone cataract hung, turned to +soundless stone. But of the three Mexicans and Pedro there was no trace. + +"I say, when do we eat?" Ace was just beginning, when the floor suddenly +gave way beneath him, and he fell down a ten foot well, landing on all +fours, in Stygian blackness. And no sooner had his bulk padded the stone +beneath than Ted came, plunk! almost on top of him. + +At the moment both were slightly stunned. Their candle flames had of +course been flicked out. Then Ted reached mechanically for his matches, +by whose flare he found his hat, and still firmly stuffed into the band, +his candles. The light disclosed a cavern with muddy walls dripping above +them, and to their right, an inky pool of water. The air was all aflutter +with the bats they had startled from their pendant slumbers, lizards +scuttled away in all directions, and a fish flopped in the pool, with a +splash that sounded out of all proportion to its exciting cause. Ted +grinned as he saw Ace first pinch himself to see if he were dreaming, +then slowly feel his joints to make sure none were seriously damaged. + +The fall had rather jolted his nerves, but otherwise he was unhurt, as +was his chum. But how to return the way they had come they could not see, +for the walls were too slippery to climb, there was not a spear of +anything movable in sight on which they might gain a foothold, and when +Ted tried it from Ace's shoulders, the rim of the well was too slippery +with mud for him to gain a hand-hold. + +The bats, blind from their lightless lives, bumped against them and added +the final touch of weirdness by their gnome-like faces. + +With the uncanny feeling that they ought to whisper, the shaking boys +started to explore the cavern, which they found led off in three +directions. It must be on the same level they had left when they said +good-by to Radcliffe, but in their panic they were completely turned +around, and they had not explored for ten minutes before they were so +confused that they could not even have found their way back to the cavern +of the pool. + +Now Ted had been lost before. He knew the panic feeling, the sudden sense +of utter and helpless isolation, the absurd fearfulness, almost the +temporary insanity of it. His scalp prickled,--as did Ace's,--and for a +little while his wits seemed befogged. Then he remembered that bed-rock +advice Long Lester had once given him. When you don't know which way to +go, sit down and don't move one step for half an hour. And try to think +out the way you got there, or some plan of campaign for finding yourself +again. + +Ted had once been lost in the chaparral,--a thorny tangle of low growths +that reached higher than his head. When he first discovered he was off +the trail, he wandered about as in a mystic maze, till a shred of his own +gingham shirt, (caught on a stub of manzanita), told him he had circled. + +He had had to spend the night there, but in the end he had stumbled upon +the trail again, not ten feet from where he lost it. + +As Long Lester afterwards pointed out, had he but blazed his trail from +the very first step, he could at least have back-tracked. Or better, if +he had with his jack-knife made a blaze sufficiently high on some stunted +tree to have seen it and come back to it, he might have circled, and in +ever widening circles would surely, in time, have found the trail. + +Or, again, he might have--had he known--at least hacked a straight course +by the stars, (always provided that he knew in which direction lay the +way out). + +"Ace," he managed to steady his voice when they had been seated on a dry +ledge for some little time, "your knowledge of cave formations might help +us to find the way out of here. Gee! If this was only in the woods, or +even on some mountain side above the clouds! But it's up to you now." + +"Well," Ace began, "the map of the typical cave, say like Mammoth, +wiggles around a little like a river with its tributaries, though nothing +like so regularly, with here and there a wider place, and----" + +"Here and there," contributed his chum, "a well to a lower level." + +"Yes. You see, the water that wears a cave out of the softer layers of +rock seeps in along the fissures of the surface rock, and at first they +make subterranean rivers. Where you find these big springs in the +hillsides, they may be the outlets of these underground waterways." + +"I get that, all right," said Ted. + +"Well, then, sometimes these Stygian streams----" + +"Keep it up, Professor!" Ted clapped him on the shoulder. + +"Huh!--These rivers wear away the soft limestone layer,--if it is this +kind of a cave,--'till they come to the harder sandstone. Then the first +chance they find to get through the sandstone,--perhaps through a crack +made by an earthquake or something,--they go down and wear away a deeper +level. Mammoth Cave is on five levels. That leaves the upper galleries +dry. Now the one we were on was dry except for the moisture that is +always seeping into a cave, but I suspect now we're on a level with the +river, it's so muddy, and we'll find it somewhere." + +"Then we'll find it somewhere!" brightened Ted. "And we can follow it. +That's the plan of action!" and he jumped to his feet. + +"We'll follow it if we can. Thunder! I wish we had a boat." + +"So long as you're wishing, why don't you wish for a fat steak with +onions?" + +"It has been some time since we ate." Ace tightened his belt. "Must be +getting late in the day! Let's run!" And run they did, till they began +slipping on a muddy slope. + +They had to place each foot with care now, and their progress was slow. +At the same time their candles were nearly gone. "Now let's put out all +but one," suggested Ted. "Just burn one at a time. What _would_ we do +without any light?" But Ace did not know the answer. + +What of Pedro, meantime? At that particular instant he had just tried to +make his get-away, with the result that three drawn daggers were being +flourished threateningly and most unhealthily near his heart. He had +overheard enough evidence to convict all three of the Mexicans, thanks to +his knowledge of the parent language, but as the desperadoes pushed +farther and farther into the labyrinth, he gathered that they would come +out a good safe distance from where they had entered,--probably on the +other side of the ridge. Had he known the Ranger's whereabouts at that +precise moment, he would have felt very differently. + +Radcliffe, meantime, was staring into the dark recess of the cavern, but +all he could see was the two shining eyes of whatever occupant was there. +Was it bear or cougar? For both, he knew, took refuge in caves. The +largeness of the eyes inclined him to the belief that it was a California +mountain lion, and such it was part of his work to exterminate,--though +the state also hires an official lion hunter. + +That the great cats are cowards he well knew. But this one was cornered, +and might prove no mean antagonist. With revolver cocked in his right +hand, his lamp in the other, he advanced toward those two shining fires. +A faint scratching along the rocky floor warned him that the animal was +gathering for a spring. He was still rather far for a revolver shot, but +he aimed straight between the eyes. His shot reverberated with a +thousand echoes. The sounds, ear-splitting in the smoke-filled +gloom,--thundered like a thousand siege guns, it seemed to Radcliffe, +stalactites tumbled about his ears like crockery, and more appalling than +all the rest was the weird, almost human scream of the wounded animal, +which likewise reechoed for several minutes. The unwitting cause of all +this turmoil was in a cold perspiration when things finally quieted down. +But the puma, (for such it proved to be), lay dead at his feet. + +The three Mexicans likewise heard the racket, for they, as it happened, +were not far away. The Ranger had very nearly trailed them. With rolling +eyes and hands that mechanically traced the sign of the cross, they +listened, while the thunders died away. + +Pedro, though his nerves were more than a little shaken, was quick to +seize his opportunity. Slipping like an eel through a narrow opening +between two columns, where the dripstone had all but closed the way into +another chamber, he would have escaped observation entirely had it not +been for his betraying torch-light. + +Sanchez darted after him. But remember, Sanchez was at least a hundred +pounds heavier than even well-fed Pedro. The result might have been +expected. He stuck mid-way! And there he dangled his fat legs in an +endeavor to free himself, while Pedro doubled with laughter and the other +Mexicans stared, too amazed to move. + +"Pull, can't you, pull!" was Pedro's expurgated version of Sanchez's +reiterated discourse with his followers. And when no one came to his +rescue, he nearly burst a blood vessel in his helpless wrath. + +Pedro, feeling safe from pursuit, with such a plug in the only approach +to his sanctuary, now for the first time disclosed his knowledge of +Mexican. Sanchez's astonishment was as huge as his attitude was +undignified, and if words could have seared, Pedro would have been well +scorched. But the boy only told him of an item he had read in the paper, +where a fat man got stuck in a cave and had to fast for three days before +his girth had diminished sufficiently that he could be extricated. + +With that, Pedro bade them a fond farewell, and departed along a +labyrinthian way they could not follow. That some one was on their trail +he suspected from the revolver shot, and the fire bugs would be nicely +trapped. + +Now the Ranger reasoned that the lion's den would not be far from the +outer world, and in that he was right, as he proved by following it to +its end. The last lap of the way he had to wriggle along on hands and +knees, but he could see the glow of the setting sun in a circle of light +at the end, and in a very few minutes he had poked his head and shoulders +beneath an overhanging bowlder on a rock ledge. It was the Southern slope +of the spur, and after a little reconnoitering he discovered that it was +the self-same spur on which fire-fighting headquarters had been +established. The cave, then, pierced clear through the ridge, and he had +been exactly all day in following its windings. + +Hiking wearily up the slope to the ridge, he could see the glow of the +cook-fire perhaps a mile away, while down in the canyon on the other side +the fire still glowed in red embers where it continued to devour the +blackened tree trunks, though it was under far better control than it had +been the day before. + +Rosa's solicitude at his haggard face and tattered, mud stained clothing +restored him wonderfully. (After all, there were compensations in the +scheme of things.) + +"We were just about to start a search party in there," said Norris. "I +would have before, if it hadn't been for the fire. But where are the +boys?" He paled in alarm. + +"I don't know," Radcliffe dragged from white lips. + +"Oh!" gasped Rosa, her eyes filling with tears which she promptly hid by +turning her back. + +Without a word Long Lester gathered up the paraphernalia the Ranger now +saw he had stacked and ready on the ground, and fitted it into a +back-pack. There was food, rope, and candles, another tube of carbide for +Radcliffe's lamp, a box of matches in a tight lidded tin, and even a +short length of rustic ladder made for the occasion. + +Norris shouldered part of it as by previous agreement. + +Radcliffe explained the diagram he tore from his note-book, marking a +black cross at the point where he had left the boys. + +"I dunno," said the old prospector, "but what we might as well go in one +way as another. I reckon we can folly this yere map backwards as well as +forrud, and we'll just hike down and go in the way you kem out." + +"That's a go," agreed Norris, striding after him. + +"Oh," yelled the Ranger after them. "Come back! I'll deputize you both. +Here, Norris," and he gave the younger man his revolver and cartridge +belt, with his official pronouncement. + +"I swan!" said Long Lester. "Here I were a-thinkin' so much about them +boys I clean forgot the Mexicans," and he slung his rifle atop his pack. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE SNOW-SLIDE + + +"I'm glad they got in a few hours' sleep this noon," solicitized Rosa, +placing homemade bread and coffee before the Ranger, then dipping up a +bowl of soup. She looked fagged to death herself, and Radcliffe made her +promise to roll up in a blanket on a browse bed. + +"Oh, if only it would rain!" she sighed, "and put out the fire!" + +"Sure wish it would!" he agreed. "Haven't had such a big one in years." + +"The DeHaviland was back with more supplies," one of the men reported. + +"It sure takes tons of grub to keep these firemen stoked," sighed Rosa +drowsily from her blankets. "But they work like lumbermen, and I'd give +every last man here a medal if I could." + +Norris and Long Lester skirted the South slope its whole length without +finding the cave mouth from which Norris had exited. But by now it was +dark, and the task doubly difficult. "If it wasn't for them boys being +most likely just plumb panicky from being lost," said the old man, "I'd +call it sense to camp for the night. Once it's sun-up, we'll find the +place easy enough." + +But Norris was too uneasy to leave any stone unturned. What might not +have happened in the hours since he had last seen his charges! His +imagination, given free rein, pictured everything from murder to raving +mania. + +As they neared the head of the gulch, they could see, on the side of the +main ridge that towered above them, patches of snow that gleamed white in +the star-light. The canyon here headed sharply to the left. + +The side they were on, the short side of the turn, was becoming +impassable with rough bowlders and tangling underbrush. + +Of a sudden a low rumbling sounded faintly from seemingly beneath their +feet. The ground wavered dizzily. Trees swayed, rocks started rolling +down the canyon side, and the very bowlder they were on tilted till they +had to make a quick leap for it. It was just one of the slight +earthquake shocks to which all Californians are accustomed. But never +before had either Norris or Long Lester been on such dangerous footing +when one happened. + +Quick as thought, the old man went leaping up over the bowlders, yelling +frantically to Norris to follow him. The geologist knew in a theoretical +way what to do when a snow-slide threatened, and with that lightning +speed with which our minds work in an emergency he had seen that the +shock of the 'quake would precipitate snow-slides, and that they were +directly in the path of one. + +He knew theoretically,--as the old prospector knew from observation of +several tragedies,--that the river of snow and rock-slide would flood +down canyon till it came to a turn, then hurtle off in fine spray--on the +side of the curve! (It all happened in an instant.) Their one salvation +lay in taking the _short_ side of the curve,--though the going was +rougher. + +With the roar of an express train,--whose speed it emulated,--the +oncoming slide tore down at them. Down 3,000 feet of canyon the crusted +snows of what was still spring at that altitude rushed like a river at +flood. The wind of its coming swayed tall trees. + +The two men escaped by the skin of their teeth! + +"It shore would'a scrambled us up somethin' turrible!" the old man kept +exclaiming. + +Next day, he knew, they would find a clean swath cut down the +mountainside,--tall pines swept away, root and branch. He had seen many +of these scars, which in later years had become a garden of fire-weed and +wild onion, a paradise for birds and squirrels and onion loving bears. + +He had seen steep mountains fairly striped by the paths of slides, the +forest still growing between stripes. For the steeper the slope, the +swifter the slide, as might be expected. + +Lucky for them this had been a Southwest slope; for on the North, away +from the sun, a slide is even swifter! + +He had seen one man buried by crossing the head of a slide which gave way +under his foot. Its roar had been heard for miles. Frost-cracked from the +solid granite, the side rock that accompanied it had been weathered from +the peak. Thus are high mountains worn away. + +For perhaps an hour after the near-catastrophe, the air was filled with +blinding snow,--not that from the skies, but that of the snow dust raised +by the slide. + +The circle of the rising moon threw a silver glamor over the scene. "What +do you figure makes these 'quakes, anyway?" asked Long Lester. + +"The boys have asked that too, and I can't give it to you all in a +breath. But I'll give you the story before we end this trip." + +At the moment of the earthquake, Ace and Ted, immured on a lower level of +the cave, were following a subterranean river. They got well splashed by +the waves set up, and worse scared, but it was all over in a minute and +they were only a degree more uncomfortably damp than they had been +before. Suddenly Ted gave an exclamation. A crag of drip-rock had been +shaken from the roof, and there, imbedded in the limestone, lay the plain +footprint of--it might have been a giant! + +The boys stared, marveling a moment, then Ted voiced his guess. The +fossil of some giant of prehistoric ages! "A fossil, all right," Ace +agreed. "But that isn't a human footprint, even if there had been men +that size. That was made by some animal! If we ever get out of here, +let's bring Norris and come back with picks and find out." + +"Then I can quarry this fossil out and sell it?" ventured Ted. + +"Right-o!" with a congratulatory slap that made Ted wince. + +But the inky stream had once more become placid, and skirting the muddy +ledge alongside, they threaded their way through arches of varying height +till finally the roof was so low that they had to go on hands and knees. +Then the bank became so narrow that Ace slipped off into the unknown +depths. To his surprise, his feet touched bottom. Moreover, the water +was not so cold as he had imagined. (It was about the same temperature as +the air). + +"Come on in, the water's fine!" he encouraged Ted. "Do you know, we could +swim this if we had to, and don't you think it must lead out?" + +"Stands to reason. But how about our candles?" + +"Hold 'em in your teeth. Haven't you ever seen any one smoke a cigarette +when he was in swimming? It's a stunt, but----" + +"Ever tried it?" + +"Sure. Have you?" + +"No." And the deepening water soon proved that he could not keep his +candle going. But Ace managed it for a few strokes. Then they had to swim +in darkness. An increasing roar told them that they were nearing white +water, possibly the outlet, and just as the current from a branch stream +would have caught them, they felt an overhanging ledge and scrambled up +on it, Ace lending a hand to his less proficient chum. + +From the far end of the tunnel shone a faint glow, as through a sheet of +water! They had reached a cave mouth. + +Creeping cautiously along the ledge, they approached the light. From its +pallor and from the roaring of the rapids they at first thought they were +behind a waterfall. But a closer approach showed them that it shone +through leaves of plants that grew just outside, where they over-arched +the escaping stream (gooseberries, they later found, and other vines +that completely hid the exit of the stream). + +It was a ticklish proposition getting out along the rock ledge, which +narrowed to a mere rough crack into which they could dig the sides of +their soles. But by holding hands and clinging with all their might, +while they propitiated the law of gravity by leaning their weight against +the wall, they slowly scaled a way above the churning stream, and so to +where they could cling to the thorny bushes. + +It was night. The light had been the moon shining straight into the cave +mouth. But where they were, on what side of the ridge, they could not +tell. + +They were safe, though! Saved from the blind horror of being lost in the +cave! But wet and chilled to the marrow now in the night wind that blew +down canyon, famished, footsore, and aching for sleep. Still how +wonderfully fresh and perfumed everything smelled after the cave. + +"Got any matches in your waterproof match box?" asked Ted with chattering +teeth, throwing himself flat on the up side of a rock that would keep him +from rolling. "Why, this is funny!" for there was no sign of the stream a +few yards beyond the cave mouth. They were at the head of some former +rock slide, and the stream simply disappeared, percolating underneath it +to its destination, (wherever that might be). + +But an exclamation from Ace caused him to look in the direction of his +pointing arm. In the canyon below them a bon-fire burst into bloom. "The +folks?" cried Ace joyously. + +"Maybe the Mexicans," Ted restrained him. + +"Let's slip up on them and find out," urged the other. "Thunder! Wouldn't +it be great if it was our bunch?" + +"All the same, we gotta act just as if it was the Mexicans, till we know +for sure." + +"They've sure got a good fire," Ace shivered. "Let's hurry." + +"All right, maybe it's Radcliffe come clear through the cave on a higher +level, and maybe he's got the Mexicans." + +"And Pedro?" + +"And Pedro!" + +"Sure, who else could it be?" they cheered each other. + +But it was neither. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +TED'S FOSSIL DINOSAUR + + +An hour later two famished and exhausted boys were peering at the huge +bon-fire by which Norris and Long Lester had decided to camp till dawn. + +"Wal, durn yer hide, I'm that glad to see you I've a notion to wallop +you," the old guide welcomed them. "But I'm not a-goin' to ask you a +single word till you've et," and he proceeded to build up a brighter +fire. "Peel off them duds, and roll up here in our blankets whilst we dry +things for you." + +The bedraggled boys allowed Norris to help them out of their heavy, +water-soaked clothing, for their hike down the mountainside in the night +wind had fairly stiffened their joints. First Long Lester administered a +quart apiece of scalding tea, then insisted that, fagged as they were, +they bathe their feet. "A camper is as good as his feet," and Pedro had +yet to be located. + +It was decided that, as they were all of them worn out, and Pedro, +wherever he was, would likely sleep himself when night came, they would +wait till dawn to search for him and the Mexicans. While it was a +question as to whether they were still in the cave, it seemed best to +search there first. + +At the moment of the earthquake, Pedro had been crawling through a narrow +passageway, bed of some former watercourse, whose walls dripped black in +the glow of his dying torch. Then came a crash before him!--A chunk of +rock had fallen from the roof into the passageway. When the alarming +swaying motion and the thunder of the bowlder's fall had subsided, and he +had relighted the torch, (which had been extinguished), he found his +forward progress effectually blocked. Behind were the Mexicans,--Sanchez +possibly still plugging the opening into the passageway. He was a +prisoner! He was entombed! + +At first, utter panic possessed him. In like situation, those of weak, +nervous timbre have been known to go insane. Then he got a grip on +himself and reasoned that Norris and the rest would not leave him to his +fate. They would never give him up till they had searched the cave +thoroughly, and had he not left his bandanna at one turn, his +handkerchief at another, and the end of a freshly charred torch at a +third? Besides, (he smiled grimly), if his own party did not find him, +the Mexicans might. Or if they captured the Mexicans, they would wring +from them a confession of his near whereabouts. (This time he laughed +outright at thought of Sanchez the Stout still dangling his helpless legs +when the Ranger found him. The sound echoed and reechoed weirdly.) + +This experience had done much for Pedro's untried courage. For after all, +is it not the unknown that terrifies us rather than the actual calamity +to be faced? Another thing that helped the Spanish boy to be reasonably +philosophical,--probably the biggest factor, after all,--was Nature's +medicine, his extreme physical fatigue. Thrusting his hat through a +narrow crevice so that it would be seen and recognized by any one coming +that way, he stretched himself out flat on his back on a bit of smooth, +dry rock, thriftily extinguished the remaining bit of torch, and was +instantly asleep. + +He awoke, he knew not how much later,--but he felt refreshed,--to hear +the sound of voices echoing and reechoing faintly, far down the +passageway. Fumbling frantically for a match, he yelled for help with all +the power of his trained voice. (And the sound echoed back and forth.) At +first Norris and the boys could not tell from which direction it came. +Then Long Lester, who was in advance, saw the hat, and it but remained to +remove the bowlder. + +Now it was that they had use for their ingenuity, for their combined +efforts did not suffice to budge the fallen rock. The cavern in which +Pedro had become immured was off a lateral passageway leading,--if he had +taken the turn to the right instead of the one to the left,--to the very +cave mouth by which the rescue party had reentered; for Long Lester had +found, not far from the waterway through which the two boys had +come,--but on a higher level,--some scratches on the rocks and a heel +print in the scanty soil that told the old mountaineer as plain as words +that that was the way Radcliffe had come. Every heel in the party was +different, one having Hungarian hob-nails set in a semi-circle, another a +solid design in the same nails, a third the larger hobs, a fourth none. +He knew the differences in size and the ones that were worn deeper on the +inside of the foot. To him a footprint was as good as a signature, and +better, for like an Indian, a "hill billy" can often read how fast you +were going from a group of two or three footprints, how tired you were, +and much besides. This knowledge had served them in good stead. He now +hurried back to the cave mouth with Ace, found a down log that would +serve as a lever, and they pried away the bowlder that kept Pedro a +prisoner. + +Sign of the Mexicans they could not find, save that Sanchez had been +removed from the crevice of the stalactites, (at least he was no longer +there), but whether he had had to fast or not, they could not tell. The +Mexicans evidently knew the cave and they had been near the southern end +of it. Though Long Lester could find no trace of their footprints at +either of the exits they knew, there were doubtless others, and it seemed +the wisest course now to look for them outside. For the boys were still +unwilling to give up the chase. + +Reporting back to Radcliffe, they learned, to their amazement, that the +pack burros the Mexicans had left near the northern cave mouth had +disappeared, but where, they could not tell from any sign left on the +charred ground outside. + +The Ranger would start a search for them in the DeHaviland, once the fire +was under better control. The Forest Service finds its air service as +useful in keeping track of law breakers as of fires. It would be an +extraordinary thing if the careless camper should escape detection, for +the air men can spy them out as easily as anything. But the fire still +ate angrily through the timber, and would spread in all directions if +left to itself. Fire fighting is sometimes a matter of weeks. + +It was a dry summer, and all up and down the Sierras, the Rangers were +kept busy fighting the fires that would break out from one cause or +another. The Service 'planes were all busy. + +The five campers were back at fire-fighting headquarters,--and Norris +too,--when Ace had an idea. He and Ted would go in search of the Mexicans +in his little Spanish 'plane. Would Radcliffe let them off the +fire-fighting? He would, though he could not give official sanction to +their plan. It was enough. The two boys were off before he could change +his mind,--to Norris's slight uneasiness and Pedro's envy. (But Pedro was +subject to altitude sickness.) + +Sometime, Norris had promised Ted, they would go back into the cave and +look for his fossil. But that could wait. + +All that afternoon the two boys curveted over the surrounding +scenery,--careful to keep their distance from the whirlwind of +fire-heated air, for they were flying low. The most minute search failed +to reveal the fire setters, but Ace only set his jaw the more +determinedly. + +They returned to sleep twelve hours at a stretch. Aviation is the best +cure yet for insomnia, and neither Ace nor Ted had ever been troubled +with that malady. The next day they flew farther, carrying with them an +emergency camp kit. They landed about every two hours, rested awhile, and +finally went into camp about four in the afternoon, intending to take a +look in the night to see if the fugitives would betray themselves by a +bon-fire. They camped in a meadow where they had seen something like +smoke arising. This proved to be steam from a hot spring, and they +thought with longing how fine their chilled bones would feel in a good +hot bath. But the spring water came too hot. (If they had had eggs, they +could have cooked them in it.) + +Then it occurred to them to dig a little trench, line it with stones, and +carry the spring water by the folding canvas pailful to fill it. It would +quickly cool to the right temperature. The scheme worked wonderfully. + +The water had a strong mineral taste, not altogether agreeable, but its +effect on aching bones was wonderful. A flint arrowhead buried in the +soil they excavated told its tale of Indians, who must have valued the +spring and fought for its possession against covetous tribes. + +"What makes these hot springs, anyway?" asked Ted. "Have you had that yet +in your geology?" + +"Yes, but you'll understand better when Norris tells us the story he's +promised about the formation of the earth. I'm no professor." And he +turned a former laugh on Ted. "Tell you what, Old Top, once we get these +fire bugs located for our Uncle Sammy, what say we fly up and have a look +at Lassen volcano before I send the 'plane back?" + +"Bully! I'd like to fly over a glacier, too, and see what it looks like. +Can you go that high?" + +"I--guess so. Never tried it! We will, though!" + +"Gee! Wouldn't this be a great way to teach geography--from an aeroplane!" + +"Sure would!--Great way to go camping, too." + +"'S right, only--it would be if there was just the two of us," sighed +Ted ungrammatically. "Could you carry enough grub?" + +"We could get fresh supplies every few days, from some ranch." + +The next day they went back for the rest of the party and showed them +Ted's fossil, entering the cave the way Radcliffe had left it. Norris had +spent one summer with fossil hunters in the dry gullies of the Southern +end of California, he told them, where through scorching days and thirsty +nights they had searched for any bit of bone that might lie amid the +shale or imbedded in strata the edges of which might be seen on the face +of a sun-baked bluff. The summer before, a group of geology men from a +rival University had actually camped within a hundred yards of what was +later discovered to be a deposit of rare fossils. It was therefore with +heightened satisfaction that their reconnaissance had resulted in the +discovery and excavation, bone by bone, of the complete skeleton of +several most interesting prehistoric monsters that had lain all these +ages embedded in the shale. + +One bone four feet long, he told them, and weighing several hundred +pounds, had been found in fragments in the shale, but it had been fitted +together again, done up in plaster bandages and braced with splints, +quite as a surgeon treats a broken leg. Another, found embedded in solid +rock, had to be shipped in the rock, each piece being numbered as it was +removed from the cliff as an aid to fitting it together again. Then with +hammer and chisel the delicate feat of cutting away the rock and leaving +the bone exposed was slowly and painstakingly accomplished. Thus have the +bones buried before ever man trod the earth been made to tell their +story. Often it takes more than a single specimen to reconstruct for the +scientist the whole of the creature, but relics of fully thirty +Triceratops have been discovered in different parts of the world, and +where one skull has a broken nose, another shows it intact, and so on +through its entire anatomy. + +Its habits may in part be reasoned out, as for instance, if its hind legs +are disproportionately long, it likely walked erect at least sometimes. + +"That, as it happens, was not the case with Triceratops," he added. +"There was only a slight difference between his fore and hind legs. +Triceratops had teeth made for browsing, not for rending flesh; his +single claw, round and blunt, does not indicate any pugnacious tendency +on his part, and the solidity of his bones are found to-day in either a +very sluggish animal or a partially aquatic one. The shape and rapid +taper of the tail vertebrae indicates a rather short tail, round rather +than flat,--ill adapted for swimming,--and so following through the list, +till we have a Triceratops elephantine in general build, though more like +a rhinoceros in face with a horn over his nose and two over his eyes, a +horn-supported neck ruff, and a generally sluggish mode of life. + +"In the coal fields complete imprints of Ichthyosauria have been found, +doubtless due to the carbonization of the animal matter. And impressions +have been left in stone of the very feathers worn by some of the now +fossilized creatures." + +It was by comparison of fossil remains that the well known evolution of +the horse from a little fellow the size of a fox was learned. Ted often +thought of that three-toed Miocene horse, and the giant monsters of his +time,--of the upthrust of the Rocky Mountains, cutting off the moist sea +breeze from the marshy country to the Eastward and making desert of it. +This made life too hard for the heavy, slow-witted creatures, and they +failed to survive the change. But the nimble footed little horse trotted +long distances with ease, to find food and water. + +Norris convulsed them by describing the creature on which he declared the +aeroplane was modeled,--the pteranodon, that giant lizard, largest of +flying creatures even in Mesozoic age, whose bat-like wings reached 20 +feet from tip to tip,--as the fossil skeletons plainly prove. + +This interesting specimen was a link in the chain between the birds of +to-day and their ancestral archeopteryx, no larger than a crow whose +front legs metamorphosed to short wings, whose skeletons have been found +perfectly preserved in the limestone. + +Ted was frantic for fear they would not find the place again, then could +hardly wait to hear the Geological Survey man's pronouncement on his +find. Norris chipped and chipped, with knife and hammer, till he had +uncovered the impress of a great, membranous wing. + +It was a fossil dinosaur,--a pterodactyl! + +Ted's college education was secure! + + + + +CHAPTER X + +HOW THE EARTH WAS MADE + + +Ted's fossil would have to wait to be exhumed. In fact, Norris told him, +he could sell it as it stood, and let the purchaser do the work. Then it +occurred to him to wonder if Ted would not have first to take up a +claim,--for it was Government land. Anyway, he would see to it that the +boy was rewarded for his find. + +The fire now being extinguished, Radcliffe had flown to other battle +lines, first taking Rosa--as she insisted--back to her fire outlook. The +plan was for the two boys to keep on hunting for the Mexicans, (as the +harried Ranger now counted on their doing), joining the rest of the +camping party every night, at points they would agree upon. But first, +Ace had made a flight to Fresno for supplies and to start his pilot home +by train. He then carried them one at a time to where the burros had been +left,--and where the lazy rascals still browsed on the rich mountain +meadows. + +For a day or two, all the boys could talk, think or dream about was the +adventures they had just been through. But at last they had relieved +their minds to some extent, and one evening around the fire, Norris gave +them his long promised explanation of some of the natural wonders they +had seen. + +"I have already told you," began Norris, "how the earth probably +originated. That much the astronomer has given us. And before the +geologist can begin to interpret the evolution of our earth, he has to +know what scientists have established in the fields of chemistry, +mechanics and geodesy,--the study of the curvature and elevation of the +earth's surface. He then proceeds to theorize, hand in hand with the +paleontologist, or student of ancient life. The newest theory is in line +with what I learned in 1917 at Yale." + +"It's all theory, then?" asked Ted. + +"Just as all sciences are, to some extent. Did I tell you that when our +planetary system was disrupted from the sun, it was less than a hundredth +part of the parent body? And our earth is a good deal less than a +millionth of the size of our sun, and our sun is among the smaller of the +stars of the firmament." + +"Phew!" whistled Long Lester, round eyed, while Ted and Pedro sat +motionless. + +"Picture the earth and moon, revolving about the sun, gathering by force +of their own gravity-pull the tiny planetesimals nearest them, these +bodies hurling themselves into the earth mass at the rate of perhaps ten +miles a second!----" + +"It shore must have het things up some," said Long Lester. + +"It did! Literally melted the rocks. On top of that, this original earth +mass, composed of molten rock and gases and water vapor, was condensing. +Probably by the time it had engulfed all the stray planetesimals it +could, it was anywhere from 200 to 400 times as large as it is now. It +has been shrinking ever since." + +"Is it still shrinking?" gasped the old prospector. + +"Sure thing! But not so fast that you will ever know the difference in +_your_ lifetime. It only shrinks at times; then the earth's surface +wrinkles into mountain ranges." + +"How many times has that been, sixteen?" suggested Ace. + +"We'll come to that. As I was going to say, while the earth was so hot, +it kept boiling, as it were, inside, and the molten matter kept breaking +through the cold outer shell in volcanoes, as the heat rose to the +surface." + +"Thet sure must have been hell," laughed the old man. + +"As the cold crust was churned into the hot interior, of course it melted +and expanded, and that caused more volcanoes, and so on in a vicious +circle, till finally, by the end of the Formative Era, so called, the +rock that contained more heavy minerals sank to the lower levels, while +the lighter ones rose as granite." + +"Gee!" said Ted, "I'd have called granite heavy." + +"Not so heavy as the specimens of basic rock we'll find. Well, in this +Formative Era our atmosphere, and the hydrosphere or oceanic areas were +being formed, along with the granite continents. But while we are on the +subject, I hope you boys will some day see The Valley of Ten Thousand +Smokes, in Alaska, where the earth is still boiling so close to the +surface that you have to watch your step or you'll break through into----" + +"The Hot Place?" laughed Pedro. + +"Literally, yes." + +"Oh, tell us about that!" + +"Some time!--The interior of the earth is still hot, but the rock crust +allows very little of it to rise to the surface. After the Formative Era +came the Archeozoic Era, when life began in the form of amoebas or some +simple form of protoplasm. For with the formation of the gases of the +earth mass into an envelope of air, to moderate the sun's warmth by day +and retain some of it by night,--life became possible." + +"But where did those first creatures come from?" Ted could not restrain +himself from asking. + +"According to one theory, the first germs of life flew here from some +other planet, and not necessarily one of those revolving around our own +sun, for space is full of suns and planetary systems. But that theory can +neither be proved nor disproved. When I was a student, Osborn's theory +was the latest. That was in 1916. Without going into it too deeply, it +had to do with the electric energy of the chemical elements that compose +protoplasm, and these always had been latent in the earth mass." + +"Then they must have been latent in the sun, too," marveled Ted. "And in +other suns and their planets too." + +"Very likely," assented the Geological Survey man. "Now of course the +ocean waters collected in the depressed areas over the heavier rock +bottoms, the basalt. You remember just after we lost the burro we were on +a basalt formation----" + +"Then that was formerly a part of the ocean floor?" asked Ted. + +"Either that or volcanic lava." + +"But how did it----" + +"Just a minute. Of course land masses have gone down as well as up, but +the general trend has been decidedly upward, while the trend of the ocean +floor has been downward. At that, the shell of the earth--so to speak--is +only about 150 miles thick or a fiftieth of the earth's present diameter." + +"Then I should think the oceans would be growing deeper," ventured Pedro. + +"Right again. When this earth reaches its old age,--speaking in terms of +centuries,--it will likely be all ocean. And there used to be far more +land, in proportion, than there is now. There was less ocean water then +because of all that is continually pouring through hot springs. + +"Of course the land is slowly being washed back into the ocean. And the +higher the mountains, the steeper the stream beds, and hence the faster +the streams, and the faster they erode the high elevations, till finally +all is reduced to sea level again." + +"Then how do the mountains get rebuilt?" Pedro testified his interest. + +"The earth has, as I think I said before, shrunk between 200 and 400 +miles in diameter,--since the beginning,--'when the earth was unformed +and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.' It is still +shrinking. And this internal movement is felt on the surface in +differences that generally amount to only a few hundred feet. I can show +you places over there on the East wall of the Sierras where the mountains +have been upthrust that way. + +"Then, every now and again, the interior activities fairly break the +rocky earth shell or lithosphere, and whole mountain ranges are raised. +There have been at least eight such minor breaks in the earth crust in +North America alone, and each time ranges perhaps a thousand miles long, +or more, have been raised near one end of the continent or the other. In +addition, there have been major readjustments that thrust whole +continents higher and ocean beds lower. Geologists find evidence of at +least six of these major breaks in the earth crust,--marking the +beginnings of the Archeozoic Era, when _life_ originated, the Proterozoic +Era, or age of _invertebrates_, the Paleozoic Era or age of _fish_ +dominance, the Mesozoic Era or age of _reptile_ dominance, the Cenozoic +Era or age of _mammal_ dominance, and the present Psychozoic Era or age +of _man_." + +"Phew!" whistled Long Lester again. "Don't tell me this earth used to be +all fish." + +"It did, though. We'll go into that some other time. I'll just finish +about continent building now, and then we'll turn in. At these times +when the lands are at their highest and the oceans are smallest in +breadth, (because greatest in depth), the continents are united by +land-bridges such as those we have now uniting North and South America." + +"And Alaska and Asia?" suggested Ted. + +"Practically, yes. And probably, at one time, South America and +Australia. These land-bridges changed the direction of the ocean +streams. You know in the age of reptiles there was nothing to divide the +Atlantic from the Pacific. Added to that, the high mountain ranges took +the moisture out of the winds from the oceans, as the Rockies now do the +Pacific trade winds, so that by the time they reach Nevada there is no +moisture left in them to form clouds and fall in rain, and we have desert. + +"Of course the animals that lived on the earth in its flatter, more +temperate stage now have to adapt themselves to life on high, cold +elevations, or in dry, hot desert areas, or to migrate via the +land-bridges to more favorable climates. Those unable to do this perished. + +"For instance, take the age of reptile dominance, (the Mesozoic Era), +which was in turn divided into four periods, those of dinosaurs, (the +Triassic period, a rock from which I showed you, if you remember), the +Jurassic period, which gave rise to flying reptiles, from which our first +birds were derived; the Comanchean period, which gave rise to flowering +plants and the higher insects, and the Cretaceous period, when our most +primitive mammal forms evolved. + +"At first the earth was peopled with dinosaurs and flying dragons, and +the seas by squid-like mollusks. In those days all the earth was level, +swampy, tropic and overgrown with giant tree ferns and a primitive +conifer. + +"As the high mountain ranges arose and deserts were made, these forms +gradually gave way to flowers and hardwood forests, peopled with insects +and mammals. Only the most intelligent forms survived, and the struggle +itself developed a higher degree of intelligence." + +"What in tarnation were _dinosaurs_?" asked Long Lester. + +"Oh, haven't you ever seen pictures of them?" laughed Ace. "Picture a +giant lizard, perhaps 40 feet long----" + +"Here, here," protested the old man. "I don't bite." + +"It is perfectly true," said Norris soberly. + +"Honest Injun!" vowed Ace. "One of these fellows was a sort of cross +between a crocodile and a kangaroo, what with his long hind legs that he +could walk half erect on. There were some as small as eight or ten +inches, too, and some so large that you wouldn't have come to his knee. +His big toe was as long as your arm." + +"And how do you know all that?" protested the old prospector feebly. + +"By their bones,--fossils. Why, there have been fossil bones of a +dinosaur found right in the Connecticut Valley! There was one found a +hundred years ago in Oxford, England. We have heaps of fossils of them +out West here. In fact, this part of the world used to be their stamping +ground, though fossils of them have been found as far away as New +Zealand." + +"Did they eat people?" gasped Lester. + +"There weren't any people in those days to eat, but some of them preyed +on other animals, and some browsed on the herbage of the swamps. They +didn't have much of any brains, the Triceratops, dinosaurs twice as heavy +as elephants, that looked like horned toads, didn't have two pounds of +brains apiece, or so we infer from the size of their skulls. They knew +just about enough to eat when they were hungry, and not enough to migrate +when things got unlivable for them, and so they perished off the face of +the earth." + +"I'm shore glad of that," the old man heaved a sigh of relief. "I'd shore +hate to 've met up with one of them fellows." + +"And next time I want to cast aspersions on any one's intelligence," +shouted Pedro, "I'm going to call him a--what was it?" + +"_Triceratops_," said Norris. "Some dinosaurs,--in fact, most of +them,--lived in the swamps, and had long, snakelike necks and flat, +apparently earless heads, and long tails. But Triceratops had a +three-horned face, one horn over each eye to protect it in battle and one +over the nose. Of course he was the largest animal of his time, but he +probably fought rival swains for his lady love. We have a pair of +Triceratops horns in the National Museum. One is broken, and it must have +been broken during life, for the stump is healed over. There were many +other kinds of dinosaurs. If we come to any fossil remains, I'll tell you +more about them. But," (stifling a yawn), "I guess you fellows have had +about all you can stand for to-night." + +The boys protested to the contrary, but Norris promised the rest of the +story their next evening together around a bon-fire. + +In the middle of the night the boys were awakened by a terrific racket. +Long Lester was yelling for all he was worth. Every one started wide +awake, and Norris threw a handful of browse on the fire to light the +scene. Then the old man managed to articulate: "Gosh A'mighty!--I sure +thought the Dinosaurs were arter me!" + +"You've been dreaming," Norris laughed, while the boys fairly rolled over +one another in their enjoyment. + +Ace and Ted now made two flights daily in search of the Mexicans, or the +smoke of their cook-fire. + +Next day they came to a canyon that filled the Geological Survey man with +profound enthusiasm, for, he said, it illustrated both the last glacial +period and the last period of volcanic mountain building. First they +noted that the little mountain stream had worn its torrential way through +the basalt or volcanic rock in a narrow canyon perhaps 200 feet deep. A +flow of molten basalt, accompanied by cinders, had been erupted from the +8,000-foot peak at the upper end of the canyon, and had flowed down in a +layer 200 feet thick when it hardened. It had flowed,--as the underlying +rock still showed in places,--over a lateral moraine or rock debris left +by a glacier as it flowed down that way. And from the weathered condition +of this rock debris, Norris said, it must have been a glacier, not of +the last ice age, but of the one preceding,--for of the four glacier +periods generally recognized by geologists to-day, evidences of the last +two can be seen in the Sierras. + +What made this little canyon even more of a find, (from the point of +view of what he wanted to show the boys), was that on top of the volcanic +rock lay the deposit from another glacier, one that flowed in the last +ice age, as the condition of the rock debris plainly showed the expert. + +The boys tucked a few rock specimens into their packs and launched an +avalanche of questions. But he made them wait till they had established +all snug for the night beside a stretch of rapids, where they could look +forward to catching trout for breakfast. Then, lighting his pipe, and +stretching his feet to the bon-fire,--for the night wind swept cool upon +them,--Norris began with Ted's question as to glaciers and volcanoes. + +"During the times I spoke of last night, when the earth crust is +breaking, the molten rock and gases and water vapor in the interior of +the planet rise in the hearts of the mountain ranges, and often break +through as active volcanoes, pouring their lava and ash over the +underlying granite, and building it still higher. + +"These heightened mountain ranges bring about the glacial climates. For +the snows on their cold peaks do not melt when summer comes, and +consequently they accumulate, and accumulate, till their own weight +presses them down as hard as ice,--that is, makes glaciers of them. I am +going to be on the look-out for a glacier, for you will have a good +chance to see them in this region. At the same time, during these glacial +periods, the astronomer could explain how it is that the temperature is +from ten to twenty degrees colder in both winter and summer than it is +now, so that helps the ice to accumulate. Then the glacier, flowing +slowly, slowly, (a river of ice), down the mountainsides, carries with it +quantities of the underlying rocks, till it reaches a lower level where +the ice melts and it becomes a river and carries those rocks and soil to +the sea. That way, the mountains are gradually worn down to sea level and +the whole cycle is ready to start over again." + +"I see," said the ranch boy. "How long ago did you say the last glacier +period came?" + +"Probably not since the time of the first men,--perhaps 30,000 years ago." + +"And those glacial deposits you showed us to-day are 30,000 years old?" +the boy breathed. + +"Yes, and the deposits from the glacial period before that are older +still,--a souvenir from the age of reptile dominance." + +"Then when did the other ice ages come? Did you say there were five?" + +"I did, but only four great ones. There were two away back in the age of +invertebrates." + +"Then has the climate been the same since the last ice age?" + +"Not at all. The change is gradual, and geologists naturally conclude +that some time we will have another ice age. We'll hope man has found a +better way to keep warm by that time. Our climate, with all its ups and +downs, is little by little, through the centuries, growing colder!" + +"And how do you know about all these ups and downs of climate?" +challenged Long Lester. + +"Why, for one thing,--we don't have to read it all from the rocks,--there +is a plain story in the rings of growth in the Big Trees. Don't you +remember those cut stumps, and the thousands of rings we counted, one for +a year? And some were wider than others, because in those years there had +been more rainfall." + +"Well, I never!" was all the old prospector could articulate, as all +hands once more called it a day. + +Next day Ace searched in concentric circles, but without finding a trace +of Mexicans, or, indeed, of any one. + +The next night found the little party encamped an eight hours' hike up +the side of another glacial-polished slope. The trail,--that is to say +the way they picked to go,--led first to the upper end of the canyon and +over the rocks that bordered a green-white waterfall. The wind blowing +the spray in first one direction and then another, they got well wetted, +though the clear California sunshine soon dried them again. But the most +curious part of their climb past the falls was the rainbow that persisted +in following them till they seemed to be at the hub of a huge semi-circle +of opalescent tints. + +Above, (perhaps eight hundred feet higher than their camp at the hot +spring), they came to where the river slid green and transparent over +granite slopes just bordered by a fringe of pine. The water ran deep and +swift, though, and as Ted stooped to drink, he found that, rhythmically, +a larger swell, (call it a wave), would slap him in the face, till once, +blinded by the unexpected onslaught, he all but lost his balance. It +would have been inevitable, had he done so, that he should almost +instantly go hurtling over that eight hundred foot drop, whose waters +roared till the boys had to shout at each other to be heard even a few +paces away. But the water was deliciously icy, from its fountain-head in +the glacier above. + +Wide slopes just steep enough to make climbing demand considerable +sure-footedness widened this hanging valley on either side, with no +greenery save the picturesque bits that grew along the weathered cracks. +Beyond this, the canyon walls continued to rise abruptly. + +Trailing along beside the river till it had widened out and quieted its +song, they found one of the typically open, parklike, forests of silver +firs, jeweled with occasional emerald meadows fragrant with purple lupin +and gay with crimson columbine and golden buttercups. Under foot were +white violets and wee, monkey-faced mimulus, with occasionally a rare +scarlet monkey-flower. + +They passed one of the tributaries of the river, crossed it on a log, and +paused to drink deep of its sweet fluid. They found a huge fallen log +with a mushroom growth that Pedro pronounced edible and which they found +not unlike cooked crab meat. They crossed other brooklets, paused at noon +to eat a dry lunch, and to their amazement spied a doe and her half-grown +fawn in the edge of the clearing watching them wistfully as they threw +their scraps away. Pedro, approaching softly, and casting peace offerings +before him, was able to approach to within several paces of the mother, +though her young hopeful was less trustful. Having probably never seen a +biped before, both animals were consumed with curiosity and comparatively +unafraid. The old prospector suggested with a wink that a little "wild +mutton" would not go amiss, the game laws being adaptable to the needs of +those in extremity, but Norris reminded him that they were no longer in +extremity, and the boys voted unanimously not to betray the trust of this +wild mother. + +Now came a stiff climb around a rocky shoulder of the mountain, and along +the cracks of the smooth rock slopes, as once more they traversed the +path of an ancient glacier. The opening here between the two folds of +mountains again disclosed their river, now smaller, but if anything even +noisier, by reason of its race over a series of cascades. They had left +the silver fir belt and were in the region of dwarfed mountain +pines. They estimated that they must be about 8,000 feet high. + +Ace joined them with still no news of the fugitive fire setters. It was +mysterious. + +It being Ted's and Pedro's turn to make camp that night, they dropped +the packs under a gnarled old juniper whose trunk had been split by +lightning into seven splinters that curved out over a little hollow, +making an ideal shelter, with its fubsy foliage, its storm-twisted limbs +making natural seats, and a flat-topped rock a table. They had to carry +pine boughs some distance for their beds, as they did wood and water. +Then they sallied forth for a string of fish. + +All this gave Ace, Norris and Long Lester time to climb the short +remaining distance to the top of the ridge, where they could gaze across +at snow-capped peaks on which the alpine glow of approaching sunset had +spread a luscious rose. + +While they were reclining in quiet enjoyment around the supper fire,--the +last flutter of the breeze fanning their faces,--a tawny, catlike form +suddenly came tip-toeing out from behind an edge of rock. It was an +animal possibly a hundred pounds in weight,--the California mountain lion +is not a heavy animal,--and for all its wide, heavy looking feet it trod +with lithe grace. (Those paws, so well adapted to travel over deep snow, +would enable it to seek its prey when white winter shut down over all its +hunting grounds.) + +[Illustration: It was a rare treat to see a lion so close.] + +Now it was to all of them a rare treat to see a lion so close to. Of all +the denizens of the wild, none are so shy of human kind, in regions where +they are hunted,--none so thoroughly nocturnal. The three men fairly held +their breaths to watch. + +First the animal leapt to a branch of a wind-beaten tree and crouched +along its limb, lying so still that, had they not seen it move, they +might have glanced squarely in that direction and never noticed. And +there it lay, sharpening its claws, cat fashion. + +Suddenly it began narrowing its yellow eyes at what must have been a +movement behind the rock whence it had emerged. Gathering its feet for a +spring, it laid its ears back, and the great muscles rippling beneath its +skin, leapt at a second lion whose head could now be seen peering around +the rock. But did they fight? Not a bit of it! With hiss and arching +back, and all claws out like the picture of a witch cat, the young cougar +challenged his playfellow, then retreated as the other would have given +him a swipe of his paw. Back to his tree he raced, the other after him. +But no sooner had he reached the vantage point of his horizontal branch +than he turned and chased the other back. This play was repeated several +times, while the three men watched to the windward, silent and +motionless, and hence unseen by the near-sighted animals. + +A small rock had been loosened by their scramble, and as it went rolling +over the granite slope, the first cat pounced after it playfully, finally +catching the rolling stone and leaping about it as a cat does a mouse. +Then he retired to his tree. + +Norris, reflecting that the near presence of two such animals would +stampede the burros, picked up a stone and threw it at the lion, +intending, not to hit it, but to chase it away. To the surprise of the +onlookers, the huge cat pounced on the stone as playfully as before. Ace +now hurled a small rock so that it just escaped the tawny flank, but +again she pounced, as playful as a kitten, at each missile, and it was +not till the three men rose and shouted that the lion took alarm and +raced away. + +"I declare!" exclaimed Pedro, when he heard about it, "I'd never have +believed it!" + +"I was out in Devil's Gulch one day," remarked Long Lester, "with a +coupla dogs. It's all granite,--hard for the dogs to get a scent, but +there's lots of lions there, in among the rocks. Finally, though, they +got one into a little Digger Pine. I took a shot at her, and out she +tumbled." + +"Dead?" asked Norris. + +"Yes. The dogs found her den, and dragged out three cubs." + +"How large?" + +"About the size of house cats, that's all." + +"Then what?" + +"Oh, I put 'em into my shirt and tuk 'em home. I sold 'em afterwards to a +circus man." + +"Well, do lions always act the way this one did to-night?" + +"I heard tell of a boy that was out with an old three dollar Winchester +22, and a dog that had lost a leg in a bear trap. Pretty soon he barked +'treed.' He had a lion up in a scrub oak. It came down fighting, so the +boy had to circle around trying to find a chance to shoot. Then it jumped +up into a pine tree and lay with its head over the limb looking down at +him. He shot at it, but I guess it didn't hit, for it ran again, and by +jings, it finally got clean away!" + +"Don't they ever fight?" marveled Pedro. + +"They'll fight a dog if they come down wounded, but the big cats are +mostly cowards." + +"But bears are not?" + +"Bears? No, nothing cowardly about them. They're more lazy'n anything +else." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE VALLEY OF TEN THOUSAND SMOKES + + +The next morning they had a good look around before deciding which way to +go. On one side pointed firs in patches on the canyon walls contrasted +with the snow in the ravines. There was a brook that divided, then +reunited in white strands, only to spread out into a smooth, glistening +sheet, golden in the sunlight, to join the green river. + +The notches between two rounding, glacier-smoothed granite masses +disclosed distant peaks, snow-capped, their jagged ledges thrusting +through the mantling white, dazzling in the sunshine like a mirror,--now +gray under a hazing sky, now dappled under a passing shower cloud. + +They finally decided to wind through the gap, and Pedro, Norris and Long +Lester started on with the burros, while Ace and Ted started fine-combing +the map beneath them for the elusive Mexicans. Very probably, they +thought, they had been hiding in some of the caves that honeycombed the +region, and sooner or later they would have to reappear. Their supplies +could not hold out forever. + +All along the Western flank of the Sierra, (as both Norris and Long +Lester were able to assure them), from the McCloud River in the North to +the Kaweah,--a distance of at least 400 miles,--stretched a belt of +metamorphic limestone, reaching up to as high as 7,000 feet, and it was +fairly riddled with caves. + +But again the day went by without success. Ace only squared his chin. Ted +offered to abdicate his observer's seat in favor of any one of the party, +but Pedro and Long Lester preferred terra firma, and even Norris found +more to interest him in the rocks beneath their feet. + +Once a little spiral of smoke drew them to a canyon head where they found +three fishermen with a pack train of seven horses,--but no Mexicans. They +searched Southward along the John Muir trail, returning along the Eastern +flank,--but to no purpose, so far as the fugitives were concerned. + +As no one had had time to fish, they dined on tinned corned beef, which +Ace, the cook for the day, made the mistake of salting. (After that he +had to make tea twice.) + +"One thing I'd like fer to ask you, Mr. Norris," said Long Lester that +night around the bon-fire, "is where does the salt in the ocean come +from? I don't see for the life of me, from what you've told us----" + +"The salt was originally in the rock of the earth's crust," Norris +explained with a pleased smile at the old man's interest. "As this +igneous rock weathered with time, the rain and the streams washed it into +the ocean. Then when the sea water evaporates----" + +"To make clouds, to make more rain?" Long Lester recited. + +"Yes,--the salt of course remained behind, so that the oceans have been +growing constantly saltier since the earth began. Yet even now sea water +must be nine-tenths evaporated before the sodium begins to precipitate, +as we say." + +"So there is room for a lot more." + +"Especially as the oceans are growing larger all the time." + +"But doesn't the ocean give it back to the land when it leaves these +sediments along the shore?" + +"Not to any extent, speaking comparatively. But one of the interesting +things about the salt in the sea is this: Chemists and geologists +estimate that, for the amount of salt in the sea, enough of the original +earth crust must have been weathered away to have covered the continents +over 6,000 feet high. And that calculation just about fits what we +believe to have happened. + +"The United States Geological Survey gave out an official statement in +1912 that this country is annually being washed back into the ocean at +the rate of two hundred and seventy million tons of matter dissolved in +the streams and five hundred and thirteen millions of tons of matter held +in suspension in the same streams. That is to say, the oceans every year +receive from the surface of the United States seven hundred and +eighty-three millions of tons of rock materials. + +"That means that, here in this part of the country at least, one hundred +and seventy-seven tons per square mile are being washed back each year." + +"Gee!" said Ted. "I should think, at that rate, that the continents would +have been all washed away long ago." + +"Yes, there have been, since geological history began, at least twenty +whole mountain ranges as high as the Rockies worn to sea level. Of course +the oceans have periodically flooded the margins of the continents at +such times, in long troughs where now stand our Appalachian and Rocky +Mountain ranges, leaving their deposits. + +"In the Rockies there are coarse sediments miles deep, together with +limestone formed of the ground-up shells of marine animals of the earlier +times. Now think of this! + +"If all that stands above sea level in the United States to-day were to +be washed into the sea, as it undoubtedly will be, in time,--(but not in +our time), the level of the oceans will rise, (just as the level of a +half glass of water rises if you drop in a handful of sand), until--it +has been estimated--everything under six hundred and fifty feet above sea +level will be inundated. That means that probably half of the continent +would be under water. It has been so in times past, and it will be again. +In fact, in the age of reptile dominance, (the Cretaceous Period), when +the earth was just beginning to be peopled with birds and flying +reptiles, and the first, primitive mammals,--the Atlantic flowed straight +from what is now the Gulf of Mexico, through what is now the Rocky +Mountain Region, and through the Eastern part of Alaska, to the Arctic. +That left one strip of land that reached along what is now the Pacific +Coast, clear from the Isthmus of Panama to the Aleutian Islands and +straight across to Siberia. The Northern part of the Atlantic Coast +formed another land area, broken by the fresh water bodies of America and +Canada and in one with a strip of land that extended across Greenland to +Europe. + +"It is pretty well established, in fact, that the United States has been +more or less flooded by warm, shallow marine waters at least sixteen +times since the age of fish dominance began. But not since the age of +man!" he hastened to assure the old prospector, who was beginning to look +uneasy. + +"Of course these flood times brought a moist, warm climate to the land +areas, and life was easy for the then existing animal forms. Then when +readjustments in the earth's crust again raised up mountain ranges and +the climate became colder and drier, the struggle for existence became +more intense, the process of evolution was stimulated, and new forms +originated. + +"We are living in one of those periods now. The organic world is being +stimulated to develop even better bodies, endowed with even more alert +brains. + +"Life is easiest of all for the inhabitants of the ocean. That is why +they have developed so little intelligence." + +"Is that why it's such an insult to call any one a poor fish?" grinned +Ted. + +"An ichthyosaurus?" supplemented Ace. + +"As has been said before," Norris took up the thread of his talk, "with a +drier climate and soil, comes the need of developing a faster mode of +locomotion, for food no longer lies or swims everywhere about, as it did +in the ocean, and in the swamps, and tropic humidity. Food and water are +scarce, and it is the speediest animal that fulfills his needs. This +speediness on his part means that he uses up more energy, and hence needs +more food, and he needs to assimilate it faster. In other words, it means +increased metabolism. This in turn means that he keeps his body at a +higher temperature. He needs it too, now, with the increased cold. This +results in the development of warm blood, by which the animal can +maintain his body warmth regardless of winter cold. If it had not been +for conditions that forced certain reptiles to develop warm-bloodedness, +we would have no birds or mammals to-day, for as you doubtless know, +birds and mammals both were evolved from reptiles." + +"I swan!" was all the old prospector could say. + +"Yes, the first mammals developed from a reptile known as the cynodont. +Many of these reptiles had long legs and could travel with the body well +off the ground. Birds originated from the same reptilian stock as did the +dinosaurs. First their hind-legs grew long so that they could run on +them,--and you will notice at the Museum how the legs of a dinosaur are +joined to the body exactly like a bird's,--then their scales gradually +evolved into feathers. + +"There is a lot more to it than I can tell you now, but after various ups +and downs, dinosaurs became extinct and Nature tried out several kinds of +warm-blooded, furry mammals, some of them herbivorous and built for speed +to run away from their enemies, some of them swamp-dwelling monsters with +heavy legs and small brains, who, slow of movement, relied on horns and +other armor and sharp teeth for their defense. + +"But there is no end to this subject. I only mean to make the point that +it was geological changes that drove the fish to land, and the land +animal to higher forms, till finally other geological changes drove man's +ancestors down out of the trees." The boys, no less than the old +prospector, testifying their interest in the last named operation, he +continued. + +"When the Alps, the Andes and the Himalayas arose, man's ancestors still +lived in trees. But high mountains hold a large part of the moisture of +the atmosphere in the form of snow and ice, and at the same time the +decreased oceanic areas offer less surface for evaporation. Not only does +that mean a drier climate, but the sun's rays pass more freely through +dry air, and the days are hotter, and the heat passing freely back +through the same dry air at night, the nights are colder. Seasons are +more extreme, and ice accumulates on the mountain tops and around the +polar region, precursor of a glacier period. The aridity decreases the +amount of forest, and the manlike tree dweller had to descend to the +ground to get his living. That necessitated the development of his hind +legs for speed, and that speed necessitated his assuming a wholly erect +posture. That in turn freed his hands, and he, or the man descended from +him, could defend himself by throwing stones at the huge beasts who then +peopled the earth. The cold winters necessitated the use of the skins of +beasts for clothing, and so on through the list. It was geological +necessity that drove man into his higher development. + +"Changes of climate and environment, however, are stimulating, even +to-day. Statistics show that stormy weather actually increases people's +energy." + +The next day they passed a long crack in a rock slope, which Norris felt +sure had been made by an earthquake, perhaps as recent as that of 1906, +to judge from the cleanness and newness of it. The crack was no more than +a foot or two in width, but in places eight feet deep, they estimated, +and along the Western side of it stood a fault scarp, in this case a wall +of granite bowlders of various sizes up to four or five feet in height. + +"This," pronounced the geology man, "is evidently a region overlying +subterranean volcanoes, which might even yet build the range higher. I'll +bet that kind of mountain building may still be going on around here." + +Again and again Norris, or even Ace, had been able to point out, in the +record of the rocks, the evidences of the two glacier periods that had +helped shape the Sierra Nevada, the earlier one much larger, and enduring +longer, as shown by the moraines (or deposits) left behind. The lower end +of a canyon would be no wider than the stream that incised it, but the +upper portion would have been smoothed into grassy parks or lakelets on +each tread of a giant stairway to the summit of the range. + +Rounded water-worn pebbles and cobblestones among a mass of angular +bowlders, left behind by glacier streams, together with an occasional +striated pebble, were "sermons in stones" to the geologist. + +"Hey, Ted," his chum had challenged him that day, "did you ever see a +pirate?" + +"Don't know as I did," admitted the ranch boy. + +"Then I'll show you one. Climb in," and he prepared to search once more +for the Mexicans. + +"Show me one! You speak as if they kept them in museums." + +"This pirate will be a river. A river pirate,--I mean a pirate river! If +I could find the divide just North of Muah Mountain I'd show you where +streams are being captured this minute. Cottonwood Creek has already +captured one of the tributaries of Mulkey Creek, I hear, and diverted it +into an eastward flow, and further captures are likely to be pulled off +any time. Isn't it a scandal?" + +"I say, Ace," protested his chum, "I've swallowed a lot since we started +on this trip, but I'm not so gullible as you seem to think." + +"Look here, old kid," said Ace seriously. "It's a fact. Along a divide, a +stream flowing one way will divert one flowing the other way into its own +channel." + +They found a pirate river,--but still no trace of the incendiaries. +However, that merely determined the Senator's son the more. + +That night Norris told them the long promised tale of his Alaskan trip. + +"Nothing like the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes has ever been seen by the +eye of man," he declared. "If we could take all the other volcanic +regions of the world to-day and set them down side by side, they would +present less of a spectacle, except, of course, at the time of a +dangerous eruption. There has been nothing like it in the memory of +man,--though geologists can read from the rocks that such conditions must +have existed in past ages. The Mt. Katmai eruption of 1912, one of the +most dangerous in history, first attracted attention to this region, and +the National Geographic Society has since sent various expeditions to +Alaska. It was that way that the Valley came to be discovered, in 1916. + +"I happened to be a member of the last expedition." + +"Honestly!" the boys exclaimed. + +"Yes, and I tell you, boys, when I first looked through Katmai Pass, it +just looked as if the whole valley were full of smoke. Of course it was +steam." + +"Weren't you afraid of another volcano?" asked the boys, snuggling down +ready for a real story. + +"No, because with all those vents letting off steam, it must relieve the +pressure from below, like so many safety-valves. Two black, glassy +looking lava mountains guard the pass. The wind on the side of +Observation Mountain was blowing so hard it honestly lifted us off our +feet at times, and it blew a hail of pumice stone in our faces that +literally cut the flesh. Of course we wore goggles. + +"Once in the valley, there were certainly all of ten thousand smokes +rising from the ground. We were simply speechless, it was such an awesome +spectacle." + +"I'll bet you were!" breathed Ted. + +"Personally, I consider it more wonderful than either the Grand Canyon or +the geysers of the Yellowstone. As far as we could see in any +direction,--and there seemed to be three arms to the valley,--the white +vapor was steaming out of the ground until it mingled with a great cloud +that hung between the mountain walls. And we later camped in places where +we could keep our food in a hollow of a glacier while we boiled our +breakfast in a steam hole, and the ground was almost too warm for +comfort." + +"Must have been an ideal camping place," said Ace. + +"Far from that. Too much danger of breaking through. And then of course +there wasn't a tree or a grass blade anywhere, much less a stick of +firewood. But we sure had steam heat at night, and we cooked, in the +milder of the fumaroles." + +"Wasn't there a lot of gas coming up with the steam?" asked Ace. + +"Yes, but it didn't taint our food any. It was an ideal steam cooker. +Farther down the valley were some vents hot enough to fry bacon." + +"I should think it would have steamed it," said Ted. + +"No, we found one vent where the steam came so hot that it didn't +condense for several feet above ground; the only trouble was that the +frying pan had a tendency to go flying up in the air and the cook had to +have a strong arm to hold it down." + +At the picture his memory evoked, Norris burst into hearty chuckles. "As +the bacon got crisp, of course it didn't weigh so heavy, and there always +came a point where it began to fly out of the pan. Then we'd all stand +around, and it was the liveliest man that caught the most breakfast. + +"There was another camp convenience, too, there in Hades, as the valley +has been named." + +"Thar, didn't I tell you so?" triumphed Long Lester. + +"And they named the river Lethe. A river that ran down from the melting +glaciers,--though it almost all goes up in smoke, as it were,--in steam, +before it gets out of the hot part. This river whirls along, and in +places the steam actually boils up through the ice water, or along the +banks. I used to think it was an awful pity there were no fish in that +stream, because we could have cooked them without taking them off the +hook." + +"Huh!" The old prospector shook his head. "I've thought all along this +here was a fish story." + +"But it's gospel truth," Norris assured him. "I mean about the valley. I +_said_ there were no fish. Everything we ate, by the way, had to be +packed in on our backs. It was no place for horses, where in places the +ground fairly shook beneath our feet, and if it were to give way, we'd +find ourselves sure enough in hot water." + +"It must have been almighty dangerous," gasped Ted. + +"Well, not after we learned the ropes. Sometimes we accidentally put a +foot through a thin place and steam came through. I assure you we stepped +lively then. At other times our feet sank into the soft, hot mud. + +"By the way, there is a mountain across the head of the valley that looks +like a crouching dog, and it has been named Cerberus." + +"Were those geysers, those ten thousand smokes?" asked the old prospector. + +"No, a geyser comes after volcanic activity, while here something is +still likely to happen. A geyser begins as a column of steam and hot +water, which erupts as often as the water gets to the boiling point. It +follows that the water must accumulate in rock not so hot that it would +instantly vaporize it. But the rock underlying this valley is so hot that +no water can accumulate." + +"How large are the vents through which the steam comes?" asked Ted. + +"All sizes down to nothing at all. There are even a few craters 100 feet +across, that have been produced by volcanic explosions. You will find +these craters, generally, along a large fissure, just the way you find +the Aleutian chain of volcanoes along a fissure in the earth's crust +several hundred miles in length. + +"There are fissures all along the margins of the valley, besides those in +the center, and many of these have one side standing higher than the +other, showing them to be earthquake faults,--the same sort of thing we +see here in the rocks of the Sierras. And you should hear the hissing and +roaring of the steam as it forces its way up through these fissures from +the hot depths beneath. Sometimes it looks like blue smoke, it is so full +of gases, especially sulphur dioxide, the gas that is given off by +burning sulphur. So the popular notion of Hades isn't so far off after +all, eh?" + +"Could you smell the sulphur fumes?" + +"Sometimes, yes,--when the other gases did not overwhelm the odor. But +the weirdest part of all is the incrustations along the borders of the +vents. All colors of the rainbows--shapes as fantastic as anything in +fairyland. Lots of yellow, of course, from the sulphur,--crystals of it, +some of them neighbor to an orange tinted crystal, lying in the blue mud. +It was a beautiful color combination. Then there were green and gray +alum crystals which looked like growing lichens. There were also deep +green algae actually growing. Strange how certain designs are used over +and over again in nature! In other places the mud is actually burned +brick red, especially where the fumaroles are burnt out. This shades to +purple, and in other places to pink. But the most surprising, perhaps, +were the white vents just tinted with a delicate pink or cream. + +"The largest fissure of all, one lying at the foot of Mt. Mageik, is +filled with the clear green water of a melted glacier. And above, the +mountain smokes away into the clouds!" + +"It must be a marvelous place!" said Ace. "I suppose it was regular ice +water." + +Norris laughed. "That is the funny part of it. It's not. The water is +actually warm, or rather, tepid, in places, on account of the heat from +below." + +"So you had good swimming even in Alaska." + +"We might have had. And then I must tell you about Novarupta. That's the +largest vent in the valley, and it is something you won't see very many +places in the world, a new volcano. It was only formed at the time of the +eruption of 1912, and it is one of the largest volcanoes in the world +to-day,--with a crater much larger than that of Vesuvius." + +"But Mr. Norris, do y' mind my asking," Pedro hesitated, "but how do you +know it is a new volcano? Don't volcanoes sometimes burst forth again +after many years of quiet?" + +"They do, but there is where the rocks tell the story again. Instead of +bursting forth from a mountain top, through igneous rock, (left from the +time when the earth-crust was molten), this one erupted in the valley, in +sandstone. On a still day, the smoke will rise as high as ten thousand +feet." + +Norris, then a student, had been one of the first to view Lassen Volcano +when, in 1914, it broke its slumber of 200 years. Indeed, he had had a +real adventure, as the second outburst had caught him within half a mile +of the crater and he had barely escaped with his life. Of course the boys +had to hear all about it. + +While the Sierra south of Lassen has been built more through uplift than +volcanic activity, at least since the Tertiary period, he explained, the +Cascades and indeed, the whole range to the northward through Oregon and +Washington, is a product of lava flow. + +Happening to be about to start on a camping trip in the Feather River +region at the time of the first eruption, he and his companion had +hastened immediately to the scene of so much geological history making. +The smoke and ashes that billowed forth had been visible for fifty miles, +and the accompanying earthquake shocks had been accompanied by a downpour +of rain. + +Climbing the path of a recent snow-slide, which had cleared a narrow path +in the fifteen-foot drifts, they could smell sulphur strongly from near +the South base onward. Veering around to the East, past half a dozen +cinder cones, they finally reached a narrow ridge leading directly to, as +yet unoccupied, the fire outlook station. Clambering over crags so steep, +finally, that they could not see ahead, they came to the little square +building, now tattered by the stones that had fallen through its roof, +tethered to the few feet of space available by wire cables that seemed to +hold it down in the teeth of the winds. Suddenly below them lay the bowl +of the ancient crater, bordered by snow fields now gray with ash. That +the ash had not been hot they judged from the fact that it had nowise +melted the snow, but lay on its surface. From the ragged edge of the +steaming basin, yellow with sulphur, rose the oppressive fumes they had +been getting more and more strongly. How deep was this funnel to the +interior of the earth? To their amazement it appeared to be only about 80 +feet deep. That, they decided,--coupled with the fact that the ash and +rocks exploded had not been hot, but cold, must be because the sides of +the crater, as they gradually caved in, must have choked the neck of the +crater with debris, which had been expelled when the smoke and gases had +been exploded. There had been no lava flow, then! + +They had retraced their steps to perhaps half a mile's distance when of a +sudden the earth beneath their feet began to heave and rumble +thunderously. Ashes and rocks, some the size of flour sacks, some huge +bowlders, began shooting into the air,--observers at a distance assuring +them afterwards that the smoke must have risen 3,000 feet above the peak. +It grew black as midnight, the smoke stung their eyes and lungs and +whiffs of sulphur nearly overwhelmed them. + +It was a position of deadly peril. Quick as thought, they ran, Norris +dragging his companion after him, beneath the shelter of an overhanging +ledge, where at least the rocks could not fall on them, and there they +buried their faces in the snow and waited. + +What seemed hours was later pronounced to have been but fifteen minutes, +though with the roaring as of mighty winds, and the subterranean +grumblings and sudden inky night, the crashing of stones and thundering +of rolling bowlders, it seemed like the end of the world. + +Norris's companion had suffered a blow that dislocated his shoulder, but +otherwise they emerged unhurt. They afterwards found several areas on the +sides of Lassen where sulphurous gases were escaping from pools of hot +mud or boiling water. They also visited a lake that had been formed at +the time of the lava flow of 200 years ago, (now a matter of legend among +the Pitt River Indians), this lava having formed a dam across a little +valley which later filled from the melting snows. The stumps of the +inundated trees could still be seen. + +A geyser, said the Geological Survey man, is just like a volcano, only it +expels steam and boiling water from the interior. There is a line of +volcanic activity up and down the Pacific Coast, from Alaska to Central +America, though Lassen is the only active peak in California, Shasta +having become quiescent save for the hot spring that steams through the +snow near its summit. + +The North half of the range, he added, is covered with floods of glassy +black lava and dotted with extinct craters, whereas the Southern half is +almost solid granite, though there are plenty of volcanic rocks to be +found among its wild gorges. The rocks around Lassen tell a vivid story +of the chain of fire mountains that must have again and again blazed into +geysers of molten rock, till the whole smoking range was quenched beneath +the ice of that last glacier period, which through the ages has been +sculpturing new lake and river beds, and grinding soil for the rebirth of +the mighty forests. + +The boys drowsed off that night to dream of fire mountains and +explorations in the nether regions. + +The next day they planned to bi-plane up and down the John Muir trail +again and see if the Mexicans could have crossed to the Eastern side of +the range. They might have made their way through some pass, traveling +after nightfall and hiding by day, and once on the desert around Mono +Lake they would be easy to locate. For it seemed ridiculous that they +could actually make a get-away. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +GOLD! + + +In the pass between two appalling peaks the two boys sighted the smoke of +a cook-fire, and without once reflecting that they were unarmed, +pan-caked down for a closer inspection. But there was no need to land. It +was a band of Indians. And though they searched till they were ready to +drop with fatigue,--and all but frozen stiff in those high +altitudes,--not the sign of a Mexican did they sight after that. + +They returned utterly discouraged. + +"What kind of Indians were they?" asked Long Lester. + +"Oh, just Indians," said the ranch boy. + +"That is like saying, oh, just whites," said Norris. "Indians differ more +than you would ever imagine." + +"Why is that, Mr. Norris?" Ted wanted to know. "They're mostly mighty +good for nothing specimens, to judge from our Diggers." + +"I'll tell you after supper," Norris promised them. + +Pedro had been out with his trout rod. Descending to the river, which +here circled around a huge bowlder from which he thought he could cast, +he had a string in no time. + +Now Pedro was thoroughly well liked, with his Castilian courtesy and his +ever ready song. The lack of physical courage had been his greatest +drawback. Always had the fear been secret within him that at some crucial +moment he might show the white feather. His experience with the Mexicans +had removed that, but he was still mortally afraid of three +things,--bears, rattlesnakes, and thunder storms,--that is, real wild +bears, not the half tame kind that haunt the Parks. + +Still, he had not noticed the furry form that stood neck-deep in the +riffles, fishing with his great, barbed paw,--so perfectly did he blend +into the background. + +The shadow of the canyon wall had made twilight while yet the sun sent +orange shafts through the trees on the canyon rim. Suddenly around the +turn of the trail rose a huge brown form that gave a startled grunt, +rising inquiringly on its shaggy hind legs and swinging its long head +from side to side. Pedro's heart began beating like a trip-hammer. (He +wondered if the bear could hear it). + +He wanted to run, to scream,--a course that would have been most +ill-advised, for the bear might then have given chase. As it was, the boy +remembered that the animal was probably more afraid than he,--or more +likely merely curious at this biped invasion of his wilderness,--and +would not harm him if no hostile move were made. The cinnamon bear of +the Sierras, like his blood brother, the New England black bear, is a +good-natured fellow. + +With an iron grip on his nerves, he forced himself to stand stock-still, +then back--ever so amenably--off the trail. The bear, finding no +hostility intended, turned and lumbered up the mountainside. + +"'Minds me of one time,' said Long Lester, when he heard the story, 'I +was down to the crick once when I was a shaver, and along came a big +brown bear. The bear, he stood up on his haunches, surprised like, and +just gave one 'woof.' About that time I decided to take to the tall +timber." (At this, Pedro looked singularly gratified.) "Well, that bear, +he took to the same tree I did, and I kept right on a-climbin' so high +that I get clear to the top,--it were a slim kind of a tree,--and the top +bends and draps me off in the water!" + +[Illustration: Around the turn of the trail rose a huge brown form.] + +"What became of the bear?" Pedro demanded. + +"I dunno. I didn't wait to see. But Mr. Norris here were a-sayin' there's +nothin' in the back country a-goin' to hurt you unless'n it's +rattlesnakes. Now when I was a-prospectin' I allus used to carry a hair +rope along, and make a good big circle around my bed with it. The rattler +won't crawl over the hair rope." + +The boys thought he was joshing them, but Long Lester was telling the +literal truth. "Once I was just a-crawlin' into bed," he went on, "when I +heard a rattle," and with the aid of a dry leaf he gave a faint imitation +of the buzzing "chick-chick-chick-chick-chick" that sounds so ominous +when you know it and so harmless when you don't. "I flung back the covers +with one jerk, and jumped back myself out of the way. There was a snake +down at the foot of my blankets. They are always trying to crawl into a +warm place." + +"Then what?" breathed three round eyed boys. + +"First I put on my shoes and made up a fire so's I could see, 'n' then +I take a forked stick and get him by the neck, and smash his head with a +stone." + +"And yet I've heard of making pets of them," said Norris. + +"They do. Some do. But I wouldn't," stated Long Lester emphatically. "Ner +I wouldn't advise any one to trust 'em too fur, neither." + +"They say a rattler has one rattle on his tail for every year of his +age," ventured Pedro. + +"A young snake," spoke up Ted, "has a soft button on its tail. And then +the rattle grows at the rate of three joints a year, and you can't tell a +thing about its age, because by the time there are about ten of them, it +snaps off when it rattles." + +"Down in San Antonio," said Ace, "we had an hour between trains once, and +we went into a billiard parlor where they had a collection of +rattlesnakes, stuffed. And they showed some rattles with 30 or 40 joints +to them." + +"Huh!" laughed Ted. "That's easy! You can snap the rattles of several +snakes together any time you want to give some tourist a thrill." + +"You seem to know all about it," gibed Ace. "They had 13 species of +rattlesnakes down in this--it used to be a saloon. And ten of them +Western. They had a huge seven foot diamond back, and they had yellow +ones and gray ones and black ones and some that were almost pink. I +mean, they had their skins. All colors----" + +"To match their habitat," supplemented Norris. "Our California rattler is +a gray or pale brown where it's dry summers, and in the Oregon woods +where it's moist, and the foliage deeper colored, it's green-black all +but the spots. _I've_ seen them tamed. There was one guide up there who +kept one in a cage, and it would take a mouse from his fingers." + +"I wouldn't chance it," shivered Ted. + +"Oh, this one would glide up flat on the floor of the cage. They can't +strike unless they're coiled." + +"I suppose he caught it before it was old enough to be poison," said +Pedro. + +"A rattlesnake can strike from the moment it's born. It's perfectly +independent a few hours after birth." + +"Ugh! Bet I dream of them now." But such was their healthy out-of-door +fatigue that they all slept like logs. + +It was only the next day, however, that the two boys, Ace and Ted, poking +exploratively into a deep cleft in a rock ledge, were startled by an +abrupt, ominous rattle, and beheld in their path the symmetrical coils of +the sinister one. The inflated neck was arched from the center of the +coil and the heart-shaped head, with red tongue out-thrust, waved slowly +as the upthrust tail vibrated angrily. A flash of that swift head would +inject the deadly virus into the leg of one of the intruders. Yet Ted +knew the reptile would never advance to the attack. + +Dragging Ace back with him, he instantly placed at least six feet between +them, so that, should the snake charge, it could not reach them. But with +the enemy obviously on the retreat, the snake glided to cover in a +tumbled mass of rocks at one side. + +"Gee! We nearly stepped on him!" the ranch boy exclaimed, with a voice +that was not quite steady. "Next time we go poking into a place like +that, let's poke in a stick first, or throw a stone, to make sure there's +'nobody home.'" + +"Wish I'd a brought a hair rope," mused Ace. "We might have had one that +would go clear around all our sleeping bags. First chance we get, I'm +going to buy one." + +"Naw! We won't need one. Did you ever see a rattler catch a rabbit?" +asked his chum. + +"No, d'you?" + +"Once I was going along when I noticed the trail of some sort of snake +going across the road. Next thing I heard a rabbit squeal, and by the +time I spotted the snake it had a hump half way down its throat, and it +was swallowing and swallowing trying to get that rabbit down whole." + +"I consider the possibility of rattlesnake bite the one biggest danger in +the whole Sierra," declared Norris, one night, lighting each step +carefully over the rocks. "And he does his hunting by night." + +"Considerate of him!" laughed Ace, "seeing that campers do most of theirs +by day. But why is it such a danger? I've heard opinions pro and con." + +"Rattlesnake venom disintegrates the blood vessels, makes the blood thin +and unable to clot. I knew a man who was struck in the ankle, and they +had to amputate the leg, and the very bones of that leg were saturated +with the blood that had seeped through the weakened walls of the blood +vessels." + +"How does it feel to be struck, I wonder?" the boy shuddered. + +"This man's ankle became discolored practically immediately and began to +swell. Of course the bite was through his sock, which must have kept a +little of the poison out of it, and it fortunately did not happen to +penetrate an artery. We could have cut and kneaded the wound instantly to +clear out as much as possible of the venom before it had time to enter +the blood system, but the fellow refused such heroic measures. We should +have taken him by force; it would have saved his leg, likely, for +ordinarily this, and a ligature, will do the work. + +"Or we could have burned it clean, or injected the serum if we'd had +it. But as I was about to explain, he soon became dull and languid, +breathing noisily, for the poison affected heart and lungs. It was then +that he let us get to work,--almost too late,--or rather, that he ceased +his protest. His whole leg swelled and turned black, clear up, he got +feverish and nauseated, and for hours he kept swooning off, while we +worked over him, almost giving up hope, and one of our men had gone +post-haste for an old guide who made the serum,--anti-venom serum." + +"Did he finally pull through?" + +"With the loss of a leg. If he hadn't had that off pronto, gangrene would +likely have set in and he'd have gone." + +"But this serum--where do you get it?" + +"I don't know. We got it of a man who made it. First he injected into a +mule a tiny drop of the venom." + +"How did he get the venom?" + +"Killed a snake. You know the poison is in a tiny sac at the root of each +fang. Well, after he had given the mule the first dose and he had +recovered, he tried a larger one, then a still larger one, and so on, +every few weeks for a year or more, until the mule's blood serum had +developed enough anti-toxin to make him immune to rattlesnake bite." + +"But then what?" + +"He let some of the mule's blood, separated the serum, sterilized it, and +put it up in sealed tubes, which he kept in the cellar. This serum is +injected into the victim's blood with a hypodermic syringe, and if it is +used before he has collapsed, it will cure him every time. We really +ought to have brought some along, just in case of extreme emergency. I +have, however, a bottle of permanganate of potash crystals," and he +showed a little hard rubber tube two and a half inches long, one end of +which contained the crystals and the other a well sharpened lancet, as +the stuff has to be put right into the wound. This outfit, he explained, +had only cost a dollar, and was so tiny it could be carried right on the +person when in danger of being snake bitten. However, it has to be used +instantly, (within three or four minutes at the outside), "if it is to +neutralize the corroding acid of the poison and do any good." + +That night a bon-fire built up into a log cabin with a tepee of pine +fringed poles atop sent the sparks flying, but was not uncomfortably hot +except on their faces. These they shaded with their hat brims. + +"I wonder why there is so much difference in Indians," mused Ace. "When +Dad and I visited the Hopis, there, on our way to the Grand Canyon, we +were impressed by their high degree of civilization. Like all the +Pueblos, they raised good crops, had a regular government, and even an +art. And look at these Digger Indians, filthy, thieving creatures, +grubbing for roots like wild animals, eating slugs and lizards, because +they are too lazy to cultivate a piece of ground!" + +"I remember," said Norris, "one of my favorite professors at Yale always +said that civilization was largely dependent upon civilization," and he +pointed out the Indians as an illustration. Of course he gave due credit +to what he termed inherent mental capacity. But to climate he laid the +energy with which that capacity is developed,--always provided there were +sufficient material resources. That is to say, even white men with fine +brains could not evolve as high a degree of civilization in the Arctic +Circle as they can where they have the material resources necessary to +supply the physical needs. + +"But I should think the material resources of the Arctic Circle were a +result of the climate." + +"In large part, they are. That just strengthens the point that climate +has had a lot to do with civilization, and incidentally with the +differences between different tribes of Indians. I wonder if I can give +his theory straight! Well, anyway, here's the general idea. It applies +quite as much to all nationalities as it does to Indians in particular. + +"What is our conception of The Noble Red Man? He is observant, he has +unlimited physical endurance, but he does not adapt himself to our +civilization, nor does he work out new methods for himself, as we have +done since America was settled. He is conservative, in other +words,--lacking in originality and inventiveness. + +"Of course they came at some stage of their evolution from the primitive +home of man in Asia. So also did the Scandinavians,--so also did the +Japanese. But while both of these finally located in cold but not too +cold climates, nor steadily cold, they were merely stimulated. The +Indian, though,--the American Indian,--likely migrated by way of Bering +Strait, and passing generations in the Esquimo lands, where it is about +all they can manage to keep alive at all during the long, dark winters. +The result? Those who were high strung nervously went insane,--just as +many an Esquimo and many a white man does to-day, under the necessity of +idling in a stuffy hut in the cold and darkness. It was only the mentally +lazy who could survive that phase of their evolution. That accounts for +certain differences between all Indians and all white men. + +"Remember, it wasn't the sheer cold so much as the monotony of the +unbroken cold and darkness. The negroes of Africa also failed to +progress, but in their case it was the energy-inhibiting equatorial +climate, and especially the monotony of unbroken equatorial conditions. +The European Nordics,--remember, of ancestral stock originating in that +same Asiatic cradle,--had severe cold, and in summer, often, extreme +heat,--but there was no monotony. + +"The too active Hottentot soon killed himself off, and only the indolent +survived. The races that have had long sojourns, in the course of their +racial wanderings, under desert conditions, where patient endurance is an +asset, also suffered a decimation of their more alert members. The stolid +were the more fit to survive desert conditions. You will find races now +dwelling in favorable climates who may exhibit these unprogressive +qualities, but back of them is a history of some experience that has +weeded out the more active individuals. + +"But am I getting too long-winded?" + +"You haven't told us yet why one tribe of Indians will be so different +from another, if they both came here via the Arctic Circle," urged Ace. + +"Well, there is where another factor comes in,--that of material +resources. What could an Arab have accomplished with nothing but desert +sands to work with? What can the Esquimos accomplish with little but ice +to grow crops? They must secure their food by hunting, and hunters must +be nomadic. Nomads cannot carry many creature comforts with them, nor can +scattered groups be much mental stimulus to one another. Nor can the arts +develop when the mere struggle for animal existence demands one's whole +energy. + +"These Digger Indians came from the as yet unirrigated deserts around Los +Angeles, with its long dry season, whereas Hopis and other Pueblos around +Santa Fe, though up against as dry a climate, taking it in actual number +of inches rainfall per year, have enough of their rain during the summer +months to enable them to raise crops, and hence to establish permanent +habitats, and hence to work out a form of government, a social system, an +art and an organized religion." + +"But the Utes around Salt Lake City, who were living on grasshoppers when +the Pueblos were eating squash and beans,--utter savages,--didn't they +have much the same climate as the Pueblos?" + +"What I said of the Diggers of Los Angeles applies to them. Their +rainfall did not come at the right time of year to raise crops, and of +course in such desert conditions there were practically no wild fruits. + +"The Indians of the more fertile parts of North America, like the early +people of Europe, had wild vegetation to supply the means of subsistence. +And the wild vegetation also gave wild game a means of subsistence, to +say nothing of the means for clothing and shelter. Of course that is not +the whole of the story. There is, for instance, coal and iron, but iron +has to be smelted where there is forestation, and we come right back to +climate, as one of the principal factors in civilization. + +"There is also energy,--zeal, determination. But what about the effect of +proper food and shelter on those qualities? And more important, what +about the effect of climate? + +"Elaborate tests have been made. Without going into all that, perhaps you +will take my word for it. But the best climate for either physical or +mental efficiency is one that is variable,--for change is +stimulating,--and that goes to no unlivable extreme, but offers the cold, +dry winter and the warm, slightly rainy summer of, say, for instance, the +Eastern United States, or Central Europe, Italy, or Japan." + +"But why does a winter in Southern California do an invalid so much good?" + +"The change. The beneficial effects wear off with time. + +"And just one word more, while we are on the subject. I'd hardly do my +old professor justice unless I mentioned that he lays that third factor +in civilization, inherent mental capacity, to the climatic conditions, +not of the present, but of the ancestral history of the past. But +remember, the climate of, say, Greece, has not always been what it is +to-day. Our Big Trees show, by an examination of their annual rings, the +same story that the rocks tell,--and that history tells,--that there have +been constant fluctuations of climate, within certain limitations. The +records of geology lead us to believe that California and the +Mediterranean countries have undergone the same climatic variations." + +The next day the boys were so tired of sleuthing for the fire-bugs that +they decided to join the others in a holiday and explore one of the +neighboring peaks, leaving the burros and outfit at their camp of the +night before. About noon, the trail ended abruptly at a peak of granite +blocks each no larger than a footstool. Off to the left they could see a +peak higher than the one immediately before them. It seemed to be a ridge +of three peaks, theirs the middle one, and once on the ridge, they could +pick a course along the crest. + +A little further on, the trail narrowed till they could see a tiny lake +on either side, and a stone's throw below, pools as clear as mirrors +reflecting the twisted growth about their brims. Then Ace gave a shout, +for down a hollow between two ridges to the north lay a patch of snow. + +Sliding,--on their feet if they could manage it,--and snow-balling, the +boys were surprised to find how short of breath they were at this +elevation, a trifle over ten thousand feet, Norris estimated,--for on +their steady upward plod they had not particularly noticed it, or had not +attributed their slightly unusual heaviness to altitude. + +They were therefore willing enough to rest on top, though even at noon +the wind blew cold upon them. Stretching almost north and south before +them rose the main crest of the Sierras,--peak after peak that they could +name from the map. They could see for at least a hundred miles. First the +wild green gorges that made the peaks seem higher, then snow-capped and +glacier-streaked altitudes rising one above another till they faded into +purple nothingness. + +They did their climbing single file, with arms free, having disposed of +their lunch at timberline. But where Norris had led the way up, Pedro was +the first to start back. "Come on, why not take a short cut?" he shouted +in competition with the wind. + +"All right." Norris stepped on a rock at that moment that turned with +him, barely escaping a wrenched ankle. He kept his eyes on his footing +for some moments after that. It was therefore not surprising that he did +not notice where Pedro was leading, till the latter called: + +"Why, there's our lake, isn't it?" + +The way began to be all bowlders, larger and larger ones. "Here, that +isn't the way we came," cautioned Norris. + +"I know it," Pedro assured him, "but see, Mr. Norris, we're just going +around this middle peak instead of over it." + +"Better not try any stunts," warned the Geological Survey man. Had he +been by himself, he would have gone straight back till he came to the way +they had gone up. But the boys were tired, and he hated to ask them to +retrace their steps. Besides, he did not want to discourage initiative in +the Spanish boy. + +But soon they found themselves scrambling over slabs so high that they +had to take them on all fours, clambering over one as high as their +heads, then letting themselves down into the cranny between that and the +next. + +"We sure never came over anything like this!" the rest of the party began +complaining. But on they scuttled, leapt and sprawled, no one finding any +better way. + +"Hurry, there's our lake!" shouted Pedro finally. "I'll bet if I could +throw a stone hard enough, it would scare the fish." + +But Norris spoke in alarm: "We couldn't see any lake on the trail going +up. On the contrary, we saw the peak to our left. Don't you remember? +Now see! That peak is on our _right_!" + +"Fellows, we are on the wrong side of this ridge," he decided. "And what +is more, instead of going back down the middle crest, we have gone clear +on to the third peak." (For the ridge was a three peaked affair, the +middle being the lowest.) "The best thing now is to circle around as near +the top as we can go, till we strike the trail. If we keep circling, we +are bound to strike it sooner or later. But let's not all go together, or +we might start a rock-slide. Let's 'watch our step!' What would we do if +one of you put his ankle out of commission?" + +The boys had little breath to waste on comment. Probably none but Norris +had any vivid realization of the danger they were in, but each fellow had +a keen eye to keeping his footing. Rock-slides the three boys had never +seen, but a sprained knee or a crushed foot was something they could +understand. Pedro also had a weather eye out for rattlesnakes, to whom +these rocks would have been paradise if it had not been such a chill +elevation. + +As the sun sank lower and lower, they began secretly to wonder what it +would be to have to spend the night on this windy peak, without even an +emergency ration,--unpardonable over-thought! They circled steadily, +Norris now in the lead, the boys spreading out fan-wise as they followed, +Pedro even getting clear to the foot of the granite where he thought he +would have easier going through the woods, though he would also have a +larger arc to traverse. He felt safer on solid ground, though had he +measured, he might have seen that he had climbed as far in going down as +did the others in circling around. + +Once a huge bowlder that overhung a precipice rocked under Ted, and it +was only by a swift spring that he saved himself. Many of the smaller +rocks tipped warningly, and he frequently stumbled. How slow their +progress seemed! How fast the sun was sinking in the west! And how +astoundingly their shoes were wearing through! It was three hours later +that Pedro, down in the edge of the woods, gave a shout and began waving +his arms in the wildest manner. Then along the way that he picked in +coming to meet them, Norris with his glasses could just make out the +brown ribbon of the trail. + +Fifteen minutes more and they were lined up ready for the homeward march, +cured once and for all of short-cuts, and divided only as to whether it +would be better to run, at the risk of a turned ankle, while there was +light to see their footing, or walk, and have to go the last half of the +way in darkness. + +They finally did some of both, running where the trail lay free from +stones, and eventually having to make their way by the feel of the ground +under the feet, and the memory of the mountain meadows whose perfume they +passed, and the sound of the creek to their right. The stars were out, +giving a faint but welcome light that served as guide when finally they +stumbled into camp, bone-weary but safe, and nothing loth to set all +hands for a square meal before tumbling in. + +Throwing some of their reserve supply of fuel on the fireplace, they +soon had the home fires burning cheerily, and Pedro was demonstrating his +can-opener cookery. + +Next day a glitter from beneath the water of a rivulet high on the +mountainside, caught Ted's eye. Dipping with his tin cup, he brought up +a specimen of sand and water. Could it be only mica that glistened so? +Saying nothing to Ace, (for he remembered Long Lester's tale of salting a +mine once when "the boys" wanted some one of their number to stand treat +by way of celebration of his new-found riches), he slyly slipped an +aluminum plate from out the pack and began that primitive operation that +used to be known as pan and knife working. Falling a little behind, he +kept at it until he had separated out some heavy yellow grains that +proved malleable when he set his teeth on them. It was coarse gold! + +It was now time to announce his find, which he did to the amazement of +all but the old prospector. A more careful inspection of the bend where +he had found it proved it to be only the tiniest of pockets, though under +their combined efforts that day it yielded what the old man pronounced to +be about a hundred and fifty dollars' worth of dust. Still, even that was +not to be sneezed at, as Long Lester put it, in terms of Ted's college +fund,--for they all insisted on contributing their labor to his find. +Ted, though, insisted equally that it be their stake for another camping +trip. + +Later that same day they came to the remains of an old hut, now overgrown +inside and out with vines and underbrush. In one corner the old man +unearthed what he pronounced to be the rusted mining tools of the early +days. A fallen tree that lay across the doorway had to be chopped through +and cleared away before they could enter, and on stripping a bit of the +dry bark away for firewood, Pedro was puzzled to find what appeared like +hieroglyphics on its nether side. He showed Norris, but what it could be +he could not imagine, till Norris happened to try his pocket shaving +mirror on it. Then, clear as carving, only inverted, they spelled out the +legend: + + "CLAME NOTISE--JUMPERS WILL BE SHOT." + +These were evidently the letters that had been carved on the tree +trunk--as they judged, about six feet above its base, and though the sap +had long since obliterated the original, the bark still told the story +where it had grown over the wound. By chopping through the log at that +point and making a rough count of the annual rings of growth, they +estimated that all this had happened forty years ago. What had become of +the old miner? For such his tools acclaimed him. Why had he never come +back? Had he been overtaken by bandits, robbed of his buckskin bag of +dust, and murdered? Or had he struck a richer claim elsewhere? + +They dug beneath what once had been his crude stone hearth, in the hope +of buried treasure, but no such luck rewarded them, and finally they +moved on up the mountainside, past vistas of green-black firs and +yellow-green alders. As usual in these dry altitudes, the fiery sun of +noon-day had grown chill at sunset, the wind stopped singing through the +pines, and the weird bark of a coyote seemed to accentuate the loneliness +that the wilderness knows most of all when some abandoned human +habitation brings it home to one. + +But a heaped up bon-fire and a singing kettle soon drove the shadows from +the circling mountain meadow that was to be their home for the night. + +"Thet there cabin," drawled Lester, "sure made me feel as if I were back +on my old stamping grounds. 'Minds me of the place where I once found a +chunk o' glassy white quartz half the size of my head with flakes of +color in it that netted me $200. I spent quite consid'able time hunting +for the vein that came from, but I never did, nohow." + +Norris explained to Ted and Pedro that a quartz bowlder will often be +washed along a river. + + * * * * * + +They were awakened by the usual concert of hee-haws, as the burros, who +followed at their heels all day like dogs, (except when they got +contrary), woke the echoes with their loneliness. + +That day led them over another of the parallel ridges that comb the West +flank of the Sierra, and into a precipitous canyon, over red sandstones +and green shales, and slates of Tertiary formation, till they came to +another hot spring and decided to pitch camp and all hands make use of +the hot water. A natural bath tub and a smaller wash tub were found +hollowed out of the stony banks, doubtless carved by whirling bowlders +from the spring floods, and with the joy known only to the weary camper +they performed their ablutions, filling the tubs, each in turn, by means +of the nested pails. What grinding and whirling it must have taken, they +reflected, as they felt the smoothness of their symmetrical bowls, to +have hollowed these from the solid rock! With accompaniment of drift logs +tumbling end for end, as the river rose and foamed beneath the thousand +trickles of melting snow! + +"Ever been up here in winter?" Ace asked the old prospector. + +"Not exactly here, but I been places almighty like it." + +The old prospector told them how, in the days of the 49ers, (vivid +recollections of which his father had collated to his youthful ears), the +Mexicans had been treated in a way they had practically never forgiven. +The land was free. Discovery and appropriation of a mining claim gave +title, provided it was staked out and a notice scratched on a tin plate +affixed to the claim stake, and likewise provided that the size of the +claim accorded with the crude ruling for that region. Fifty feet was +generally allowed along a river, or even a hundred where the claim was +uncommonly poor and inaccessible, though where it was uncommonly rich, +miners were sometimes restricted to ten square feet apiece. + +But Mexicans were generally refused the benefits of the gold claims, the +"greasers" often being ejected by force of arms from the more valuable +claims. Sometimes they were given three hours' grace for their get-away. +More within the letter of the law, a tax was imposed on alien claim +holders, but at first such a heavy one that it was practically +prohibitive. This resulted in border warfare, and to many of the Mexicans +originally on the land, abject poverty. At the Mexican dry diggings, +which, with their bull rings and fandangoes, had sprung up here and there +in the foothills, there was bloody defiance of the tax collector. Other +groups became highwaymen, who robbed and murdered the blond race whom +they felt had cheated and maltreated them, stabbing from ambush, or +organizing into bands of road agents, who systematically robbed miners of +their dust and stage drivers of their express boxes, and as often +murdering their victims. + +There was Rattlesnake Dick, among other desperadoes, who with two +gangsters, Alverez and Garcia, had terrorized the gold diggings till, +five years after the gold rush, he had been killed by a rival bad man. + +Ace was so tired, he rested again that day, merely bringing his bi-plane +in to the new camp site. + +As Long Lester drawled over the camp fire, the drowsy boys lived again in +the days when a pinch of gold dust in a buckskin bag was currency, and +red shirted miners gambled away their gains or drank it up, in a land of +hot sunshine and hard toil, where a tin cup and a frying pan largely +comprised their bachelor housekeeping apparatus, their provender such as +could be brought in on jingle belled mule teams, their chief diversions +the occasional open air meeting or the lynchings of their necessarily +rough and ready justice. + +The more adventurous always abandoned a moderate prospect for a gold +rush. Some of them made rich strikes; others ended their days in poverty, +after all. + +The fire drowsed to a bed of red coals and the old man's chin was sunk in +his whiskers, but still he talked on, almost as if in his sleep, and +still the boys propped their eyes open while they stowed away in their +memories pictures of the pony express riders, of the horse thieves +branded--in this land of horseback distances--by having their ears cut +off, and of the unshaven miners, sashes bound Mexican fashion around the +tops of their pantaloons, the bottoms thrust into their boots, slouch +hats shading their unshaven faces, as they panned the glittering +sediments or built their sluices, with rocks for retaining the heavy +particles of gold washed over them. + +Gold had been found in a belt 500 miles long by 50 wide,--and it was a +cherished myth that somewhere along the crest of the range lay a mother +lode. + +But that, Norris told them, was not the way of the precious metal. The +"mother lode" was a myth. + +The next day the two boys started once again to look for the +incendiaries, for when Ace set out to do a thing, it was do or die. + +Pedro had now overcome his fear for bears, Mexicans, and getting lost, +but the too-gently reared youth had never conquered his nervousness at +thunder storms. He meant to, though, for he had come to consider useless +fears as so much surplus luggage. Just as when he was a small boy he had +overcome his fear of the dark by going right out into it and wandering +around in it till he felt at home in it, so now he meant to go right out +into the next thunder storm that came, becoming its familiar, till he +knew the worst, and no longer felt this unreasoning fear. + +It was therefore with a certain satisfaction, (though coupled with an +equally certain inward shrinking), that as he scanned the skies for some +sign of the returning bi-plane, he noticed, rising above a green fringe +of silver firs across the canyon, the snowy cumulus of a cloud. This was +about an hour before meridian, the time the usual five minute daily noon +thunder storm began to gather. + +But to-day he noted with surprise, not unmixed with alarm, that beyond +this one small mountain of the upper air,--so like the glacier-polished +granite slopes beneath that it might have been a fairy mountain, swelling +visibly as it rose higher and higher above the canyon wall,--beyond this +for as far as he could see were other domes and up-boiling vapor +mountains. What did it betoken? A cloud-burst?--For Sierra weather is not +like that in the Eastern mountain ranges, and such an assemblage sweeping +along the slopes and flying just above the green firs of the lower +forests must mean something beyond ordinary in the line of weather. + +Had he known more of Sierra weather, he would that instant have given up +his plan of being out in this specimen, but his new-born resolution was +still strong within him, and--he did not know. One above another for as +far as he could see the pearl-tinted billows rose from among the +neighboring peaks, swelling visibly as it rose higher and higher. Then +they began floating together, the cloud canyons taking on grayer tints, +then deep purplish shadows, and their bases darkened with the weight of +their vapory waters. + +With the sudden reverberation of a cannon shot, the first thunderbolt +crashed just ahead of a blinding zig-zag of lightning, and echoing and +reechoing from peak to granite peak, with ear-splitting, metallic +clearness, it rang its way down the canyon walls, till the echoes died +away. Soon the big drops began spattering loudly on the granite slopes, +till the drenched boy, bending his hat-brim to the onslaught, lost his +footing in the new slipperiness of the smooth, sloping rocks, down which +a solid sheet of water now raced, dimpling silver to the pelt of each +additional drop. + +Before he could collect his scattered wits, another thunder peal came +cannonading at the mountain mass, and almost behind him a solitary old +fir tree shook the ground with its fall. Another fir was slivered into +huge splinters that flew--fortunately for Pedro--just too far away to hit +him. Then loosened rocks and bowlders began bounding and re-bounding down +the cliffs till their thunder seemed as loud as that from the heavens. + +The lightning struck now here, now there, among the peaks, attracted by +veins of mineral. + +Uneasy on account of the flying stones and falling tree trunks, Pedro was +about to take shelter by crawling under a shelving rock when the rock +itself was dislodged by a flash of lightning, and went pommeling to the +slide-rock on the slope below. + +Seemingly all in the same breath, the rock-slide started, with a roar as +of fifty express trains, as it seemed to Pedro's long-suffering ears. An +electric storm always does start snow and rock slides. + +As if that had been the grand climax, the storm ceased almost as suddenly +as it had begun. By his watch it had not been an hour, but from the +amount of damage done to both the geography and Pedro's feelings, it +might have been a year, or a century. + +"But here we are, safe still," he told himself in surprise. "After this +experience, I don't believe there is anything worse anywhere to look +forward to. So what's the use of worrying about anything any more? +Ever!"--The experience had been worth while. Just how he was to make his +way back to camp was another question. + +[Illustration: Loosened rocks and bowlders began bounding down the +cliffs.] + +With the mountainside a choice between slippery, dripping rock slopes and +sliding mud, fallen tree trunks and soggy forest floor, it was no mean +test he had to meet. But as the irrepressible California sun once more +burst forth in golden glory, the clean-washed air was all balsamic +fragrance, every leaf and fir needle held at its tip a drop of opal, and +the birds,--emerging from the holes in which they had safely hidden, +those who survived,--burst into happy gratitude. + +As luck would have it, an hour before the storm broke, the two boys had +sighted the smoke of a camp-fire hidden away down in the bottom of a +gulch, with slide rock to cut off any approach from the main ridge. +Flying low, they could actually identify fat Sanchez and his two +companions, who had their pack burros with them. It seemed too good to be +true! But before they could decide whether to sail down and try to +capture them themselves, or to go for Long Lester, the oncoming storm +began to set them careening, and they had to fly out of the elements at +right angles to the storm's approach. + +Returning three hours later with the old ex-deputy sheriff,--it was a +spot not to be mistaken,--Ace gazed in complete stupefaction at the gulch +where the Mexicans had been encamped. For there was now nothing there but +slide-rock! + +The dust that still grayed the atmosphere spoke clearly of the +catastrophe. And there would not have been one chance in a million of +their escaping. That they had not done so, their non-appearance anywhere +in the neighborhood bore abundant testimony. + +The Mexicans had been captured by those same natural forces they had +tampered with when they set the forest fires. The little camping party +was free to return as soon as their time was up. + +----------------------------------------------------------------------- + +[Transcriber's Note: Each term described in the glossary originally had +a pronunciation key in parenthesis. This key contained letters that are +not available in any modern font, including UTF-8, and therefore is not +displayable. Images of the original pronunciation keys are provided in +the HTML version. Pronunciation keys are omitted in this text version.] + + +GLOSSARY + + +Archeopteryx, a fossil bird that had teeth and whose spinal column +extended into the tail. + +Archeozoic, the era in which the simplest forms of life originated. + +Basalt, a dark brown or black igneous rock. + +Calcite, calcium carbonate, a rock that includes limestone and marble. + +Cambrian, the first period of the Paleozoic era,--that of the first +abundance of marine animals. + +Carboniferous, producing or containing coal. + +Cenozoic, the age of mammal dominance. It included the last great ice +age, the time of the transformation of apes into man, and the rise of +the higher mammals. + +Comanchian, that period of the Mesozoic era that gave rise to flowers +and the higher insects. + +Cretaceous, that period of the Mesozoic era that gave rise to the +primitive mammals. + +Dinosaur, an order of extinct reptiles, of which there were a dozen +varieties, mostly lizardlike and of huge size. + +Exhume, to dig out of the ground, or in the case of a fossil, to take +out of its place of burial in the rock. + +Faulted, interrupted continuity of rock strata by displacement +along a plane of fracture, generally caused by an earthquake. + +Formative, the era of the birth and growth of the earth out of the +spiral nebula of the sun, the beginnings of the atmosphere and +hydrosphere, and of the continental platforms and ocean basins. + +Fossil, the remains of plants and animals of prehistoric times, now +found embedded in the rocks. + +Psychozoic, the era of man, including the time during which man +attained his highest civilization (perhaps the past 30,000 +years), to the present. + +Geology, the history of the earth as read in the rocks. + +Geyser, a boiling spring which periodically sends forth jets of water, +steam and gas. + +Glacier, a slow moving river of ice, remnant of the last ice age, +generally found flowing down the mountain peaks. + +Granite, a granular rock consisting of quartz, mica and feldspar,--the +material of the original crust of the earth. + +Gypsum, the mineral from which plaster of Paris is made. + +Ichthyosaurus, an extinct fishlike reptile of huge size. + +Igneous, produced by the action of fire (i.e., a rock). + +Jurassic, that period of the Mesozoic era that gave rise to birds and +flying reptiles. + +Lava, the melted rock ejected by a volcano. + +Limestone, a rock due in the main to the accumulated debris of plants +and animals, especially to the shells of marine animals. + +Lithosphere, the rocky crust of the earth. + +Mesozoic, the era of reptile dominance, in which occurred the rise of +dinosaurs, birds and flying reptiles, flowers and higher insects, and +primitive mammals. + +Metamorphic, recrystallized by heat (i.e., a rock), or changed by +pressure. + +Metamorphose, to change into a different form. + +Miocene, that period of the Cenozoic era when apes were transformed +into man. + +Paleozoic, the era of fish dominance, in which occurred the first +abundance of marine animals, the first known fresh-water fishes, the +first known land floras, the first known amphibians, the first insects +and the first accumulations of coal. + +Proterozoic, the age of invertebrate dominance, containing an +early and a late ice age. + +Reconnaissance, a preliminary survey. + +Scarp, declivity. + +Shale, a fine-grained, layered, sedimentary rock, generally easily +crumbled. + +Silica, a form of quartz. + +Stalactite, a pendant cone of calcium carbonate deposited by dripping +water (as in a cave). + +Stalagmite, a deposit (on the floor of caves) resembling an inverted +stalactite. + +Strata, layers of rock or earth. + +Striated, marked with fine grooves or lines of color. + +Triassic, the period that gave rise to dinosaurs. + +Triceratops, a fossil giant lizard. + +Uplift, an upheaval of rock strata. + +----------------------------------------------------------------------- + + +KEY TO GEOLOGIC TIME + + +Archeozoic era. (Protoplasms.) + +Proterozoic era. (Invertebrates.) + +Paleozoic era. (Fish.) + Cambrian period. + Ordovician period. + Silurian period. + Devonian period. + Mississippian period. + Pennsylvanian period. + Permian period. + +Mesozoic era. (Reptiles.) + Triassic period. + Jurassic period. + Comanchean period. + Cretaceous period. + +Cenozoic era. (Mammals.) + Oligocene and Eocene time + Pliocene and Miocene time. + Pleistocene time. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNEXPLORED!*** + + +******* This file should be named 33725.txt or 33725.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/3/7/2/33725 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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