A large number of varieties of the trees of the Blue Ridge region were to be seen from their camping ground of that night. There were yellow and gray birch, hickory, the bull bay, and best of all, the giant tulip tree, one of the largest and most beautiful of the trees in all the great Ridge country.
It was in a lane of tulip trees that the camp of the Pony Rider Boys was pitched. The sky being overcast, Tad had put up a tent for the guide while Chops was engaged in setting the camp to rights in other directions. This tent was located next to the one occupied by Stacy and Walter Perkins. Stacy regarded the arrangements with a satisfied grin, which Tad shrewdly interpreted.
"Look here, Chunky, don't you try to play tricks on that poor guide tonight," warned Butler.
"Poor fellah!" mocked Stacy, "What am I going to do if I dream of blind horses and black cats?"
"Get up and stick your head in the spring. That will wake you up."
"I guess I'd be awake before I got to the spring. That isn't a joke, Tad. That's just an imitation of a joke."
"Don't you dare stick your head in the spring," admonished Ned. "I have to drink that water."
"So do the horses," retorted Stacy. "You haven't heard them find any fault, have you?"
"That's a fact, I haven't," admitted Rector sarcastically.
"Perhaps that is because the horses hadn't thought of it in that light," suggested Walter.
"Great head, great head," cried Stacy. "But confidentially, Tad."
"Yes?"
"We've missed some more biscuit," whispered the fat boy.
"How many?"
"Twenty since breakfast."
"Didn't we eat them for dinner?"
"Not a bisc."
"Hm-m! You are quite sure you didn't help yourself?" questioned Tad quizzically.
"Help myself? Help myself?" demanded Chunky indignantly. "Do I look as if I had twenty biscuit inside of me?"
"I can't answer that question," laughed Tad. "But to return to what I was saying, are you going to behave yourself tonight?"
"About what?"
"About frightening Chops," insisted Tad.
"I can't promise anything about my dreams. If I dream I can't help that, can I?" demanded the fat boy.
"I'll tell you how to help it," spoke up Rector. "Go to bed on an empty stomach. If you will do that, I promise you that you won't dream a single dream."
"I just love to dream," murmured Stacy, twiddling his thumbs and gazing soulfully up to the tops of the great tulip trees.
The Professor interrupted at this juncture to say that he thought they should post a guard that night lest the mountaineers come back.
Tad said he had a plan that he thought would answer fully as well. His plan, as explained to his companions, was to splice their ropes and draw them around trees close to the camp, placing the rope about a foot above the ground.
"Hm-m-m-m!" reflected the Professor.
"In the darkness the rope would not be discovered, and one trying to get into camp would surely trip over it," further explained Butler. "This, you understand, would make a racket that would awaken the camp."
"Excellent! Excellent!" approved the Professor, rubbing his palms together enthusiastically. "I shouldn't be at all surprised to hear that one day you had invented something really worth while."
"Try your skill on inventing an appetite regulator," suggested Ned. "You could try it on Chunky."
"No you don't," retorted Stacy indignantly. "You don't try experiments on my food-consuming machinery. It works quite well enough as it is, though I shouldn't mind if it had a little greater capacity."
No one laughed, though a pained expression might have been observed on the faces of three Pony Rider Boys.
"If you had thought of the rope plan earlier, it might have saved some of us from sleepless nights," declared the Professor. "What a surprise it would be to an intruder were he literally to fall into our camp headfirst."
"Haw, haw, haw!" roared Chunky. "Wha—what's the matter? Wasn't it time to laugh?" he demanded, observing the eyes of the Professor fixed reprovingly upon him.
"Yes. A most excellent plan," continued the Professor, ignoring Stacy's flippant remark.
"I'll fix it up right away," said Tad. "Pass over your ropes, fellows. If we rope anyone tonight it will be by his feet rather than over his head."
The ropes were quickly spliced and put in place, forming an almost invisible barrier about the camp. After Tad had finished his task, Stacy fell over the rope to test it, bringing down upon him a torrent of rebuke, for he had nearly pulled the barrier down.
"Don't you dare do that again," warned Tad. "I don't propose to have my work spoiled just to please your curiosity."
"Pshaw! Wasn't the rope put there to fall over?" demanded the fat boy.
"Yes. Of course, but—"
"Then, what are you growling about?"
"Oh, nothing," answered Butler hopelessly.
The Professor shook his head as if argument were a sheer waste of time.
It was quite late when the last of the boys turned in that night, for there was much to discuss, much to wonder at in the strange actions of the mountaineer who had ordered them from the Ridge.
During the talk Chunky went to sleep by the fire. He was awakened suddenly when Ned, who had gone to the spring for a cup of water, poured some of the almost ice-cold water into the fat boy's open shirt front at the neck. Chunky leaped up, uttering a howl, and bowling over the Professor who sat close beside him. For a few moments there was no end of excitement, which finally came to a finish when Stacy started off for his bunk in high dudgeon.
Tad sat regarding the fat boy with twinkling eyes. Tad had something in mind. Mischief was brewing when that look appeared in his eyes. Soon after that he turned in, followed immediately by the other members of the party.
As the hours drew on, the campfire died down to a glowing heap of embers and coals, now and then starting into a sputter and a crackle as some charred piece of wood blazed up and burned briskly for a minute or two. Inside a tent one boy lay with half closed eyes gazing thoughtfully at the fire. After a time he got up cautiously and peered out. Being satisfied that all were asleep, he stole into the adjoining tent with a rope in his hand. Soon afterwards he slipped out and entered another tent, after which he went back to his own tent.
Once more the camp settled down to silence. The fire burned lower and lower until the camp was almost in darkness.
Suddenly a figure all in white appeared at the entrance to the tent occupied by Stacy Brown.
"'Ware the black cat!" it said in a deep sepulchral voice. "'Ware, 'ware the—"
"Wha-wha-wha-wha-what!" gasped Stacy Brown, sitting up suddenly, gazing wide-eyed at the apparition at the tent entrance.
"'Ware the black cat!"
Just then there was a flash and a report. A gun was fired. It seemed as if the flash and the report had come right out of the top of the head of the ghostly figure.
With a wild yell of terror Stacy Brown leaped from his bunk. Almost as soon as he rose, his feet were jerked violently from under him and he flattened out on the ground.
"I'm shot, I'm shot!" he yelled, starting from the door.
At about the same instant Chops, who had sprung up at the first yell of alarm, also measured his length on the ground. His feet had gone out from under him much after the same manner as had Chunky's. Chops also plunged for the door, howling with terror.
Then a strange thing occurred. Both the tent occupied by Stacy Brown and that used by the guide began performing strange antics. All at once both tents collapsed. Walter Perkins was under one of them. Walter's howls were now added to the general din.
Chunky had managed to stagger outside. So had Chops; but the tents, now down, kept bobbing as if imbued with life.
"Ghost! Ghost!" yelled Chunky.
"Yi-i-i-i—yah!" screamed the frightened guide. Chops's yell was cut short by another fall. At the same instant Stacy Brown again went down.
By this time the Professor had charged upon the scene. So had Ned Rector. Walter Perkins and Tad Butler were crawling out from under their collapsed tent, Walter frightened, Tad laughing.
Professor Zepplin, grasping his revolver, was glaring about for something at which to shoot. He saw only Stacy Brown and the guide performing strange antics. The Professor threw some dry wood on the coals, then roared out a demand to know what had happened.
"I'm shot again! I'm shot," bellowed the fat boy, making a spring for the Professor's protection. Stacy fell short by several feet, landing flat on his face on the ground. Billy Veal, who had started to run in an opposite direction, went down also.
The camp was now in a great uproar. Everybody was shouting and gesticulating. The Professor excitedly stirred the fire, then danced from one side of the camp to the other. Stacy and Chops stumbled about, falling on their faces almost as fast as they could get up.
The Professor in his excitement backed over the rope that Tad had strung about the camp earlier in the evening. He landed in a thorn bush, which, in view of the fact that he was clad only in his pajamas, did considerable execution to the Professor's skin.
Nothing like this had ever occurred to interrupt a night's rest for the Pony Rider Boys.
"Stop it!" roared the Professor, when, after extricating himself from the thorn bush, he succeeded in grasping Chunky by one shoulder.
Stacy was jerked from the grasp of the amazed Professor as if he were at one end of a huge rubber band that had sprung back. How the fat boy did yell!
Almost at the beginning of the trouble a figure had darted from the camp and plunged over the guard rope. Then, hastily scrambling to its feet, darted away into the shadows.
The fire had now blazed up so that the camp showed plainly. Chunky and the guide kept falling. The way their feet went out from under them caused the others to roar with laughter though they did not understand the cause at all.
Suddenly, Ned Rector let out a yell.
"Look! Oh, look!" he howled.
Professor Zepplin, realizing that Ned Rector had made a discovery, began peering from one to the other of the pair who were indulging in such strange antics.
"Stop that nonsense, I say!" he commanded.
"I—I can't," yelled Stacy.
"Guide, come here! I demand that you cease this foolishness."
"Nassir, yassir."
Chops was willing to stop. He was willing to obey orders, and he did so as far as possible. The guide had started to walk toward the Professor when suddenly he was jerked prone on his face.
Professor Zepplin had observed something in the light of the campfire, however. He strode forward and threw himself upon the fallen Chops, to the great delight of the Pony Rider Boys.
"Hm-m-m! I see," observed the Professor. "A rope tied to your ankle, eh?"
"Yassir, yassir."
"Stacy, are you tied by the ankle also?" demanded the Professor.
"Yes, I'm hobbled for keeps," answered the fat boy. "I'd like to know who played this measly trick on me. Am I tied to Chops, Professor?"
"It would appear that you are. Remove the rope. Whose rope is that?"
Tad examined the line with which the two had been tied, with a grave face.
"It is your rope, Professor. Surely, you didn't do anything like this?" questioned Tad.
The boys gazed at Professor Zepplin in well-feigned amazement.
"Oh, Professor!" groaned Ned. "Is it possible that you are getting frisky? It's this mountain air. I am beginning to feel like a yearling colt myself."
The Professor looked his disgust.
"You are mistaken, young man," he interrupted. "I know no more about it than do—"
"Than do I," finished Ned.
"That was what I was about to say, but I hardly think that would be correct. Now if you gentlemen will be good enough to see what has happened to those tents, and put them back, we may be able to get a wink or so of sleep before morning."
"Surely, you don't think I would do a trick like that, Professor?" demanded Ned indignantly.
"I am not saying. I am making no accusations, neither am I declaring any particular individual's innocence," was the stiff retort.
"Why don't you blame me, while you are about it?" grumbled Stacy. "I can stand most anything now. I've been chased out of bed by a ghost, shot at by a spook, hauled out of bed by the ankles by a band of gnomes, and—"
"Well, what else?" urged Tad.
"Thrown down by a bunch of Veal."
"Awful, awful!" groaned Ned. "Positively the most sickening pun I ever heard. Chops, did you see any spooks?"
"Nassir, yassir."
"Where?"
"Right dar, sah."
"In front of your tent?"
"Nassir, yassir."
"Now, Chops, what did this particular spook look like?" interjected the Professor.
"Look awful, sah!"
Already Tad Butler was busy replacing the overturned tents. Walter assisted in the operation.
"Say, Tad, do you know who did this thing?" he inquired.
"I could make an excellent guess," grinned Butler.
"Do you know, I believe it was either the Professor or Ned."
"Better tell the Professor what you think," suggested Tad.
"Oh, I shouldn't dare to do that," protested Walter.
"We usually say what we think in this outfit. Oh, Professor!"
"What is it, Tad?"
"Did you know we had a visitor in this camp tonight?"
"From the evidences at hand I should say we had had several of them."
"I don't mean it in that way. I am not saying that the disturbance here tonight was caused by any outside agency. Chunky is sure he saw a ghost. Maybe he did. Chops knows he saw a spook and I, too, saw something that disturbed me a little."
"What do you mean?" demanded the Professor, fixing a keen gaze on the face of Tad Butler.
"There was a strange man in this camp tonight."
"Was—was he the ghost-man?" stammered Chunky.
"He may have been, though I doubt it."
"Was he the fellow who tied one end of the rope to my ankles and the other end to Chops's ankles so that we would slide on our noses and skate on our wishbones when we tried to walk?"
"No, I think not."
"Who did it, then?"
"Why, I thought you had decided that the ghost did it?" laughed Tad.
Chunky regarded his companion solemnly.
"Tad Butler, you're a fraud," whispered the fat boy. "What I won't do to you will be good and plenty. You're the ghost. You're the one who tied me to Chops. You're the one who shot off the gun. You're the one who tore down the house that Chops built. You're the—"
"Oh, that's plenty," answered Tad with a laugh.
"Do you admit it?"
"Of course I don't."
"Do you deny it, then?" insisted the fat boy.
"In the language of the guide, 'yassir, nassir.'"
"I'm wise to you," declared Stacy, after regarding his companion searchingly.
"Look out!" warned Tad. "You are talking slang again."
"I don't care. It takes strong language to fit this case."
"Now please explain your remark of a few moments ago, Tad," requested Professor Zepplin.
"I don't know that I can explain it," returned Tad.
"You saw something?"
"Yes, sir, I did."
"What did you see?"
"As I came out I saw a man dart out of the camp. He fell over the rope just to the right of the tree there at your back. Perhaps we may be able to find his trail."
Taking a brand from the fire, Tad stepped over to the spot he had indicated and holding the torch down near the ground nodded to his companions who had pressed up close to the rope.
"The bushes certainly are broken down there," declared Ned.
"Maybe that's where the Professor tried to turn a somersault," suggested Stacy.
"What were you trying to do, Professor?" chuckled Ned.
"We will leave that for future discussion," answered Professor Zepplin dryly. "Someone surely has been floundering about here, that is a fact."
"This is where I saw him fall," affirmed Tad.
"Tad, what sort of person was he? How did he look?" questioned the Professor.
"I was unable to see. It was too dark here."
"Maybe it was the ghost," suggested Stacy.
"Ghosts do not leave such a broad trail as this," answered Tad.
"One of them did tonight," answered the fat boy suggestively, whereat Tad Butler grinned.
"I don't like this at all," mused the Professor. "We must keep watch every night hereafter. Have you any suspicion that the mysterious visitor played the trick on us?"
"No, sir, he did not," replied Tad soberly.
The Professor eyed Tad reflectively, then asked no more questions along this line. Tad, taking a fresh brand, followed the trail away from the camp, the others of the party bringing up the rear. Tad was recognized as the best trailer among them, so the work of following this trail was left wholly to him.
They had proceeded away from the camp in a southwesterly direction for a full quarter of a mile when Tad halted. Swinging his torch from one side to the other he finally fixed upon a certain spot. Looking up at his companions he nodded.
"Here is the place," he declared enigmatically.
"What place?" questioned Chunky, crowding in.
"The place where the visitor tethered his horse. And if you will look just to the left of Ned Rector, you will discover something else."
The Pony Rider Boys uttered exclamations of amazement. There a little to Ned's left lay a battered sombrero.
"Somebody was here," breathed the Professor.
"Yes!" cried Tad. "I know who that somebody was, too," he shouted triumphantly, dropping down on his knees with face so close to the ground that Chunky wanted to know if Tad were going to eat grass.
"No, I am not," answered Tad, "but I am going to tell you who our late caller was. We have seen him before."
"Who—what?" cried the Professor.
"He was one of the two men who assaulted us yesterday."
"Are you sure, Tad?"
"Yes, I'm pretty sure of it," answered Butler, gazing at the ground reflectively.
"But how do you know?"
"One of the two ponies those men had, had a broken shoe on the off hind foot. The horse that was tethered here had a shoe that was broken, and the broken shoe was on the off hind foot also. As nearly as I can remember, the shoe was broken in exactly the same place that this one is. It seems to me like a pretty clear case against these fellows. What do you think, Professor?"
"Indisputable evidence, I should say. You did not observe anything familiar about the man, you say?"
"No, sir."
"Those rascals mean mischief. That is certain."
"They can't do us any harm unless they try to take a pot shot at us when we aren't looking, which I hardly think they will do," ventured Butler. "They aren't desperate enough. But I should like to know what the motive is underneath it all."
"I can't help but think that in some way they are connected with Griffin," asserted Ned.
"Yes, that may be," agreed Professor Zepplin.
"Do you wish me to follow the trail, Professor?" asked Tad, glancing up.
"No, I think not. It would be likely to prove a fruitless chase."
"That is my opinion too."
The party now slowly retraced its way to camp. In speculating about the greater mystery they appeared to have forgotten the recent ghostly disturbances in the camp, though it was pretty generally understood that the latter incidents were due to a prank of one of the boys. That one boy, as the reader already surmises, was Tad Butler. Tad had evened his score with the fat boy for all the latter's pranks on him and the others, and Stacy knew it. The fat boy was shrewd. He said no more about his fright, but Tad observed that Stacy frequently cast reproachful glances in his direction.
Tad remained on watch for the rest of the night. They made an early start on the following morning, and, as on the previous day's journeyings, they found rough going all the way, with great rocks towering high above them, cut here and there by frequent deep, gloomy canyons.
About noon of this day as they were slowly riding through one of the rifts in the mountains, they pulled up sharply at a signal from Tad.
"What is it?" demanded the Professor, realizing that Butler had made a discovery.
Tad pointed ahead of them. The Professor gazed in the direction indicated.
"Fog?" he asked.
"I think not. It looks to me like smoke," answered the Pony Rider Boy.
"Who, Smoke Griffin?" piped Stacy in a loud voice.
"No, just plain smoke. And if you please, don't speak so loudly," admonished Tad.
"Hm-m-m. What would you suggest?" asked the Professor.
"I would suggest that we climb the side of the canyon," said Chunky with emphasis.
"On the contrary, we will go straight ahead," replied Tad with a firm compression of the lips.
"It may be our enemies who are waiting for us," suggested Rector.
"I hope it is," answered Tad.
"Yes, so do I. I rather think I shall have something to say to those gentlemen when next I have an opportunity to speak with them," added Professor Zepplin grimly.
Tad touched his pony with the spur. The party moved on, no one speaking, each instinctively looking to his weapons, though they had little idea that they would have use for firearms. Every face wore a serious expression, every boy was wondering what they should find at the source of the smoke.
They came upon that source in a sharp bend of the canyon and brought up short. Three men who had been sitting about a campfire cooking their dinner sprang up with hands on their revolvers, but which they did not draw from the holsters. Tad and Professor Zepplin rode slowly forward, the men standing by the fire, gazing with suspicious eyes at the visitors. All three were strangers. None of the party of Pony Rider Boys had ever seen the men before.
"Howdy!" greeted Tad, swinging a hand in greeting.
"Good afternoon, gentlemen," said the Professor.
From a tent near the campfire a dog came out, barking furiously.
"Who are you?" demanded one, who acted as spokesman for the three men.
"We are a party out for a trip, for pleasure as well as health," answered the Professor.
"Known as the Pony Rider Boys," added Tad. "Might we ask who you gentlemen are?"
"My name's Jim Dunkan. That's Sam Ellison, and the other is Tom Royal. Will you get off and have a snack with us?"
"Thank you. It is a pleasure to see a friendly face once more. We will accept your invitation if you will permit us to use our own supplies. Perhaps you gentlemen have not had access to fresh supplies and need all you have," suggested the Professor.
"Well, we are a little short, that's a fact, sir. Introduce your party if you want to. If you don't, you don't have to," was the reply.
"There is no reason why I should not. I am Professor Zepplin, in charge of the party. These young men are Thaddeus Butler, Ned Rector, Walter Perkins and Stacy Brown—"
"Otherwise known as the good thing of this outfit," added Stacy solemnly. The mountaineers laughed at the fat boy's funny face.
"Glad to meet you, fellows," greeted the men, stepping forward and shaking hands cordially all round. "Come far?"
"We are all from Missouri," answered Tad laughingly.
"Then I reckon you'll have to be shown a few things," grinned Dunkan.
"We have been," answered Stacy.
The boys by this time had dismounted and were tethering their horses while the mountaineers looked on curiously.
"You younkers 'pear mighty handy. Guess you aren't tenderfeet," observed Sam Ellison.
"Not exactly, sir," answered Butler. "We have been riding the mountains and plains for a few seasons."
"Do you gentlemen live in these parts?" asked the Professor, seating himself by the fire.
"No. We're up here prospecting."
"Ah! Gold?"
Dunkan nodded briefly.
"I discovered some indications of gold yesterday," announced the Professor.
The men were interested at once. They asked many questions which the Professor answered freely. When they learned that he was a geologist, among his other accomplishments, the men thawed instantly.
"Maybe you wouldn't mind looking at some pay dirt for us?" questioned Tom Royal.
"I should be glad to serve you in any way possible," replied the Professor cordially. "Have you struck anything yet?"
"We don't know. We may have. Of course we've found evidences, but whether it's real pay dirt or not we don't know."
"Yes, I came to the conclusion, after analyzing the rock I found, that gold could not be extracted from it in anything like paying quantities. Are there many others in here on similar quests?"
Royal said no.
"There are those here who, I reckon, have found some stuff, though," declared Dunkan.
"Yes?" replied the Professor, glancing at the speaker inquiringly.
Tad caught the significance of the remark and fixed his eyes on Jim Dunkan.
"Others, sir?" ventured Tad.
"Chops, you get the dinner going at once," directed Professor Zepplin. "I think these gentlemen would like some bacon. We have an excellent blend of coffee, gentlemen. Make a large pot, guide."
"Yassir," promised Chops.
"As I was saying," continued Dunkan, "there are others here who appear to have struck it rich. That is, there's one, but I don't know how many more are behind him."
"May I ask who the man is?" inquired the Professor.
"His name is Jay Stillman." The speaker frowned as he pronounced the name.
"What sort of looking man is Stillman?" asked Tad.
Dunkan described the man, whereat Tad and the Professor exchanged significant looks.
"Do you know the critter?" demanded Jim suspiciously.
"We think we have seen him, sir," replied Tad. "Why?"
"I reckon you aren't friends of his?"
"Far from it," declared the Professor with emphasis. "If he is the man we think from your description, we should like an opportunity to turn him over to a sheriff."
Dunkan grinned broadly.
"I reckon they're on the right side, fellows," he said, nodding to his companions. "What's he been doing to you?"
"Here is the dinner," answered the Professor. "Suppose we discuss that?"
"Right you are, pardner. Say that coffee does smell good."
"Yes, I poured the water on it," Stacy informed them.
"You can stay here and pour water on our coffee all the time, if you want to," answered Sam.
"No, thank you. I am a lion hunter, not a coffee boy."
"You get away with it in pretty good shape even if you're not a coffee boy," averred Dunkan.
"Oh, there's a lot about Stacy Brown that you will learn before you have known him long," spoke up Ned.
"Yes, I'm a mine of good things," admitted Chunky as modestly as he could.
"Now about this man Stillman?" suggested the Professor.
"Yes, sir, we should like to know what his game is," said Tad.
"His game?" repeated Jim.
"Yes, sir."
"I didn't know he had any game in particular."
"He tried to drive us back. He must have had a motive else he would not have done that," declared Tad.
"Just pure meanness," answered Dunkan. "He wants it all to himself. He doesn't want anybody else fooling around in the mountains here. He's taking up all the land he can get hold of, and I guess he reckons on getting a fortune out of it. Why he had a man from the city up here the other day and the fellow told a man I know that there was gold enough in these hills to buy the earth."
Professor Zepplin glared at the speaker.
"Very interesting, indeed. Then you think he has no other motive in desiring to keep persons away from here?"
"What other motive could he have?"
"I am sure I do not know."
"I will wager that there is another motive that you gentlemen do not know anything about," spoke up Tad.
"What makes you think that?" questioned Ellison.
"Everything seems to point that way, and if he bothers us any more I shall make it my business to find out."
The prospectors laughed good-naturedly.
"You better let that job out. Jay Stillman isn't the man for boys to fool with," advised Dunkan.
Professor Zepplin bristled.
"I guess you gentlemen do not know my young men."
"I think I do," spoke up Ellison. "They've got the look of the real stuff about them. Can you shoot?"
"Well, some," admitted Tad.
"We can run, too," volunteered Stacy.
"Especially when there's a ghost after you," sneered Ned.
"Have you seen either of these men of late?" asked the Professor.
"Sam saw Stillman yesterday and told him to mosey out of this or we'd be finding out what he was doing around our diggings."
"Who is the other man who is with him?"
"I don't know," answered Dunkan.
"Why, that must have been Joe Batts," suggested Ellison. "Batts is about the worst ever. I wouldn't dare turn my back to him if he had any reason for wanting to get rid of me."
"An excellent reputation, most excellent, you are giving these men," smiled the Professor.
"Is he anything like his name?" piped Chunky.
"How's that?"
"Batty—like a bat, you know," explained Stacy.
Professor Zepplin admonished the fat boy with a stern glance, which Chunky pretended not to see.
"Do they ever bother you here in your camp or at your work?" asked Ned.
"Well, I reckon not," drawled Dunkan. "In the daytime they are afraid of our guns. In the night the dog is looking after things here."
"Where do they live?" interrupted Butler.
"Stillman has a shack near one of the Smoky Bald's gulches. He isn't there very much, I guess. I don't know where Joe lives. I guess anywhere he can find a place soft enough to lie on," answered Dunkan with a grin. "Say, you folks better make camp here with us and kind of make this a headquarters, hadn't you?"
"What do you say, boys?" questioned Professor Zepplin.
"We might remain here until tomorrow," agreed Tad. "Mr. Dunkan wants you to make some tests for him, he says."
"All right, boys," agreed the Professor.
The lads sprang up and began opening their packs, and in a few moments their tents were being pitched, the miners watching them with interested gaze as the odd little tents went up.
"Well, doesn't that beat all?" wondered Ellison. "I never saw anything quite like that outfit before. Where'd you get them?"
"Mr. Butler invented those tents," answered the Professor proudly.
"Then Mr. Butler's all right," smiled the miner.
All the rest of the afternoon Professor Zepplin was absorbed in examining rocks, specimens of ore, and dirt. He was deep in consultation with Dunkan and the others of the prospectors.
"Yes, there are strong indications here, but thus far I have found nothing that would pay," said the Professor. "The sample you say you got from Stillman Gulch is the best of all. It is, I might say, most promising. Is that where the other man claims to have found pay dirt?"
"Somewhere in that vicinity. We don't know the exact location."
"Are you trying to locate a vein of ore, too?" questioned the Professor.
"Sure we are. It's anybody's gold. Of course we don't follow him and spy on him. We aren't that kind of cattle. But we'll find it prospecting if we find it at all, and then you'll see music in these parts."
"I understand there are gems in these mountains."
"Yes, they've been found. Here's an amethyst I picked up a week ago."
The Professor, after examining the stone, became enthusiastic. He pronounced it an exceptionally fine specimen.
"If, sir, you are able to pick up such stones as this on this Ridge why do you waste your time in seeking for gold?"
"That's just the trick, Professor. We can't."
"But surely they must be here. This one shows evidence of having been wrenched from its original resting place and hurled some distance."
Dunkan gazed at the Professor reflectively.
"By Hickey, I believe you're right at that. It gives me a new idea. I'll go to that place and hunt until either I find something or I don't."
"Do so, by all means. Those boys of mine will help you."
"Let them, but if they find anything it belongs to them. Jim Dunkan hasn't got any claim on anything in these hills unless he finds it for himself. We'll be getting back now."
It was a jolly evening spent around the campfire of the prospectors. Stories were told, Chops was induced to sing a song, the boys related interesting stories of their experiences on their various journeys, then all hands turned in well satisfied with their day and their evening.
The Pony Rider Boys slept soundly. But late in the night there came an interruption—a rush of the prospectors' collie dog. The animal, tied to a tree, began to bark and strain at its leash. Just before the men turned out to see what the trouble was, the collie broke its leash and dashed away into the bushes, barking furiously. They heard the animal snarling. A yelp followed, then a chorus of explosive barks. The dog's barking ceased suddenly.
"I reckon he's chasing some animal," said Dunkan.
"It didn't sound like that to me," replied Tad, still listening intently. "Of course you know the dog better than do I. Does he bark at every sound?"
"Pretty near," grinned Sam.
"Yes, he usually wakes us up once a night, sometimes more," added Tom Royal. "Reckon we might as well go back to bed."
Jim whistled for the dog. He kept whistling for several minutes, then turned back toward their tent disgustedly.
"He's got on the trail of something and gone beyond sound," he muttered. "He'll be back here in the morning."
"I hope so," muttered Tad.
"See here, you've got something in your mind, younker!" demanded Dunkan.
"Nothing except that I don't believe your collie was chasing an animal. I know a dog's bark well enough to know when he's on the trail of an animal. That bark and growl wasn't like any animal-chasing growl I ever heard."
"All right, sonny, we'll see who's right," smiled Jim, turning to his tent. "Night."
"Good-night," answered Butler. "He will see whether I am right or not in the morning. I am going to find out something for myself in the morning, too. I don't believe those men are very good mountaineers, though they may be most excellent prospectors."
Tad went to sleep and slept soundly until break of day when he was up and about. Dunkan's first inquiry upon getting up, was as to whether the collie had returned.
The collie had not. The broken rope with which he had been tethered before breaking away still hung from the stake.
"Well, kid, I reckon you were right about the dog's not coming back," announced Dunkan, his face troubled and anxious.
"I didn't say he would not come back, did I? What I tried to tell you, was that he wasn't chasing an animal."
"Well, he was. If he hadn't been, he'd been back in this camp hours ago. He's got mixed up in his trail, but I reckon he'll be along when he gets ready. I'm not going to worry about the dog, though I'd rather lose anything I've got than to lose him."
"You're wrong all around, Mr. Dunkan," asserted Tad confidently.
"You think so?"
"I know so."
"How d'ye know?"
"Because if you will look out yonder in the bushes you will find the trail of the man he was following," replied Tad gravely.
Tad's calm announcement startled everyone in camp. Even Chops paused with frying pan held aloft to listen to the further words of the keen-eyed Pony Rider Boy.
"What's that you say?" demanded Sam Ellison.
"Your dog chased a man away from here last night."
"How—how do you know?" stammered Jim.
"Because I saw the trail this morning."
"Where?"
"Right there. It begins with the dog's tracks, which, after a little way, are mixed up with that of the man he was after."
Dunkan eyed Tad keenly to see if the boy was joking. Tad Butler most certainly was not joking. He had never been more serious in his life.
"Show it to me," commanded Dunkan. The prospector's voice was calm, but there was a menace in it.
Without a word Tad led the way to the edge of the camp ground, where he pointed to the footprints of the dog, faintly discernible on the soft turf. Tad kept right on until he had gone some ten rods from the camp, whereupon he halted and pointed again.
"What do you make of that, Mr. Dunkan?" he asked.
"Man's tracks, as I'm alive," muttered the prospector, after a careful examination of the trail as indicated by Tad.
"Yes, and the man had been standing here for some time. If you will look a little farther you will find that he started to walk away, then broke into a run. The dog was pressing him rather too closely for comfort. At this point the dog began running faster than before. I know that because from this point the collie left only the faintest footprints, showing that he was barely touching the ground with his feet."