“Won’t it carry me along through the channel?”
Doug shook his head. “No, it won’t. It’ll tangle you up in the rocks. They look solid from here, but they’re not. There are all sorts of crevices and things, worn out by the water pounding against them. That’s why it’s so dangerous.”
There was a puzzled look on Sandy’s face. “I don’t get it.”
“The crevices,” Doug explained patiently, “can catch you just like a trap. You can put your foot in one of them and never get it out. It’ll hold you under the water until you—” He faltered and looked away.
Sandy nodded in grim understanding. “How do I keep away from them?”
“When you enter the channel stay over to the left as far as you can. Keep steering to the left no matter what the current does. If you’re over far enough, you’ll make it with about three feet to spare. Think you’ve got it?”
“I think so. Let’s get this thing over with.”
“You’re sure you’re all set?” Mike asked anxiously.
“Yep.”
Mike held out a hand. “Good luck, Sandy,” he said solemnly.
Sandy, who looked surprisingly cheerful, grinned confidently. “There’s nothing to it. All I have to do is remember what Doug told me. Come on.”
Sandy led the way down to the water where about twenty silent boys were gathered in tense expectation. Mike took a place near them and watched Sandy wade a foot or two into the river. Standing by helplessly, he had an overpowering urge to shout out, to stop the competition that was about to take place. But before he could make a move, Sandy turned, threw Mike a wink and swung into his raft. A second later he was floating out from shore. The older boy pushed off directly behind Sandy.
With Sandy in the lead, the two rafts shot toward the narrow opening of Dog Leg Falls. From where he stood, Mike could see that Sandy was holding the course Doug had charted. The tiny raft trembled and tugged to the right, but Sandy held her steady.
Mike felt a small hand grip his elbow with surprising strength. “He’s going in just right.” Doug’s voice was breathless with excitement.
Mike nodded and leaned forward. “Come on, Sandy,” he heard himself murmur. “You’re doing great.” Suddenly the two rafts disappeared in a boiling cloud of white spray. His muscles stiff with tension, Mike strained to pick out the bobbing rafts.
Doug spotted them before he did. “He’s okay!” he shouted. “That’s it, Sandy!”
Mike saw them the next instant. They were both leaning into the dangerous turn. Sandy’s raft hugged the left-hand side of the channel, well away from the sharp wall of rocks to his right. In another moment, he would be through. Mike felt his fingernails dig into the palms of his hands as he mentally fought the white water along with Sandy.
“He’s rounding it! There’s room to spare!” Beside him, Doug was dancing with excitement. “Look at him go!”
Suddenly there was a gasp from the boys crowded along the shore. Mike’s eyes widened with horror. The boy behind Sandy had stopped steering his raft. He had shifted his position and was leaning ahead recklessly, a paddle in his outstretched hand.
“What’s he doing?” Mike yelled.
“He’s trying to tip Sandy over!” Doug shouted. His voice trailed off as he watched the paddle snake out and jab at Sandy’s raft.
Mike stared with growing uneasiness as the two rafts slowly began to spin. Faster and faster they whipped around, both boys now trying desperately to keep their balance and stay on course.
At that distance, with both rafts floundering through towering walls of water, it was difficult to tell which raft was Sandy’s. Mike fought down an impulse to yell a warning when he saw one of the rafts steadily tip higher in the water.
“He’s going to spill!” came a cry.
Almost as if that were a signal, the raft shuddered and flipped over. There was a flash of a figure flailing the water and then, over by the deadly rocks of Dog Leg Falls, a head appeared.
“He’s caught!” Doug’s face was white and frightened. “He’ll drown!”
The second raft, meanwhile, was still afloat and coming around the turn fast. With a final leap, it shook itself free of the white water and skidded to safety.
Mike forced himself to hunt for the figure in the water. Was it Sandy? Or the other boy? There was a movement of color in the seething foam near the rocks, and then out into the quiet part of the river popped a paddle, an overturned raft and, following close behind, the head of a swimmer, striking for the far shore.
Sandy wouldn’t do that, Mike thought to himself. He’d head for the near shore. It must be the other boy! He swung around and squinted at the lone raft floating safely in the middle of the river. Whoever was in it was trying to fish something out of the water.
“He made it!” Doug yelled, dancing in excitement. “It’s Sandy! He’s all right!”
Suddenly Mike was laughing. Despite the dirty trick at the end, Sandy had won out. It was the other boy who had fallen in—not Sandy. It was a lucky thing he escaped with nothing worse than a thorough soaking.
“Come on!” Mike yelled. “He’s coming in for a landing!” Together, Mike and Doug sprinted down the bank of the river to meet the raft before it touched shore.
“Hey!” yelled Doug, breaking stride for a moment. “What’s he got in his hand?”
As Sandy guided his raft toward them Mike saw him grin and wave something in the air. Then all at once he knew what it was.
“It’s your paddle, Doug,” he chuckled. “Sandy picked it up out of the water. Don’t you remember? That’s what this whole thing was supposed to be about. Your paddle!”
Laughing as they ran, the two of them splashed out into the river to welcome Sandy.
“Well, Mike,” Mr. Cook said as he settled down on a porch chair in front of the cabin the Hendersons had rented them. “Think you can last till dinner?”
Mike, who was stretched out contentedly on a hammock slung between corner posts, opened one eye sleepily. “Depends on what day,” he said.
“I meant tonight.”
Mike held up a hand in protest. “Oh no, please! I won’t be able to touch a bite till next Tuesday.” He sighed happily. “You know, it’s a real pleasure to meet a woman like Mrs. Henderson. She never batted an eye when I asked for thirds.”
“You sent her into a state of shock, most likely,” Sandy ventured. “She couldn’t believe it after what you packed away.”
“I couldn’t believe it myself,” Mike agreed, stretching lazily. “I must have lost my head. Oh, well,” he said, smothering a yawn, “I’m just a poor kid who didn’t know the ropes. Give me another chance, officer. I’ll go straight.”
“All right,” Sandy said severely. “Bread and water for three days. Next case.”
“Oh, thank you, sir. Thank you. I’ll never forget you for this.”
“Say,” interrupted Mike’s father, putting his long legs up on the porch railing. “If I can break into your act for a moment, I’d like to find out how things went this morning. We were so busy talking about hunting at lunch that I forgot to find out if you got your feet wet in some white water.”
Sandy and Mike exchanged glances. On their way back to the Hendersons’ they had decided it would be just as well to skip over the experience at Dog Leg Falls.
“Why, sure,” Mike replied casually. “We went through three or four times.”
“Was Doug a good teacher?”
“The best.”
Mr. Cook groped for pipe and tobacco pouch. “I thought Doug acted sort of funny all through lunch. Excited is more what I mean.” He cupped his hand over the pipe bowl and began to fill it. “Anything happen this morning?”
Sandy caught Mike’s eye as he shook his head. “No,” he said. “Nothing special.”
“Hmmm.” Mr. Cook was drawing on his pipe. “You knew, didn’t you,” he said between puffs, “that I’d hired a guide?”
Mike propped himself up on one elbow. “No, Dad, you didn’t tell us.”
“Well, I have. Fellow Mr. Henderson recommended.”
“Who is he? What’s his name?”
Mr. Cook pulled his feet down from the railing and stood up. There was a look of amusement on his face as if he was enjoying a private joke. “If you turn around, Mike, I’ll introduce you. He’s been standing behind you for the last two minutes.”
The two boys whirled around in surprise. Standing near the porch was a short, dark man with deep-set brown eyes. His straight black hair, worn long, was carefully brushed back and held in place by a battered gray felt hat. A red checked shirt, well-worn suspenders and a loose pair of trousers tucked into high-topped shoes completed his outfit. There was a feeling of relaxed strength and quiet power about his bearing that reminded the boys of the mountains that towered in the distance beyond the river. He looked as if he were carved out of the same stuff—solid granite.
Mr. Cook shifted his pipe and extended his right hand. “Come on up and meet the boys. Mike,” he said, “I’d like you to meet Chief Eagle Plume.”
Mike almost pitched forward on his face as he scrambled out of the hammock. The Indian glided over the porch steps and suddenly he was standing next to all three of them. Sandy had never seen a man move so effortlessly.
“And this,” Mr. Cook went on, “is Sandy Steele, the third member of our expedition.”
The Indian nodded gravely as he acknowledged the introduction. Mike, who was clearly puzzling over what to say next, decided the proper thing to do was bow formally.
“Heap glad you come with us,” he said solemnly. “We go trip together, we catchum plenty—uh—” He glanced over at his father for some support, but Mr. Cook was busy with his pipe.
Mike gritted his teeth and plunged on. “Catchum plenty—ah—”
“Scalps?” the Indian suggested helpfully.
Mike blushed furiously. “Yes, I mean—no—”
There was a flash of white as the Indian broke into an amused laugh. “Sure hate to disillusion you, Mike. But that sort of thing’s a little out of date.”
Mike stared at him with a dazed expression. “But I....” He grinned sheepishly. “I thought you were an Indian. That name, Chief Eagle Plume....”
“Oh, I am—a full-blooded Blackfoot. And your father got the name right. It’s Eagle Plume, only most people call me Joe. It’s simpler.” He threw Mike a friendly grin. “You wouldn’t guess it, but I even went to college.”
“No kidding! Where?”
“Agricultural school in Montana.”
“So you’re a farmer,” Mr. Cook said.
Joe shook his head. “No, I studied animal husbandry. I figure on owning a cattle ranch some day. Got one all picked out.” He gestured to a chair. “Mind if I sit down?”
“No, no. Here.” Mike pushed over a chair.
Joe lowered himself comfortably and took off his hat. “Incidentally,” he said, “last time I used that ‘Me heap big Injun’ routine was when I was hired as an extra by a movie company.”
Sandy moved over to the porch railing and hoisted himself up against a post. “Gee, a movie star! Were you a real bad Indian?”
Joe laughed. “I was a real dead Indian, that’s for sure. I got killed eight different times in that picture. Some fun. The only trouble was that I had to pretend to be a Crow Indian.”
“What’s bad about that?”
“Nothing really, I suppose. It’s just that Crows and Blackfeet never got along too well together. Our ancestors fought over the same hunting ground for years. We were always at war.”
Mr. Cook scratched another match along the arm of his chair. “But that’s all finished now, isn’t it? There’s no bad feeling any more.”
Joe took a cigarette out of his shirt pocket and huddled over a light. “You better not pay any attention to me. I just happen to know some Crows I’m not too fond of.”
“But that’s personal,” objected Mr. Cook. “Nothing to do with the whole nation.”
Joe hooked one leg over the other and frowned at the glowing tip of his cigarette. “Yeah,” he said softly. “It’s personal, all right. And mutual.” A look of hard anger clouded over his face, then disappeared almost as quickly as it had come. “Well,” he said after a pause, his good humor apparently restored, “so you’re going down Lost River to meet Hank Dawson?”
Mr. Cook’s face lit up. “Do you know Hank?”
The Indian shook his head. “No, but I’ve heard of him. Where’s he meeting you?”
“At Mormon Crossing.”
“Dad,” Mike interrupted, “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that place. I thought the Mormons settled Utah—around Salt Lake City.”
“They did,” his father answered. “But some of them didn’t like it.”
“And moved on,” Sandy chimed in.
Mr. Cook turned to Sandy in surprise. “Right! How did you know?”
“That last day before we left Oakland, Mike and I went downtown to do some last-minute shopping. Remember?”
“Sure.”
“When we finished Mike said he wanted a soda. With Mike, that’s a full hour’s proposition. I didn’t want any, so I said I’d meet him at the library.”
“Squealer,” muttered Mike.
Joe looked at Mike in amazement. “You mean it takes him an hour to drink a soda?”
Sandy shrugged. “You know how it is. One soda leads to another.”
“I see.” Joe nodded gravely. “He drinks.”
Sandy sighed and nodded his head. “That’s about the size of it.”
Joe looked over at Mike sympathetically. “Poor fellow.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” cried Mike. “I’m not as bad as that. I can take them or leave them alone.”
“That’s what they all say,” his father said. He turned back to Sandy. “But what’s this got to do with you knowing about the Mormons?”
“Well, I went to the library,” Sandy explained, “and looked up Mormon Crossing. I was just curious about the name.”
“What did it say?” Joe suddenly sat forward, looking watchful.
“It seems there was this party of Mormons on their way west from Ohio. They didn’t stop in Utah, as so many of them did. They pushed on farther west, planning to join the settlement in Nevada that was set up in 1849. It’s not clear whether they never got there, or whether they got there and turned back. The last anyone ever heard about them, they were in Idaho. Mormon Crossing was where they forded the Lost River.”
“What do you mean—the last anybody heard of them?” Mike wanted to know.
Sandy threw up his hands. “They vanished. The theory is the Indians massacred them. But nobody knows for sure.”
“They were massacred, all right,” declared Joe, staring off into space. “Every last one of them was killed.”
Sandy frowned in bewilderment. “How do you know that?”
Joe looked up sharply. “What?”
“I said, how do you know? There weren’t any records. I asked.”
“Oh,” said Joe, reaching for another cigarette. “I mean, that’s the way it must have happened. It was pretty wild country then, and it all belonged to my people. I’m afraid they didn’t take too kindly to strangers.”
“In any event,” said Sandy, changing the subject, “that’s how Mormon Crossing got its name.”
“And that’s where we’re going,” said Mike, throwing himself back on the hammock. “Sounds like a real garden spot. Any of your relatives still hang around there, Joe? Let me know and I’ll keep out of their way.”
Joe grinned and shook his head. “We’re all nice and tame now, Mike,” he said.
“You never go on the warpath any more?” Mike made it sound as if he were disappointed.
“Just little ones. We kinda yell in whispers.”
“To keep in practice, you mean?”
“That’s it,” said Joe, throwing back his head in a laugh. “Then we’re always ready in case another movie company wants to hire us.”
“Don’t take any jobs for a month, Joe,” Mr. Cook said as he leaned over to knock the ashes out of his pipe. “You’re all booked up.”
“Suits me.”
“When do we start, Dad?” Mike asked idly.
“I thought in about two days.”
“Two days!” The Indian was suddenly on his feet and over by Mr. Cook. Again it crossed Sandy’s mind that Joe moved with the grace of a cat. “I don’t mean to speak out of turn or anything,” he said, “but why waste all that time?”
“There’s a lot to be done,” Mr. Cook pointed out mildly. “The gear’s got to be sorted and packed in trip boxes. The boats have to be loaded—”
Joe sat down on the porch railing. “I can do it this afternoon.”
“It’s a big job.”
Joe shrugged. “I’ll handle it.”
Mr. Cook looked up at Joe curiously. “You seem in an awful hurry to get out of here.”
Now Joe became flustered. “No,” he stammered. “That’s not it. It’s just that ... that every day you stay here is a day lost.”
Sandy remembered their appointment at Mormon Crossing. “What about Hank Dawson? We’re not due to meet him for another five days.”
“Oh, that’s no problem,” Mr. Cook replied. “Hank’s probably there now—getting in some fishing.”
“Then there’s nothing to hold you?” It was Joe again.
“No,” Mr. Cook conceded. “Just the problem of getting ready.”
Joe stared down at the porch flooring. “Well, suit yourself,” he said, but it was clear he was not too happy about it.
“Why don’t we go!” cried Mike suddenly, bounding up from his hammock.
Mr. Cook was still unconvinced. “We have to check our ammunition and sight in the guns. We haven’t had a chance to do that yet.”
“Why don’t you do it right now?” Joe suggested eagerly. “You go on downriver while I get things organized here. We’ll be ready by morning. I guarantee it.”
“Well,” Mr. Cook said dubiously. “What do you boys think about it?”
“I’m all for it,” Mike asserted.
“Sandy?”
Sandy nodded. “The sooner the better for me.”
Mr. Cook laughed. “Okay, Joe. You win. I’ll get the guns and you do the rest.”
“Yes, sir!” Joe grinned as he vaulted down the steps. “I’ll go see about the boats.” The next instant he was gone and running down the path toward the river.
Mr. Cook watched him go and turned to the boys with a puzzled expression. “Did you get the feeling there was something odd about all that?” he asked.
“I sure did,” Sandy said emphatically. “It started when I began talking about Mormon Crossing.”
Mr. Cook nodded in agreement and led the way into their cabin. “Let’s take the guns a mile or two upstream and chew this thing over while we’re walking. Frankly,” he concluded with a frown, “I don’t think I like it much.”
After half an hour of speculation, neither Sandy, Mike nor Mr. Cook could come up with a reasonable explanation for Joe’s strange behavior. But, as Mr. Cook said, that wasn’t too surprising. “We don’t have too much to go on,” he pointed out.
The three of them were walking along the south shore of the Salmon River, not far from Dog Leg Falls. The country there was perfect for their purpose: it was clear of woods and reasonably deserted. Sandy was carrying several boxes of shells and four or five sheets of white plastic material, painted over with a red bull’s-eye. Mike had a small bale of packed straw he had found in Mr. Henderson’s stable, and Mr. Cook was lugging two gun cases.
“Let’s go over it once more,” Sandy insisted. “We know this much. Joe wants to leave here in a hurry and Mormon Crossing means something to him.”
“Youthinkit means something to him,” Mr. Cook corrected.
“We agreed that he began to act funny as soon as I started talking about it. And besides, he seemed to be pretty sure about what happened to that party of Mormons.”
“But, Sandy,” Mike protested, “they were massacred more than a hundred years ago. How could that make any difference to Joe now?”
“That’s my whole point,” Sandy explained. “How did he know it was a massacre? They might have died of starvation or any number of things. Why was he so sure?”
The three of them walked on, lost in thought. It was Mike who finally broke the silence. “This may be crazy,” he began, “but Joe could have some inside information.”
“How do you mean?” his father asked.
“He’s a Blackfoot,” Mike explained earnestly. “This used to be Blackfoot country. Maybe the story about the Mormon massacre was handed down within the tribe—you know, from father to son—until it reached Joe.” He shifted the bale of straw to his other arm and began to talk more quickly. “I know that Indians are part of our life now, but the tribe still means something to them.”
“You’re right.” Mr. Cook nodded. “They have a strong sense of tribal identification. It’s quite possible that each tribe passes its own legends along from generation to generation. Indians don’t keep any records, so naturally it wouldn’t be in the library. Joe might have heard about the massacre from his father or some of the elders of the tribe.”
Sandy still wasn’t satisfied. “That doesn’t answer the question about why he wanted to leave in such a hurry.”
“No,” Mr. Cook had to agree. “It doesn’t.” He started to say more, but just then the path took a sharp turn and they came face to face with the spectacle of the river gathering itself for its rush through Dog Leg Falls.
Mr. Cook stood and watched the lashing water of the rapids with a look of admiration. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” he said.
Behind his back, Sandy and Mike exchanged glances.
“That all depends,” Sandy ventured uncertainly.
Mr. Cook turned and smiled. “I guess it does, Sandy. I sure would hate to try to battle through it on a raft, wouldn’t you?”
Sandy coughed and turned away. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he muttered. “Er—don’t you think we’d better start to work?”
Mr. Cook tore himself away from the sight of the rapids and nodded. “Good idea. Let’s look for a shooting range.”
“Over there.” Sandy pointed. “There’s a nice little hill and about fifty yards of clearing.”
“All right,” Mr. Cook said, picking up the gun cases. “You boys set up the target.”
“Wouldn’t dream of going through those rapids, eh?” Mike muttered out of the corner of his mouth as he and Sandy walked over to the hill together.
Sandy grinned back at him. “What did you want me to say? That I do it all the time for laughs?” He watched Mike put down the straw bale and prop it solidly against the side of the hill. “Besides,” he whispered, “you know something?”
“What?”
“I’m afraid I may dream about it some night—and wake up screaming.”
“Come on!” a voice yelled. “You two fellows do more talking than a pair of old ladies!”
“Okay, Dad!” Mike shouted. “We’ll be ready in a minute.”
Quickly he helped Sandy drape the plastic cloth over the bale so that the concentric rings of the bull’s-eye faced Mr. Cook.
“Let’s weight it down with some stones,” Sandy suggested. “One or two shots and it’ll probably fly right off.”
“Good idea.”
“Boys!” It was Mr. Cook again. “Pace off fifty yards toward me.”
They did as they were told, and in a few moments they were standing beside Mike’s father, who was bending over the Remington .721. “There,” he said, after the last shell slipped into place. “We’re all set.” He held the rifle out to Sandy. “Care to try it?” he asked.
Sandy took the gun and ran his hand down the smooth wood finish of the stock. Checking to make sure the safety lock was on, he cradled it in his arms and turned to Mr. Cook.
“You know,” he said with a puzzled grin, “I’m not exactly sure what I’m supposed to do.”
“Ever shoot one of these before?”
Sandy shook his head. “A .22 is about the only thing I’ve ever handled. How does this gadget work?” He pointed to a telescopic sight mounted on top of the gun stock.
“Just like a regular sight,” Mr. Cook explained. “It’s detachable, you see. If you’re shooting short distances, you take it off and use the notch sight right on the barrel. But if your target is—oh, let’s say 250 yards off, then you screw on this telescope. Take a look through it and tell me what you see.” Sandy hoisted the gun up against his shoulder and squinted through the round glass end of the scope. “Wow!” he exclaimed. “That target looks as if it’s right on top of me.”
“Well, it’s a telescope, you know. What else do you see?”
“Two tiny cross hairs that intersect at right angles just about in the center of the circle.”
“Right. Now what you want to do is line up the intersection of those cross hairs with the target. Got that?”
Sandy nodded and, shifting his aim slightly, he focused on the exact center of the bull’s-eye. “I’m on,” he said, holding the position as best he could. “Okay,” Mr. Cook said. “Shoot.”
Sandy took a deep breath and curled his finger slowly around the trigger. He braced himself for the blast and recoil, every muscle poised and tense, concentrating on the circle of red that filled the sight.
Suddenly he felt an insistent tap on his shoulder. He jerked around to find Mike’s grinning face staring into his.
“Hate to bother you, Daniel Boone,” Mike said apologetically, “but you’ll do better with that thing off.”
“What thing?”
Mike reached out and flipped off the safety catch. “Okay, sport,” he said. “Fire away!”
Sandy gave an embarrassed grunt and nodded. He brought up the rifle a second time and tucked it into the hollow of his shoulder. Resting his cheek against the curve of the stock, he closed down gently on the trigger. The rifle bucked and roared in his hand. Sandy threw the bolt and pumped another shell into place.
“How did I do?” he asked.
Mr. Cook peered at the target through a pair of field glasses. “About five inches off center. Try again.”
Sandy brought the rifle up. “Want me to allow for it?”
“No, no,” Mr. Cook said quickly. “Aim for the target.”
Sandy spread his feet a little farther apart and took a comfortable stance. “Here goes.”
The rifle barked again. “Same place,” Mr. Cook announced. “You sure you were centered?”
“As far as I could tell,” Sandy said, a little annoyed with himself for missing a second time.
“Let Mike have a try at it.”
Sandy handed the rifle over to Mike and stepped back. Two shots rang out in quick succession. Mike looked over at his father questioningly.
“I guess that proves it,” came the answer. “Here, take a look.” He ducked his head through the strap of the binoculars and turned the glasses over to Sandy.
Sandy swung over to the target and focused in on four neat holes clustered close together about five inches to the right of the bull’s-eye.
“I don’t get it,” he said, lowering the glasses. “How come we’re missing?”
“The sights are off,” Mr. Cook explained. “A little adjusting will fix that.” He reached into a side pocket on one of the gun cases and pulled out a screw driver. “Now, let’s see,” he said, glancing over at the target. “At fifty yards, a minute of angle has a value of about half an inch. Each click on this scope is equal to two minutes of angle. That would make—” he pursed his lips as he made the mental calculation—“ahh—five clicks to bring her in line.” He shook his head and pushed his hat back off his forehead. “That’s too much. We’ll have to adjust the windage screws on the scope’s mount.” Squatting on his haunches, he began to manipulate two screws on either side of the sight.
“Hey, Dad!” Mike cut in. “You left me out in left field somewhere. How about filling us in?” He turned to Sandy. “Do you know what’s going on?” he asked.
“I think so,” Sandy said as he looked over Mr. Cook’s shoulder. “According to what we saw through the sight, we were right on target. The only trouble was, the sight didn’t match up with the barrel of the gun. It’s just sitting on top of the gun and it must have twisted around to one side. Right now your father is trying to get the two of them back together so that what we see is what we shoot at.”
“That makes sense,” Mike conceded. “But how do you know which way to turn the scope? Do you swivel it around to the left or to the right?”
“That’s easy.” Sandy grabbed a twig and drew a small rectangle on the ground. “Here’s your scope. And there—” he ran a dotted straight line out to a spot he marked with an X—“that’s the target. You see the scope’s pointing right at it.” Mike nodded and Sandy went on.
“The four shots all fell about here.” He punched four holes to the right of the X.
“Which means,” Mike added, “that the gun was over to the right in relation to the line of sight through the scope.”
“You got it,” Sandy nodded.
“So,” Mike went on, “in order to get the scope and barrel lined up together, we have to move the cross hairs over to the right.”
“And there are two ways of doing that,” Mr. Cook pointed out. “We can move the cross hairsinsidethe scope. Or we can move the scope itself.”
“What’s the difference?” Mike asked.
“One is for fine adjustments.” He pointed to a knob on top of the telescopic sight. “See this?”
The boys nodded.
“This,” he went on, “moves the cross hairs. And these—” he gestured to a pair of screws—“turn the whole mount any degree you want.” He grinned at them. “Simple, eh?”
“One more question.”
“Shoot.”
“How do you know how much to turn it? All that business about a minute of angle having a value of about half an inch at fifty yards—that’s all Greek to me.”
“You remember your geometry, don’t you, Mike? An angle cuts off an arc. And you know how to measure an arc.”
Mike looked surprised. “In minutes and degrees,” he said, with sudden comprehension.
“There’s your answer. Now I’ll grant you,” Mr. Cook added, “that I just happen to know how big an arc an angle makes at various distances. But that’s only because I’ve been working with guns for a long time. And if I didn’t know, I could always figure it out. The rest,” he said, standing up, “is trial and error. Let’s see how we did.”
With a single easy motion, he hunched over the rifle and, in rapid succession, poured three shots into the bull’s-eye. “Well?” he demanded as he straightened up.
Sandy peered through the binoculars. Three holes bunched together in the space of a dime had perforated the plastic directly above the target.
“You’re right on,” he announced. “But a little high.”
“Good,” Mr. Cook replied. “We want to be high.”
“How come?” Mike demanded.
“Bullets don’t go straight forever,” Mr. Cook explained. “Gravity forces them to curve down until they hit the ground. This rifle shoots a little high at fifty yards. But it’ll be right on target at two hundred and fifty—and that,” he pointed out, “will be about as close as you’ll get to an elk.” He patted the gun with evident satisfaction. “She’s all set,” he said. “Let’s get busy on the others.” Now that the boys knew what they were doing, the work went faster. An hour and a half later, they were finishing with the last rifle.
“One more shot, Dad,” begged Mike. “I’m still not happy with this one.”
His father shrugged. “Suit yourself. I think she’s fine.”
“You watching, Sandy?” Mike called out, slinging up the gun.
“Go ahead,” Sandy called.
Mike had just put his eye against the sight when Sandy yelled out a warning. “Hold it! There’s somebody coming down the hill.”
“He sure is running fast, whoever he is,” commented Mr. Cook. “Take a look through your glasses and see if we know him.”
“Sure we do,” Sandy said after a pause. “It’s Doug Henderson. He looks scared—almost as if somebody’s chasing him.”
“Hey, Doug!” Mike yelled. “Over here!”
The boy scrambled down the foot of the hill and came sprinting up to them. His face was pale and his eyes were unnaturally large.
“Is there anything wrong, Doug?” Mr. Cook asked.
The boy gasped as he struggled to catch his breath.
“It’s Joe,” he gulped. “Something’s happened to him.”
“What?” Mr. Cook’s tone was sharp and worried.
Doug swallowed hard and shook his head. “Don’t know,” he panted. “He’s hurt. Dad says for you to come. It happened while he was loading your trip boxes.”
Mr. Henderson was waiting for them on the porch of their cabin when they arrived. “You can rest easy,” he called when he saw their worried faces. “He’s not hurt bad.”
Mr. Cook leaped up the steps two at a time. “What happened?” he demanded.
Mr. Henderson shrugged. “Can’t tell for sure. All we know is he got himself a whack on the head an’ fell in the river.”
“Was he knocked out?”
“Colder’n a mackerel.”
“Then he could have drowned!” cried Sandy.
Mr. Henderson peered over at Sandy. “More’n likely,” he agreed.
“Who fished him out?” Mr. Cook wanted to know.
Mr. Henderson rubbed his jaw reflectively. “Now there was a lucky thing,” he said. “’Bout four o’clock I told Luke—that’s my hired man—to go down and check the calking on your boats. Seein’ as how they ain’t been in the water since last summer, I figured ’twould be a good idea to have a look at ’em. Well,” he continued, refusing to be hurried, “Luke gets down to the place where I keep the boats and all of a sudden he hears a kind of a yell and a splash. Being curious like, Luke decides to have a look-see at what fell in. So he saunters on down to the river and spots three fellers actin’ funny. They see him comin’ and start off the other way. Luke hollers but they keep right on goin’. Injuns, he thinks they were. Course, Luke’s gettin’ a bit old and his eyesight ain’t what it used to be, so it might not be Injuns after all. You never can tell about them things. I recollect once—it was in the summer of—”
“But what about Joe?” insisted Sandy impatiently.
Mr. Henderson shot him a reproachful glance. “I was just getting ’round to that. Seein’ them Injuns, or whatever it was, made Luke move a little faster and he gets down to the river just in time to see old Joe a-floating away.”
“He was on top of the water?” Sandy asked.
“Well, no, not exactly,” Mr. Henderson admitted. “He was about three, mebbe four feet down. But the current was carryin’ him along right smart, y’see.”
“What did Luke do?”
“He hightails it over to another dock further downstream, grabs a boat and, when Joe comes by, he fishes him out. That’s about all.”
“Do you think those Indians, or whatever they were, had anything to do with it?” Mr. Cook asked anxiously.
“Hard to say. Best ask Joe.”
Mr. Cook moved to the door. “Let’s do it now.”
Mr. Henderson held out a hand. “Doc’s in there with him. He said to keep everybody out till he’s through.”
“It’s all right,” came a voice from inside the house. “Come on in.”
The doctor had just finished and was buttoning his jacket as Mr. Cook led the way through the front door. “Is he out of danger, Doctor?” Mr. Cook asked.
“Yes, indeed,” said the doctor, reaching for his medical bag. “He’s got a nasty bump on the back of his head, but nothing serious. There’s no concussion. He may be a little sick at his stomach from all the water he swallowed, but that’ll pass. The only thing he needs right now is a little broth and a good night’s sleep.”
“He’ll get both,” Mr. Henderson promised.
“Good.” The doctor moved to the door and turned. “You know,” he said, “Joe’s a mighty lucky man. If Luke had been a few minutes later, he’d be finished.” He shrugged and pushed his way out. “As it is, I expect he’ll be up and around by tomorrow. Goodbye. Let me know if he becomes delirious or suddenly starts to run a fever.”
“We will,” Mr. Cook assured him. “Goodbye, Doctor, and thanks a lot.”
“Right.” The doctor smiled around the room and stepped out of the cabin.
“Well,” Mr. Cook said, after the doctor had gone. “I think we better ask Joe a few questions. Where is he?”
“He’s in this room right here.” Mr. Henderson walked over to a door and knocked gently. “Joe!” he called. “You’ve got company.”
“Come in!” answered a voice.