Chapter Nine.

Chapter Nine.First Searches for Gold.The three men uttered a loud cheer, and ran and leaped upon their fallen enemy, but Bart ran back, loading his piece as he went, to where he had left the Doctor with poor Joses.Bart felt his heart beat heavily, and there was a strange, choking feeling of pain at his throat as he thought of rough, surly-spoken Joses, the man who had been his guide and companion in many a hunt and search for the straying cattle; and now it seemed to him that he was to lose one who he felt had been a friend.“Is he—”Bart panted out this much, and then stopped in amazement, for, as he turned the corner of some rocks that lay between him and the tent, instead of addressing the Doctor, he found himself face to face with Joses, who, according to Bart’s ideas, should have been lying upon the stones, hideously clawed from shoulder to heel by the monster’s terrible hooks. On the contrary, the rough fellow was sitting up, with his back close to a great block of stone, his rifle across his knees, and both hands busy rolling up a little cigarette.“Why, Joses,” panted Bart, “I thought—”“As I was killed? Well, I ain’t,” said Joses, roughly.“But the bear—she struck you down—I saw her claw you.”“You see her strike me down,” growled Joses; “but she didn’t claw me, my lad. She didn’t hit out far enough, but she’s tore every rag off my back right into ribbons, and I’m waiting here till the Doctor brings me something else and my blanket to wear.”“O Joses, I am glad,” cried Bart, hoarsely; and his voice was full of emotion as he spoke, while he caught the rough fellow’s hands in his.“Don’t spoil a fellow’s cigarette,” growled Joses roughly, but his eyes showed the pleasure he felt. “I say are you glad, though?”“Glad?” cried Bart, “indeed, indeed I am.”“That’s right, Master Bart. That’s right. It would have been awkward if I’d been killed.”“Oh, don’t talk about it,” cried Bart, shuddering.“Why not, my lad? It would though. They’d have had no end of a job to dig down in this stony ground. But you’ve killed the bear among you?”“Yes; she’s dead enough.”“That’s well. Who fired the shot as finished her? Don’t say you let Juan or Sam, or I won’t forgive you.”“I fired the last, and brought her down,” said Bart quietly enough.“That’s right,” said Joses, “that’s right; you ought to be a good shot now.”“But are you not hurt at all?” asked Bart.“Well, I can’t say as I arn’t hurt,” replied Joses, “because she knocked all the wind out of me as she sent me down so quickly, and she scratched a few bits of skin off as well as my clothes, but that don’t matter: skin grows again, clothes don’t. Humph, here comes the Doctor with the things.”“A narrow escape for him, Bart. But how about the grizzly?”“Dead, sir, quite dead,” replied Bart. “Are we likely to see Mr Grizzly as well?”“No, I think not, my boy. Mother and cubs generally go together.”“Now, Joses, let me dress your back.”“No, thank ye, master, I can dress myself, bless you.”“No, no, I mean apply some of this dressing to those terrible scratches.”“Oh, if that’s what you mean, master, go on. Wouldn’t they be just as well without?”“No, no; turn round, man.”Joses obeyed, and Bart shuddered as he saw the scores made by the monster’s hideous claws, though Joses took it all quietly enough, and after the dressing threw his blanket over his shoulders, to walk with his master and Bart, to have a look at the grizzly lying there in the gathering shades of night.It was a monster indeed, being quite nine feet long, and massive in proportion, while its great sharp curved claws were some of them nearly six inches from point to insertion in the shaggy toes.Such a skin was too precious as a trophy to be left, and before daylight next morning, Juan, Harry, and Sam were at work stripping it off, Bart, when he came soon after, finding them well on with their task, Joses being seated upon a fragment of rock contentedly smoking his cigarette and giving instructions, he being an adept at such matters, having stripped off hundreds if not thousands of hides in his day, from bison cattle and bear down to panther and skunk.“I ain’t helping, Master Bart,” he said apologetically, “being a bit stiff this morning.”“Which is a blessing as it ain’t worse,” said Harry; “for you might have been much worse, you know.”“You mind your own business,” growled Joses. “You’re whipping off great bits o’ flesh there and leaving ’em on the skin.”“Well, see how hard it is when it’s cold,” grumbled Harry; and then to Juan, “I shan’t take no notice of him. You see he’s a bit sore.”Harry was quite right, poor Joses being so sore that for some days he could not mount his horse, and spent his time in drying the two bear-skins in the sun, and dressing them on the fleshy side, till they were quite soft and made capital mats for the waggon.One morning, however, he expressed himself as being all right, and whatever pains he felt, he would not show the slightest sign, but mounted his horse, and would have gone forward, only the Doctor decided to spend another day where they were, so as to more fully examine the rocks, for he fancied that he had discovered a metallic deposit in one spot on the previous night.It was settled, then, that the horses should go on grazing in the little meadow-like spot beside a tiny stream close by the waggon, and that the Doctor, Juan, Joses, and Bart should explore the ravine where the Doctor thought he had found traces of gold, while Sam and Harry kept watch by the camp.For days past the neighbourhood had been well hunted over, and with the exception of a snake or two, no noxious or dangerous creature had been seen; the Indians seemed to have gone right away, and under the circumstances, all was considered safe.Explorations had shown them that the place they were in rose like, as it were, a peninsula of rocks from amidst a sea of verdure. This peninsula formed quite a clump some miles round, and doubtless it had been chosen as a convenient place by the bear, being only connected with the mountain slope by a narrow neck ofdébrisfrom the higher ground.As the party went on, the Doctor told Bart, that his intention was to journey along by the side of the mountain till he found some valley or canyon, up which they could take the waggon, and then search the rocks as they went on whenever the land looked promising.Upon this occasion, after a few hours’ walk, the Doctor halted by the bed of a tiny stream, and after searching about in the sands for a time he hit upon a likely place, took a small portion of the sand in a shallow tin bowl, and began to wash it, changing the water over and over again, and throwing away the lighter sand, till nothing was left but a small portion of coarser fragments, and upon these being turned out in the bright sunshine and examined, there were certainly a few specks of gold to be seen, but so minute that the Doctor threw them away with a sigh.“We must have something more promising than that,” he said. “Now I think, Bart, you had better go along that ridge of broken rock close up to the hills, and walk eastward for a few miles to explore. I will go with Juan to the west. Perhaps we shall find a likely place for going right up into the mountains. We’ll meet here again at say two hours before sundown. Keep a sharp look-out.”They parted, and for the next two hours Bart and Joses journeyed along under what was for the most part a wall of rock fringed at the top with verdure, and broken up into chasms and crevices which were filled with plants of familiar or strange growths.Sometimes they started a serpent, and once they came upon a little herd of antelopes, but they were not in search of game, and they let the agile creatures go unmolested.The heat was growing terrific beneath the sheltered rock-wall, and at last, weakened by his encounter with the bear Joses began to show signs of distress.“I’d give something for a good drink of water,” he said. “I’ve been longing this hour past, and I can’t understand how it is that we haven’t come upon a stream running out into the plain. There arn’t been no chance of the waggon going up into the mountains this way.”“Shall we turn back?”“Turn back? No! not if we have to go right round the whole world,” growled Joses. “Come along, my lad, we’ll find a spring somewheres.”For another hour they tramped on almost in silence, and then all at once came a musical, plashing sound that made Joses draw himself up erect and say with a smile:“There’s always water if you go on long enough, my lad. That there’s a fall.”And so it proved to be, and one of extreme beauty, for a couple of hundred yards farther they came upon a nook in the rough wall, where the water of a small stream poured swiftly down, all foam and flash and sparkle, and yet in so close and compact a body that, pulling a cow-horn from his pocket, Joses could walk closely up and catch the pure cold fluid as it fell.“There, Master Bart,” he said, filling and rinsing out the horn two or three times, “there you are. Drink, my lad, for you want it bad, as I can see.”“No, you drink first, Joses,” said the lad; but the rough frontier man refused, and it was not until Bart had emptied the horn of what seemed to be the most delicious water he had ever tasted, that Joses would fill and drink.When he did begin, however, it seemed as if he would never leave off, for he kept on pouring down horn after horn, and smacking his lips with satisfaction.“Ah, my lad!” he exclaimed at last, “I’ve drunk everything in my time, whiskey, andaguardiente, and grape wine,and molasses rum, but there isn’t one of ’em as comes up anywhere like a horn of sparkling water like that when you are parched and burnt up with thirst.”“It is delicious, Joses,” said Bart; “but now had we not better go back?”“Yes, if we mean to be to our time; but suppose we go a little lower down there into the plain, and try if there’s anything like what the master’s hunting for in the sands.”They went down for about a quarter of a mile to where there was a smooth sandy reach, and a cup being produced, they set to and washed several lots of sand, in each case finding a few specks but nothing more, and at last they gave it up, when Joses pointed to some footprints in the soil, where there was evidently a drinking-place made by deer.“What are those?” said Bart, “panthers?”“Painters they are, my lad, and I daresay we could shoot one if we had time. Make a splendid skin for little Miss. I dessay we could find a skunk or two hereabouts. Eh! nasty? Well, they are, but their fur’s lovely.”They saw neither panther nor skunk, though footprints, evidently made the previous night, were plentiful about the stream; and now, as time was getting on, they sturdily set themselves to their backward journey, Joses praising the water nearly all the way, when he was not telling of some encounter he had had with Indian or savage beast in his earlier days.“Do you think we shall see any more of the Indians, Joses?” said Bart at last.“What, Old Arrow—in—the—arm!”“Yes.”“Sure to,” said Joses. “He’s a good fellow that is. ’Taint an Indian’s natur to show he’s fond of you, but that chap would fight for the master to the last.”“It seemed like it the other day, but it was very strange that he should go off as he did.”“Not it, my lad. He’s gone to watch them Injuns, safe.”“Then he will think us ungrateful for going away.”“Not he. Depend upon it, he’ll turn up one of these days just when we don’t expect it, and sit down just as if nothing had happened.”“But will he find our trail over such stony ground?”“Find it? Ah! of course he will, and before you know where you are.”They trudged on in silence now, for both were growing tired, but just about the time appointed they came within sight of their starting-place, the Doctor meeting them a few minutes later.“What luck?” he asked.“Nothing but a glorious spring of water, and a stream with some specks of gold in the washing.”“I have done little better, Bart, but there is a valley yonder that leads up into the mountains, and with care I think we can get the waggon along without much difficulty.”

The three men uttered a loud cheer, and ran and leaped upon their fallen enemy, but Bart ran back, loading his piece as he went, to where he had left the Doctor with poor Joses.

Bart felt his heart beat heavily, and there was a strange, choking feeling of pain at his throat as he thought of rough, surly-spoken Joses, the man who had been his guide and companion in many a hunt and search for the straying cattle; and now it seemed to him that he was to lose one who he felt had been a friend.

“Is he—”

Bart panted out this much, and then stopped in amazement, for, as he turned the corner of some rocks that lay between him and the tent, instead of addressing the Doctor, he found himself face to face with Joses, who, according to Bart’s ideas, should have been lying upon the stones, hideously clawed from shoulder to heel by the monster’s terrible hooks. On the contrary, the rough fellow was sitting up, with his back close to a great block of stone, his rifle across his knees, and both hands busy rolling up a little cigarette.

“Why, Joses,” panted Bart, “I thought—”

“As I was killed? Well, I ain’t,” said Joses, roughly.

“But the bear—she struck you down—I saw her claw you.”

“You see her strike me down,” growled Joses; “but she didn’t claw me, my lad. She didn’t hit out far enough, but she’s tore every rag off my back right into ribbons, and I’m waiting here till the Doctor brings me something else and my blanket to wear.”

“O Joses, I am glad,” cried Bart, hoarsely; and his voice was full of emotion as he spoke, while he caught the rough fellow’s hands in his.

“Don’t spoil a fellow’s cigarette,” growled Joses roughly, but his eyes showed the pleasure he felt. “I say are you glad, though?”

“Glad?” cried Bart, “indeed, indeed I am.”

“That’s right, Master Bart. That’s right. It would have been awkward if I’d been killed.”

“Oh, don’t talk about it,” cried Bart, shuddering.

“Why not, my lad? It would though. They’d have had no end of a job to dig down in this stony ground. But you’ve killed the bear among you?”

“Yes; she’s dead enough.”

“That’s well. Who fired the shot as finished her? Don’t say you let Juan or Sam, or I won’t forgive you.”

“I fired the last, and brought her down,” said Bart quietly enough.

“That’s right,” said Joses, “that’s right; you ought to be a good shot now.”

“But are you not hurt at all?” asked Bart.

“Well, I can’t say as I arn’t hurt,” replied Joses, “because she knocked all the wind out of me as she sent me down so quickly, and she scratched a few bits of skin off as well as my clothes, but that don’t matter: skin grows again, clothes don’t. Humph, here comes the Doctor with the things.”

“A narrow escape for him, Bart. But how about the grizzly?”

“Dead, sir, quite dead,” replied Bart. “Are we likely to see Mr Grizzly as well?”

“No, I think not, my boy. Mother and cubs generally go together.”

“Now, Joses, let me dress your back.”

“No, thank ye, master, I can dress myself, bless you.”

“No, no, I mean apply some of this dressing to those terrible scratches.”

“Oh, if that’s what you mean, master, go on. Wouldn’t they be just as well without?”

“No, no; turn round, man.”

Joses obeyed, and Bart shuddered as he saw the scores made by the monster’s hideous claws, though Joses took it all quietly enough, and after the dressing threw his blanket over his shoulders, to walk with his master and Bart, to have a look at the grizzly lying there in the gathering shades of night.

It was a monster indeed, being quite nine feet long, and massive in proportion, while its great sharp curved claws were some of them nearly six inches from point to insertion in the shaggy toes.

Such a skin was too precious as a trophy to be left, and before daylight next morning, Juan, Harry, and Sam were at work stripping it off, Bart, when he came soon after, finding them well on with their task, Joses being seated upon a fragment of rock contentedly smoking his cigarette and giving instructions, he being an adept at such matters, having stripped off hundreds if not thousands of hides in his day, from bison cattle and bear down to panther and skunk.

“I ain’t helping, Master Bart,” he said apologetically, “being a bit stiff this morning.”

“Which is a blessing as it ain’t worse,” said Harry; “for you might have been much worse, you know.”

“You mind your own business,” growled Joses. “You’re whipping off great bits o’ flesh there and leaving ’em on the skin.”

“Well, see how hard it is when it’s cold,” grumbled Harry; and then to Juan, “I shan’t take no notice of him. You see he’s a bit sore.”

Harry was quite right, poor Joses being so sore that for some days he could not mount his horse, and spent his time in drying the two bear-skins in the sun, and dressing them on the fleshy side, till they were quite soft and made capital mats for the waggon.

One morning, however, he expressed himself as being all right, and whatever pains he felt, he would not show the slightest sign, but mounted his horse, and would have gone forward, only the Doctor decided to spend another day where they were, so as to more fully examine the rocks, for he fancied that he had discovered a metallic deposit in one spot on the previous night.

It was settled, then, that the horses should go on grazing in the little meadow-like spot beside a tiny stream close by the waggon, and that the Doctor, Juan, Joses, and Bart should explore the ravine where the Doctor thought he had found traces of gold, while Sam and Harry kept watch by the camp.

For days past the neighbourhood had been well hunted over, and with the exception of a snake or two, no noxious or dangerous creature had been seen; the Indians seemed to have gone right away, and under the circumstances, all was considered safe.

Explorations had shown them that the place they were in rose like, as it were, a peninsula of rocks from amidst a sea of verdure. This peninsula formed quite a clump some miles round, and doubtless it had been chosen as a convenient place by the bear, being only connected with the mountain slope by a narrow neck ofdébrisfrom the higher ground.

As the party went on, the Doctor told Bart, that his intention was to journey along by the side of the mountain till he found some valley or canyon, up which they could take the waggon, and then search the rocks as they went on whenever the land looked promising.

Upon this occasion, after a few hours’ walk, the Doctor halted by the bed of a tiny stream, and after searching about in the sands for a time he hit upon a likely place, took a small portion of the sand in a shallow tin bowl, and began to wash it, changing the water over and over again, and throwing away the lighter sand, till nothing was left but a small portion of coarser fragments, and upon these being turned out in the bright sunshine and examined, there were certainly a few specks of gold to be seen, but so minute that the Doctor threw them away with a sigh.

“We must have something more promising than that,” he said. “Now I think, Bart, you had better go along that ridge of broken rock close up to the hills, and walk eastward for a few miles to explore. I will go with Juan to the west. Perhaps we shall find a likely place for going right up into the mountains. We’ll meet here again at say two hours before sundown. Keep a sharp look-out.”

They parted, and for the next two hours Bart and Joses journeyed along under what was for the most part a wall of rock fringed at the top with verdure, and broken up into chasms and crevices which were filled with plants of familiar or strange growths.

Sometimes they started a serpent, and once they came upon a little herd of antelopes, but they were not in search of game, and they let the agile creatures go unmolested.

The heat was growing terrific beneath the sheltered rock-wall, and at last, weakened by his encounter with the bear Joses began to show signs of distress.

“I’d give something for a good drink of water,” he said. “I’ve been longing this hour past, and I can’t understand how it is that we haven’t come upon a stream running out into the plain. There arn’t been no chance of the waggon going up into the mountains this way.”

“Shall we turn back?”

“Turn back? No! not if we have to go right round the whole world,” growled Joses. “Come along, my lad, we’ll find a spring somewheres.”

For another hour they tramped on almost in silence, and then all at once came a musical, plashing sound that made Joses draw himself up erect and say with a smile:

“There’s always water if you go on long enough, my lad. That there’s a fall.”

And so it proved to be, and one of extreme beauty, for a couple of hundred yards farther they came upon a nook in the rough wall, where the water of a small stream poured swiftly down, all foam and flash and sparkle, and yet in so close and compact a body that, pulling a cow-horn from his pocket, Joses could walk closely up and catch the pure cold fluid as it fell.

“There, Master Bart,” he said, filling and rinsing out the horn two or three times, “there you are. Drink, my lad, for you want it bad, as I can see.”

“No, you drink first, Joses,” said the lad; but the rough frontier man refused, and it was not until Bart had emptied the horn of what seemed to be the most delicious water he had ever tasted, that Joses would fill and drink.

When he did begin, however, it seemed as if he would never leave off, for he kept on pouring down horn after horn, and smacking his lips with satisfaction.

“Ah, my lad!” he exclaimed at last, “I’ve drunk everything in my time, whiskey, andaguardiente, and grape wine,and molasses rum, but there isn’t one of ’em as comes up anywhere like a horn of sparkling water like that when you are parched and burnt up with thirst.”

“It is delicious, Joses,” said Bart; “but now had we not better go back?”

“Yes, if we mean to be to our time; but suppose we go a little lower down there into the plain, and try if there’s anything like what the master’s hunting for in the sands.”

They went down for about a quarter of a mile to where there was a smooth sandy reach, and a cup being produced, they set to and washed several lots of sand, in each case finding a few specks but nothing more, and at last they gave it up, when Joses pointed to some footprints in the soil, where there was evidently a drinking-place made by deer.

“What are those?” said Bart, “panthers?”

“Painters they are, my lad, and I daresay we could shoot one if we had time. Make a splendid skin for little Miss. I dessay we could find a skunk or two hereabouts. Eh! nasty? Well, they are, but their fur’s lovely.”

They saw neither panther nor skunk, though footprints, evidently made the previous night, were plentiful about the stream; and now, as time was getting on, they sturdily set themselves to their backward journey, Joses praising the water nearly all the way, when he was not telling of some encounter he had had with Indian or savage beast in his earlier days.

“Do you think we shall see any more of the Indians, Joses?” said Bart at last.

“What, Old Arrow—in—the—arm!”

“Yes.”

“Sure to,” said Joses. “He’s a good fellow that is. ’Taint an Indian’s natur to show he’s fond of you, but that chap would fight for the master to the last.”

“It seemed like it the other day, but it was very strange that he should go off as he did.”

“Not it, my lad. He’s gone to watch them Injuns, safe.”

“Then he will think us ungrateful for going away.”

“Not he. Depend upon it, he’ll turn up one of these days just when we don’t expect it, and sit down just as if nothing had happened.”

“But will he find our trail over such stony ground?”

“Find it? Ah! of course he will, and before you know where you are.”

They trudged on in silence now, for both were growing tired, but just about the time appointed they came within sight of their starting-place, the Doctor meeting them a few minutes later.

“What luck?” he asked.

“Nothing but a glorious spring of water, and a stream with some specks of gold in the washing.”

“I have done little better, Bart, but there is a valley yonder that leads up into the mountains, and with care I think we can get the waggon along without much difficulty.”

Chapter Ten.A sure-footed Beast.An early start was made next morning, and following the course mapped out by the Doctor, they soon reached an opening in the hills, up which they turned, to find in the hollow a thread-like stream and that, as they proceeded, the mountains began to open out before them higher and higher, till they seemed to close in the horizon like clouds of delicate amethystine blue.Every now and then the travelling was so bad that it seemed as if they must return, but somehow the waggon and horses were got over the obstacles, and a short level cheered them on to fresh exertions, while, as they slowly climbed higher and higher, there was the satisfaction of knowing that there was less likelihood of molestation from Indians, the dangerous tribes of the plains, Comanches and Apachés, rarely taking their horses up amongst the rugged portions of the hills.Maude, in her girlish freshness of heart, was delighted with the variety of scenery, while to Bart all was excitement. Even the labour to extricate the waggon from some rift, or to help to drag it up some tremendous slope, was enjoyable.Then there were little excursions to make down moist ravines, where an antelope might be bagged for the larder; or up to some dry-looking flat, shut in by the hills, where grouse might be put up amongst the sage-brush and other thin growth, for six hard-working men out in these brisk latitudes consume a great deal of food, and the stores in the waggon had to be saved as much a possible.One way and the other the larder was kept well supplied, and while Dr Lascelles on the one hand talked eagerly of the precious metal he hoped to discover, Joses was always ready with promises of endless sport.“Why, by an’ by, Master Bart,” he said one day as they journeyed slowly on, “we shall come to rivers so full of salmon that all you’ve got to do is to pull ’em out.”“If you can catch them,” said Bart, laughing.“Catch ’em, my boy? Why, they don’t want no catching. I’ve known ’em come up some rivers so quick and fast that when they got up to the shallows they shoved one another out on to the sides high and dry, and all you’d got to do was to catch ’em and eat ’em.”“Let’s see, that’s what the Doctor calls a traveller’s tale, Joses.”“Yes; this traveller’s tale,” said Bart’s companion gruffly. “You needn’t believe it without you like, but it’s true all the same.”“Well, I’ll try and believe it,” said Bart, laughing, “but I didn’t know salmon were so stupid as that.”“Stupid! they aren’t stupid, my lad,” replied Joses sharply. “Suppose you and millions of people behind you were walking along a narrow bit o’ land with a river on each side of you, and everybody was pushing on from behind to get up to the end of the bit of land, where there wasn’t room for you all, and suppose you and hundreds more got pushed into the water on one side or on the other, that wouldn’t be because you were so very stupid, would it?”“No,” said Bart, “that would be because I couldn’t help it.”“Well, it’s just the same with the salmon, my lad. Millions of ’em come up from out of the sea at spawning time, and they swim up and up till the rivers get narrower and shallower, and all those behind keep pushing the first ones on till thousands die on the banks, and get eaten by the wolves andcoyótesthat come down then to the banks along with eagles and hawks and birds like them.”“I beg your pardon, Joses, for not believing you,” said Bart, earnestly. “I see now.”“Oh, it’s all right enough,” said the rough fellow bluntly. “I shouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it, and of course it’s only up the little shallow streams that shoot off from the others.”This conversation took place some days after they had been in the mountains, gradually climbing higher, and getting glorious views at times, of hill and distant plain. Bart and Joses were out “after the pot,” as the latter called it, and on this occasion they had been very unfortunate.“I tell you what it is,” said Joses at last, “we shall have to go lower down. The master won’t never find no gold and silver up here, and food’ll get scarcer and scarcer, unless we can come upon a flock of sheep.”“A flock of sheep up here!” said Bart incredulously.“I didn’t say salmon, I said sheep,” grunted Joses. “Now, say you don’t believe there is sheep up here.”“You tell me there are sheep up here,” said Bart, “and I will believe you.”“I don’t say there are; I only hope there are,” said Joses; “for if we could get one or two o’ them in good condition, they’re the best eating of anything as goes on four legs.”“But not our sort of sheep?”“No, of course not. Mountain sheep, my lad, with great horns twisted round so long and thick you get wondering how the sheep can carry ’em, and—there, look!”He caught Bart by the shoulder, and pointed to a tremendous slope, a quarter of a mile away, where, in the clear pure air, the lad could see a flock of about twenty sheep evidently watching them.“They’re the shyest, artfullest things as ever was,” whispered Joses. “Down softly, and let’s back away; we must circumvent them, and get behind ’em for a shot.”“Too late,” said Bart; and he was right, for suddenly the whole herd went off at a tremendous pace along a slope that seemed to be quite a precipice, and the next moment they were gone.“That’s up for to-day,” said Joses, shouldering his rifle. “We may go back and try and pick up a bird or two. To-morrow we’ll come strong, and p’r’aps get a shot at the sheep, as we know they are here.”They were fortunate enough to shoot a few grouse on their way back, and next morning at daybreak, Bart and the four men started after the sheep, the Doctor preferring to stay by the waggon and examine some of the rocks.As the party climbed upwards towards the slope where the sheep had been seen on the previous day, Joses was full of stories about the shy nature of these animals.“They’ll lead you right away into the wildest places,” he said, “and then, when you think you’ve got them, they go over some steep cut, and you never see ’em again. Some people say they jump head first down on to the rocks, and lets themselves fall on their horns, which is made big on purpose, and then bounces up again, but I don’t believe it, for if they did, they’d break their necks. All the same, though, they do jump down some wonderful steep places and run up others that look like walls. Here, what’s Sam making signals for! Go softly.”They crept up to their companion, and found that he hadsighted a flock of eleven sheep on a slope quite a couple of miles away, and but for the assurance of Joses that it was all right, and that they were sheep, Bart would have said it was a patch of a light colour on the mountain.As they approached cautiously, however, trying to stalk the timid creatures, Bart found that his men were right, and they spent the next two hours in cautious approach, till they saw that the sheep took alarm and rushed up to the top of the slope, disappeared for a moment, and then came back, to stand staring down at their advancing enemies.“It’s all right,” exclaimed Joses, “we can get the lot if we like, for they can’t get away. Yonder’s a regular dip down where they can’t jump. Keep your rifles ready, my boys, and we’ll shoot two. That’ll be enough.”As they spread out and slowly advanced, the sheep ran back out of sight, but came back again, proving Joses’ words, that there was a precipice beyond them and their enemies in front.Four times over, as the hunting party advanced, did the sheep perform this evolution, but the last time they did not come back into sight.“They’re away hiding down among the bushes,” said Joses. “Be ready. Now then close in. You keep in the middle here, Master Bart, and have the first shot. Pick a good fat one.”“Yes,” panted Bart, who was out of breath with the climbing, and to rest him Joses called a halt, keeping a sharp look-out the while to left and right, so that the sheep might not elude them.At the end of a few minutes they toiled up the slope once more, Joses uttering a few words of warning to his young companion.“Don’t rush when you get to the top, for it slopes down there with a big wall going right down beyond, and you mightn’t be able to stop yourself. Keep cool, we shall see them together directly.”But they did not see the sheep cowering together as they expected, for though the top of the mountain was just as Joses had described, sloping down after they had passed the summit and then going down abruptly in an awful precipice, no sheep were to be seen, and after making sure that none were hidden, the men passed on cautiously to the edge, Bart being a little way behind, forcing his way through some thick bushes.Just then a cry from Joses made him hurry to the edge, but he was too late to see what three of them witnessed, and that was the leap of a magnificent ram, which had been standing upon a ledge ten feet below them, and which, as soon as it heard the bushes above its head parted, made a tremendous spring as if into space, but landed on another ledge, fifty feet below, to take off once more for another leap right out of sight.“We must go back and round into the valley,” said Juan. “We shall find them all with their necks broken.”“You’ll be clever if you do,” said Joses, in a savage growl. “They’ve gone on jumping down like that right to the bottom, Master Bart, and—”“Is that the flock?” said Bart, pointing to where a similar wall of rock rose up from what seemed to be part of a great canyon.“That’s them,” said Joses, counting, “eight, nine, ten, eleven, and all as fresh as if they’d never made a jump. There, I’ll believe anything of ’em after that.”“Why, it makes one shudder to look down,” said Bart, shrinking back.“Shudder!” said Joses, “why, I’d have starved a hundred times before I’d have made a jump like that. No mutton for dinner to-day, boys. Let’s get some birds.”And very disconsolately and birdless, they made their way back to the camp.

An early start was made next morning, and following the course mapped out by the Doctor, they soon reached an opening in the hills, up which they turned, to find in the hollow a thread-like stream and that, as they proceeded, the mountains began to open out before them higher and higher, till they seemed to close in the horizon like clouds of delicate amethystine blue.

Every now and then the travelling was so bad that it seemed as if they must return, but somehow the waggon and horses were got over the obstacles, and a short level cheered them on to fresh exertions, while, as they slowly climbed higher and higher, there was the satisfaction of knowing that there was less likelihood of molestation from Indians, the dangerous tribes of the plains, Comanches and Apachés, rarely taking their horses up amongst the rugged portions of the hills.

Maude, in her girlish freshness of heart, was delighted with the variety of scenery, while to Bart all was excitement. Even the labour to extricate the waggon from some rift, or to help to drag it up some tremendous slope, was enjoyable.

Then there were little excursions to make down moist ravines, where an antelope might be bagged for the larder; or up to some dry-looking flat, shut in by the hills, where grouse might be put up amongst the sage-brush and other thin growth, for six hard-working men out in these brisk latitudes consume a great deal of food, and the stores in the waggon had to be saved as much a possible.

One way and the other the larder was kept well supplied, and while Dr Lascelles on the one hand talked eagerly of the precious metal he hoped to discover, Joses was always ready with promises of endless sport.

“Why, by an’ by, Master Bart,” he said one day as they journeyed slowly on, “we shall come to rivers so full of salmon that all you’ve got to do is to pull ’em out.”

“If you can catch them,” said Bart, laughing.

“Catch ’em, my boy? Why, they don’t want no catching. I’ve known ’em come up some rivers so quick and fast that when they got up to the shallows they shoved one another out on to the sides high and dry, and all you’d got to do was to catch ’em and eat ’em.”

“Let’s see, that’s what the Doctor calls a traveller’s tale, Joses.”

“Yes; this traveller’s tale,” said Bart’s companion gruffly. “You needn’t believe it without you like, but it’s true all the same.”

“Well, I’ll try and believe it,” said Bart, laughing, “but I didn’t know salmon were so stupid as that.”

“Stupid! they aren’t stupid, my lad,” replied Joses sharply. “Suppose you and millions of people behind you were walking along a narrow bit o’ land with a river on each side of you, and everybody was pushing on from behind to get up to the end of the bit of land, where there wasn’t room for you all, and suppose you and hundreds more got pushed into the water on one side or on the other, that wouldn’t be because you were so very stupid, would it?”

“No,” said Bart, “that would be because I couldn’t help it.”

“Well, it’s just the same with the salmon, my lad. Millions of ’em come up from out of the sea at spawning time, and they swim up and up till the rivers get narrower and shallower, and all those behind keep pushing the first ones on till thousands die on the banks, and get eaten by the wolves andcoyótesthat come down then to the banks along with eagles and hawks and birds like them.”

“I beg your pardon, Joses, for not believing you,” said Bart, earnestly. “I see now.”

“Oh, it’s all right enough,” said the rough fellow bluntly. “I shouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it, and of course it’s only up the little shallow streams that shoot off from the others.”

This conversation took place some days after they had been in the mountains, gradually climbing higher, and getting glorious views at times, of hill and distant plain. Bart and Joses were out “after the pot,” as the latter called it, and on this occasion they had been very unfortunate.

“I tell you what it is,” said Joses at last, “we shall have to go lower down. The master won’t never find no gold and silver up here, and food’ll get scarcer and scarcer, unless we can come upon a flock of sheep.”

“A flock of sheep up here!” said Bart incredulously.

“I didn’t say salmon, I said sheep,” grunted Joses. “Now, say you don’t believe there is sheep up here.”

“You tell me there are sheep up here,” said Bart, “and I will believe you.”

“I don’t say there are; I only hope there are,” said Joses; “for if we could get one or two o’ them in good condition, they’re the best eating of anything as goes on four legs.”

“But not our sort of sheep?”

“No, of course not. Mountain sheep, my lad, with great horns twisted round so long and thick you get wondering how the sheep can carry ’em, and—there, look!”

He caught Bart by the shoulder, and pointed to a tremendous slope, a quarter of a mile away, where, in the clear pure air, the lad could see a flock of about twenty sheep evidently watching them.

“They’re the shyest, artfullest things as ever was,” whispered Joses. “Down softly, and let’s back away; we must circumvent them, and get behind ’em for a shot.”

“Too late,” said Bart; and he was right, for suddenly the whole herd went off at a tremendous pace along a slope that seemed to be quite a precipice, and the next moment they were gone.

“That’s up for to-day,” said Joses, shouldering his rifle. “We may go back and try and pick up a bird or two. To-morrow we’ll come strong, and p’r’aps get a shot at the sheep, as we know they are here.”

They were fortunate enough to shoot a few grouse on their way back, and next morning at daybreak, Bart and the four men started after the sheep, the Doctor preferring to stay by the waggon and examine some of the rocks.

As the party climbed upwards towards the slope where the sheep had been seen on the previous day, Joses was full of stories about the shy nature of these animals.

“They’ll lead you right away into the wildest places,” he said, “and then, when you think you’ve got them, they go over some steep cut, and you never see ’em again. Some people say they jump head first down on to the rocks, and lets themselves fall on their horns, which is made big on purpose, and then bounces up again, but I don’t believe it, for if they did, they’d break their necks. All the same, though, they do jump down some wonderful steep places and run up others that look like walls. Here, what’s Sam making signals for! Go softly.”

They crept up to their companion, and found that he hadsighted a flock of eleven sheep on a slope quite a couple of miles away, and but for the assurance of Joses that it was all right, and that they were sheep, Bart would have said it was a patch of a light colour on the mountain.

As they approached cautiously, however, trying to stalk the timid creatures, Bart found that his men were right, and they spent the next two hours in cautious approach, till they saw that the sheep took alarm and rushed up to the top of the slope, disappeared for a moment, and then came back, to stand staring down at their advancing enemies.

“It’s all right,” exclaimed Joses, “we can get the lot if we like, for they can’t get away. Yonder’s a regular dip down where they can’t jump. Keep your rifles ready, my boys, and we’ll shoot two. That’ll be enough.”

As they spread out and slowly advanced, the sheep ran back out of sight, but came back again, proving Joses’ words, that there was a precipice beyond them and their enemies in front.

Four times over, as the hunting party advanced, did the sheep perform this evolution, but the last time they did not come back into sight.

“They’re away hiding down among the bushes,” said Joses. “Be ready. Now then close in. You keep in the middle here, Master Bart, and have the first shot. Pick a good fat one.”

“Yes,” panted Bart, who was out of breath with the climbing, and to rest him Joses called a halt, keeping a sharp look-out the while to left and right, so that the sheep might not elude them.

At the end of a few minutes they toiled up the slope once more, Joses uttering a few words of warning to his young companion.

“Don’t rush when you get to the top, for it slopes down there with a big wall going right down beyond, and you mightn’t be able to stop yourself. Keep cool, we shall see them together directly.”

But they did not see the sheep cowering together as they expected, for though the top of the mountain was just as Joses had described, sloping down after they had passed the summit and then going down abruptly in an awful precipice, no sheep were to be seen, and after making sure that none were hidden, the men passed on cautiously to the edge, Bart being a little way behind, forcing his way through some thick bushes.

Just then a cry from Joses made him hurry to the edge, but he was too late to see what three of them witnessed, and that was the leap of a magnificent ram, which had been standing upon a ledge ten feet below them, and which, as soon as it heard the bushes above its head parted, made a tremendous spring as if into space, but landed on another ledge, fifty feet below, to take off once more for another leap right out of sight.

“We must go back and round into the valley,” said Juan. “We shall find them all with their necks broken.”

“You’ll be clever if you do,” said Joses, in a savage growl. “They’ve gone on jumping down like that right to the bottom, Master Bart, and—”

“Is that the flock?” said Bart, pointing to where a similar wall of rock rose up from what seemed to be part of a great canyon.

“That’s them,” said Joses, counting, “eight, nine, ten, eleven, and all as fresh as if they’d never made a jump. There, I’ll believe anything of ’em after that.”

“Why, it makes one shudder to look down,” said Bart, shrinking back.

“Shudder!” said Joses, “why, I’d have starved a hundred times before I’d have made a jump like that. No mutton for dinner to-day, boys. Let’s get some birds.”

And very disconsolately and birdless, they made their way back to the camp.

Chapter Eleven.Bears and for Bears.Bart was sufficiently observing to notice, even amidst the many calls he had upon his attention, that Dr Lascelles grew more and more absorbed and dreamy every day. When they first started he was always on the alert about the management of the expedition, the proportioning of the supplies and matters of that kind; but as he found in a short time that Bart devoted himself eagerly to everything connected with the successful carrying out of their progress, that Joses was sternly exacting over the other men, and that Maude took ample care of the stores, he very soon ceased troubling himself about anything but the main object which he had in view.Hence it was then that he used to sling a sort of game-bag over his shoulder directly after the early morning meal, place a sharp, wedge-like hammer in his belt, shoulder his double rifle, and go off “rock-chipping,” as Joses called it.“I don’t see what’s the good of his loading one barrel with shot, Master Bart, for he never brings in no game; and as for the stones—well, I haven’t seen a single likely bit yet.”“Do you think he ever will hit upon a good mine of gold or silver, Joses?” said Bart, as they were out hunting one day.“Well, Master Bart, you know what sort of a fellow I am. If I’d got five hundred cows, I should never reckon as they’d have five hundred calves next year, but just calculate as they wouldn’t have one. Then all that come would be so many to the good. Looking at it fairly, I don’t want to dishearten you, my lad, but speaking from sperience, I should say he wouldn’t.”“And this will all be labour in vain, Joses?”“Nay, I don’t say that, Master Bart. He might find a big vein of gold or silver; but I never knew a man yet who went out in the mountains looking for one as did.”“But up northward there, men have discovered mines and made themselves enormously rich.”“To be sure they have, my lad, but not by going and looking for the gold or silver. It was always found by accident like, and you and me is much more like to come upon a big lead where we’re trying after sheep or deer than he is with all his regular trying.”“You think there are mineral riches up in the mountains then?”“Think, Master Bart! Oh, I’m sure of it. But where is it to be found? P’r’aps we’re walking over it now, but there’s no means of telling.”“No,” said Bart thoughtfully, “for everything about is so vast.”“That’s about it, my lad, and all the harm I wish master is that he may find as much as he wants.”“I wish he may, Joses,” said Bart, “or that I could find a mine for him and Miss Maude.”“Well, my lad, we’ll keep our eyes open while we are out, only we have so many other things to push, and want to push on farther so as to get among better pasture for the horses. They don’t look in such good condition as they did.”There was good reason for this remark, their halting-places during the past few days having been in very sterile spots, where the tall forbidding rocks were relieved by very little that was green, and patches of grass were few.But these were the regions most affected by the Doctor, who believed that they were the most likely ones for discovering treasure belonging to nature’s great storehouse, untouched as yet by man. In these barren wilds he would tramp about, now climbing to the top of some chine, now letting himself down into some gloomy forbidding ravine, but always without success, there being nothing to tempt him to say, “Here is the beginning of a very wealthy mine.”Every time they journeyed on the toil became greater, for they were in most inaccessible parts of the mountain range, and they knew by the coolness of the air that they must now be far above the plains.Bart and Joses worked hard to supply the larder, the principal food they obtained being the sage grouse and dusky grouse, which birds they found to be pretty plentiful high up in the mountains wherever there was a flat or a slope with plenty of cover; but just as they were getting terribly tired of the sameness of this diet, Bart made one morning a lucky find.They had reached a fresh halting-place after sundown on the previous night—one that was extremely attractive from the variety of the high ground, the depths of the chasms around, and the beauty of the cedars that spread their flat, frond-like branches over the mountain-sides, which were diversified by the presence of endless dense thickets.“It looks like a deer country,” Joses had said as they were tethering the horses amongst some magnificent grass.These words had haunted Bart the night through, and hence, at the first sight of morning on the peaks up far above where they were, he had taken his rifle and gone off to see what he could find.Three hours’ tramp produced nothing but a glimpse of some mountain sheep far away and at a very great height.He was too weary and hungry to think of following them, and was reluctantly making for the camp, when all at once a magnificent deer sprang up from amongst a thicket of young pines, and bounded off at an astounding rate.It seemed madness to fire, but, aiming well in front, Bart drew trigger, and then leaped aside to get free of the smoke. As he did so, he just caught a glimpse of the deer as it bounded up a steep slope and the next moment it was gone.Bart felt that he had not hit it, but curiosity prompted him to follow in the animal’s track, in the hope of getting a second shot, and as he proceeded, he could not help wishing for the muscular strength of these deer, for the ground, full of rifts and chasms, over which he toiled painfully in a regular climb, the deer had bounded over at full speed.It took him some time to get to the spot where he had last seen the deer, when, to his intense surprise and delight, he found traces of blood upon the stones, and upon climbing higher, he found his way blocked by a chasm.Feeling sure that the animal would have cleared this at a bound, he lowered himself down by holding on by a young pine which bent beneath his weight. Then he slipped for a few feet, made a leap, and came down amongst some bushes, where, lying perfectly dead, was the most beautiful deer he had ever seen.Unfortunately hunger and the knowledge that others are hungry interfere with romantic admiration, and after feasting his eyes, Bart began to feast his imagination on the delight of those in the camp with the prospect of venison steaks. So, in regular hunter’s fashion, he proceeded to partially skin and dress the deer, cutting off sufficient for their meal, and leaving the other parts to be fetched by the men.There were rejoicings in camp that morning, and soon after breakfast Bart started off once more, taking with him Joses, Juan, and Sam, all of whom were exceedingly willing to become the bearers of the meat in which they stood in such great need.The Doctor had gone off in another direction, taking with him Maude as his companion, and after the little party had returned to the camp, Bart was standing thoughtfully gazing at a magnificent eminence, clothed almost to the top with cedars, while in its rifts and ravines were dark-foliaged pines.“I wonder whether we should find anything up there, Joses,” said Bart.“Not much,” said the frontier man. “There’d be deer, I daresay, if the sound of your rifle and the coming of the sheep hadn’t sent them away.”“Why should the sheep send them away?” asked Bart.“I don’t know why they should,” said Joses; “all I know is that they do. You never find black-tailed deer like you shot and mountain sheep living together as neighbours. It arn’t their nature.”“Well, what do you say to taking our rifles and exploring?”“Don’t mind,” said Joses, looking round. “Horses are all right, and there’s no fear of being overhauled by Injuns up here, so let’s go and take Sam with us, but you won’t get no more deer.”“Well, we don’t want any for a day or two. But why shouldn’t I get another?”“Because they lie close in the thickest part of the cover in the middle of the day, and you might pretty well tread upon them before they’d move.”They started directly after, and for about two hours did nothing but climb up amidst cedar and pine forest. Sometimes amongst the trunks of big trees, sometimes down in gashes or gullies in the mountain-side, which were full of younger growths, as if the rich soil and pine seeds had been swept there by the storms and then taken root.“I tell you what it is, Master Bart,” said Joses, suddenly coming to a halt, to roll up and light hiscigarito, a practice he never gave up, “it strikes me that we’ve nearly got to the end of it.”“End of what?” asked Bart.“This clump of hills. You see if when we get to the top here, it don’t all go down full swoop like a house wall right bang to the plain.”“What, like the place where the mountain sheep went down?”“That’s it, my lad, only without any go up on the other side. It strikes me that we shall find it all plain on this side, and that if we can’t find a break in the wall with a regular gulch, we shall have to go back with our horses and waggon and try some other way.”“Well, come along and let’s see,” said Bart; and once more they climbed on for quite half-an-hour, when they emerged from the trees on to a rugged piece of open rocky plain, with scattered pines gnarled and twisted and swept bare by the mighty winds, and as far as eye could reach nothing but one vast, well-watered plain.“Told you so,” said Joses; “now we shall either have to keep up here in the mountain or go down among the Injuns again, just as the master likes.”“Let’s come and sit down near the edge here and rest,” said Bart, who was fascinated by the beauty of the scene, and, going right out upon a jutting promontory of stone, they could look to right and left at the great wall of rock that spread as far as they could see. In places it seemed to go sheer down to the plain, in others it was broken into ledges by slips and falls of rock; but everywhere it seemed to shut the great plain in from the west, and Bart fully realised that they would have to find some great rift or gulch by which to descend, if their journey was to be continued in this direction.“How far is it down to the plain?” said Bart, after he had been feasting his eyes for some time.“Four to five thousand feet,” said Joses. “Can’t tell for certain. Chap would fall a long way before he found bottom, and then he’d bounce off, and go on again and again. I don’t think the mountain sheep would jump here.”As they sat resting and inhaling the fresh breeze that blew over the widespreading plain, Bart could not help noticing the remains of a grand old pine that had once grown right at the edge of the stupendous precipice, but had gradually been storm-beaten and split in its old age till the trunk and a few jagged branches only remained.One of these projected from its stunted trunk close down by the roots, and seemed thrust out at right angles over the precipice in a way that somehow seemed to tempt Bart.He turned his eyes from it again and again, but that branch fascinated him, and he found himself considering how dangerous it would be, and yet how delightful, to climb right out on that branch till it bent and bent, and would bear him no further, and then sitting astride, dance up and down in mid air, right over the awful depths below.So strange was the attraction that Bart found his hands wet with perspiration, and a peculiar feeling of horror attacked him; but what was more strange, the desire to risk his life kept growing upon him, and as he afterwards told himself, he would no doubt have made the mad venture if something had not happened to take his attention.Joses was leaning back with half-closed eyes, enjoying hiscigárito, and Bart was half rising to his knees to go back and round to where the branch projected, just to try it, he told himself, when they heard a shout away to the left, and that shout acted like magic upon Bart.“Why, that’s Sam,” he said, drawing a breath full of relief, just as if he had awakened from some terrible nightmare.“I’d ’bout forgotten him,” said Joses lazily. “Ahoy! Oho!—eh!” he shouted back. Then there was another shout and a rustling of bushes, a grunting noise, and Bart seized his rifle.“He has found game,” he said.Then he nearly let fall his piece, and knelt there as if turned to stone, for, to his horror, he suddenly saw Sam down upon his hands and knees crawling straight out on the great gnarled branch that overhung the precipice, keeping to this mode of progression for a time, and then letting his legs go down one on each side of the branch, and hitching himself along, yelling lustily the while for help.“He has gone mad,” cried Bart, and as he spoke he thought of his own sensations a few minutes before, and how he had felt tempted to do this very thing.“No, he arn’t,” said Joses, throwing the remains of hiscigáritoover the precipice, and lifting his rifle; “he’s got bears after him.”Almost as he spoke the great rough furry body of an enormous black bear came into sight, and without a moment’s hesitation walked right out along the branch after the man.“There’s another,” cried Bart, “shoot, Joses, shoot. I dare not.”It seemed that Joses dare not either, or else the excitement paralysed him, for he only remained like Bart, staring stupidly at the unwonted scene before them as a second bear followed the first, which, in spite of Sam’s efforts to get into safety, had overtaken him, crept right upon him, and throwing itsforepaws round him and the branches as well, hugged him fast, while the second came close up and stood there growling and grunting and patting at its companion, who, fortunately for Sam, was driving the claws at the ends of its paws deeply into the gnarled branch.“If I don’t fire they’ll kill him,” muttered Joses, as the huge branch visibly bent with the weight of the three bodies now upon it. “If I kill him instead it would be a mercy, so here goes.”He raised his rifle, took careful aim, and was about to draw the trigger, but forbore, as just then the report of Bart’s piece rang out, and the second bear raised itself up on its hind legs, while the foremost backed a couple of feet, and stood growling savagely with its head turned towards where it could see the smoke.That was Bart’s opportunity, and throwing himself upon his breast, and steadying his rifle upon a piece of rock, he fired again, making the foremost bear utter a savage growl and begin tearing furiously at its flank.Then Joses’ rifle spoke, and the first bear reared up and fell over backwards, a second shot striking the hindmost full in the head, and one after the other the two monsters fell headlong, the first seeming to dive down, making a swimming motion with its massive paws, the second turning over back downwards.They both struck the rock about fifty feet below the branch, and this seemed to make them glance off and fly through the air at a fearful rate, spinning over and over till they struck again at an enormous distance below, and then plunged out of sight, leaving Bart sick with horror to gaze upon the unfortunate Sam.

Bart was sufficiently observing to notice, even amidst the many calls he had upon his attention, that Dr Lascelles grew more and more absorbed and dreamy every day. When they first started he was always on the alert about the management of the expedition, the proportioning of the supplies and matters of that kind; but as he found in a short time that Bart devoted himself eagerly to everything connected with the successful carrying out of their progress, that Joses was sternly exacting over the other men, and that Maude took ample care of the stores, he very soon ceased troubling himself about anything but the main object which he had in view.

Hence it was then that he used to sling a sort of game-bag over his shoulder directly after the early morning meal, place a sharp, wedge-like hammer in his belt, shoulder his double rifle, and go off “rock-chipping,” as Joses called it.

“I don’t see what’s the good of his loading one barrel with shot, Master Bart, for he never brings in no game; and as for the stones—well, I haven’t seen a single likely bit yet.”

“Do you think he ever will hit upon a good mine of gold or silver, Joses?” said Bart, as they were out hunting one day.

“Well, Master Bart, you know what sort of a fellow I am. If I’d got five hundred cows, I should never reckon as they’d have five hundred calves next year, but just calculate as they wouldn’t have one. Then all that come would be so many to the good. Looking at it fairly, I don’t want to dishearten you, my lad, but speaking from sperience, I should say he wouldn’t.”

“And this will all be labour in vain, Joses?”

“Nay, I don’t say that, Master Bart. He might find a big vein of gold or silver; but I never knew a man yet who went out in the mountains looking for one as did.”

“But up northward there, men have discovered mines and made themselves enormously rich.”

“To be sure they have, my lad, but not by going and looking for the gold or silver. It was always found by accident like, and you and me is much more like to come upon a big lead where we’re trying after sheep or deer than he is with all his regular trying.”

“You think there are mineral riches up in the mountains then?”

“Think, Master Bart! Oh, I’m sure of it. But where is it to be found? P’r’aps we’re walking over it now, but there’s no means of telling.”

“No,” said Bart thoughtfully, “for everything about is so vast.”

“That’s about it, my lad, and all the harm I wish master is that he may find as much as he wants.”

“I wish he may, Joses,” said Bart, “or that I could find a mine for him and Miss Maude.”

“Well, my lad, we’ll keep our eyes open while we are out, only we have so many other things to push, and want to push on farther so as to get among better pasture for the horses. They don’t look in such good condition as they did.”

There was good reason for this remark, their halting-places during the past few days having been in very sterile spots, where the tall forbidding rocks were relieved by very little that was green, and patches of grass were few.

But these were the regions most affected by the Doctor, who believed that they were the most likely ones for discovering treasure belonging to nature’s great storehouse, untouched as yet by man. In these barren wilds he would tramp about, now climbing to the top of some chine, now letting himself down into some gloomy forbidding ravine, but always without success, there being nothing to tempt him to say, “Here is the beginning of a very wealthy mine.”

Every time they journeyed on the toil became greater, for they were in most inaccessible parts of the mountain range, and they knew by the coolness of the air that they must now be far above the plains.

Bart and Joses worked hard to supply the larder, the principal food they obtained being the sage grouse and dusky grouse, which birds they found to be pretty plentiful high up in the mountains wherever there was a flat or a slope with plenty of cover; but just as they were getting terribly tired of the sameness of this diet, Bart made one morning a lucky find.

They had reached a fresh halting-place after sundown on the previous night—one that was extremely attractive from the variety of the high ground, the depths of the chasms around, and the beauty of the cedars that spread their flat, frond-like branches over the mountain-sides, which were diversified by the presence of endless dense thickets.

“It looks like a deer country,” Joses had said as they were tethering the horses amongst some magnificent grass.

These words had haunted Bart the night through, and hence, at the first sight of morning on the peaks up far above where they were, he had taken his rifle and gone off to see what he could find.

Three hours’ tramp produced nothing but a glimpse of some mountain sheep far away and at a very great height.

He was too weary and hungry to think of following them, and was reluctantly making for the camp, when all at once a magnificent deer sprang up from amongst a thicket of young pines, and bounded off at an astounding rate.

It seemed madness to fire, but, aiming well in front, Bart drew trigger, and then leaped aside to get free of the smoke. As he did so, he just caught a glimpse of the deer as it bounded up a steep slope and the next moment it was gone.

Bart felt that he had not hit it, but curiosity prompted him to follow in the animal’s track, in the hope of getting a second shot, and as he proceeded, he could not help wishing for the muscular strength of these deer, for the ground, full of rifts and chasms, over which he toiled painfully in a regular climb, the deer had bounded over at full speed.

It took him some time to get to the spot where he had last seen the deer, when, to his intense surprise and delight, he found traces of blood upon the stones, and upon climbing higher, he found his way blocked by a chasm.

Feeling sure that the animal would have cleared this at a bound, he lowered himself down by holding on by a young pine which bent beneath his weight. Then he slipped for a few feet, made a leap, and came down amongst some bushes, where, lying perfectly dead, was the most beautiful deer he had ever seen.

Unfortunately hunger and the knowledge that others are hungry interfere with romantic admiration, and after feasting his eyes, Bart began to feast his imagination on the delight of those in the camp with the prospect of venison steaks. So, in regular hunter’s fashion, he proceeded to partially skin and dress the deer, cutting off sufficient for their meal, and leaving the other parts to be fetched by the men.

There were rejoicings in camp that morning, and soon after breakfast Bart started off once more, taking with him Joses, Juan, and Sam, all of whom were exceedingly willing to become the bearers of the meat in which they stood in such great need.

The Doctor had gone off in another direction, taking with him Maude as his companion, and after the little party had returned to the camp, Bart was standing thoughtfully gazing at a magnificent eminence, clothed almost to the top with cedars, while in its rifts and ravines were dark-foliaged pines.

“I wonder whether we should find anything up there, Joses,” said Bart.

“Not much,” said the frontier man. “There’d be deer, I daresay, if the sound of your rifle and the coming of the sheep hadn’t sent them away.”

“Why should the sheep send them away?” asked Bart.

“I don’t know why they should,” said Joses; “all I know is that they do. You never find black-tailed deer like you shot and mountain sheep living together as neighbours. It arn’t their nature.”

“Well, what do you say to taking our rifles and exploring?”

“Don’t mind,” said Joses, looking round. “Horses are all right, and there’s no fear of being overhauled by Injuns up here, so let’s go and take Sam with us, but you won’t get no more deer.”

“Well, we don’t want any for a day or two. But why shouldn’t I get another?”

“Because they lie close in the thickest part of the cover in the middle of the day, and you might pretty well tread upon them before they’d move.”

They started directly after, and for about two hours did nothing but climb up amidst cedar and pine forest. Sometimes amongst the trunks of big trees, sometimes down in gashes or gullies in the mountain-side, which were full of younger growths, as if the rich soil and pine seeds had been swept there by the storms and then taken root.

“I tell you what it is, Master Bart,” said Joses, suddenly coming to a halt, to roll up and light hiscigarito, a practice he never gave up, “it strikes me that we’ve nearly got to the end of it.”

“End of what?” asked Bart.

“This clump of hills. You see if when we get to the top here, it don’t all go down full swoop like a house wall right bang to the plain.”

“What, like the place where the mountain sheep went down?”

“That’s it, my lad, only without any go up on the other side. It strikes me that we shall find it all plain on this side, and that if we can’t find a break in the wall with a regular gulch, we shall have to go back with our horses and waggon and try some other way.”

“Well, come along and let’s see,” said Bart; and once more they climbed on for quite half-an-hour, when they emerged from the trees on to a rugged piece of open rocky plain, with scattered pines gnarled and twisted and swept bare by the mighty winds, and as far as eye could reach nothing but one vast, well-watered plain.

“Told you so,” said Joses; “now we shall either have to keep up here in the mountain or go down among the Injuns again, just as the master likes.”

“Let’s come and sit down near the edge here and rest,” said Bart, who was fascinated by the beauty of the scene, and, going right out upon a jutting promontory of stone, they could look to right and left at the great wall of rock that spread as far as they could see. In places it seemed to go sheer down to the plain, in others it was broken into ledges by slips and falls of rock; but everywhere it seemed to shut the great plain in from the west, and Bart fully realised that they would have to find some great rift or gulch by which to descend, if their journey was to be continued in this direction.

“How far is it down to the plain?” said Bart, after he had been feasting his eyes for some time.

“Four to five thousand feet,” said Joses. “Can’t tell for certain. Chap would fall a long way before he found bottom, and then he’d bounce off, and go on again and again. I don’t think the mountain sheep would jump here.”

As they sat resting and inhaling the fresh breeze that blew over the widespreading plain, Bart could not help noticing the remains of a grand old pine that had once grown right at the edge of the stupendous precipice, but had gradually been storm-beaten and split in its old age till the trunk and a few jagged branches only remained.

One of these projected from its stunted trunk close down by the roots, and seemed thrust out at right angles over the precipice in a way that somehow seemed to tempt Bart.

He turned his eyes from it again and again, but that branch fascinated him, and he found himself considering how dangerous it would be, and yet how delightful, to climb right out on that branch till it bent and bent, and would bear him no further, and then sitting astride, dance up and down in mid air, right over the awful depths below.

So strange was the attraction that Bart found his hands wet with perspiration, and a peculiar feeling of horror attacked him; but what was more strange, the desire to risk his life kept growing upon him, and as he afterwards told himself, he would no doubt have made the mad venture if something had not happened to take his attention.

Joses was leaning back with half-closed eyes, enjoying hiscigárito, and Bart was half rising to his knees to go back and round to where the branch projected, just to try it, he told himself, when they heard a shout away to the left, and that shout acted like magic upon Bart.

“Why, that’s Sam,” he said, drawing a breath full of relief, just as if he had awakened from some terrible nightmare.

“I’d ’bout forgotten him,” said Joses lazily. “Ahoy! Oho!—eh!” he shouted back. Then there was another shout and a rustling of bushes, a grunting noise, and Bart seized his rifle.

“He has found game,” he said.

Then he nearly let fall his piece, and knelt there as if turned to stone, for, to his horror, he suddenly saw Sam down upon his hands and knees crawling straight out on the great gnarled branch that overhung the precipice, keeping to this mode of progression for a time, and then letting his legs go down one on each side of the branch, and hitching himself along, yelling lustily the while for help.

“He has gone mad,” cried Bart, and as he spoke he thought of his own sensations a few minutes before, and how he had felt tempted to do this very thing.

“No, he arn’t,” said Joses, throwing the remains of hiscigáritoover the precipice, and lifting his rifle; “he’s got bears after him.”

Almost as he spoke the great rough furry body of an enormous black bear came into sight, and without a moment’s hesitation walked right out along the branch after the man.

“There’s another,” cried Bart, “shoot, Joses, shoot. I dare not.”

It seemed that Joses dare not either, or else the excitement paralysed him, for he only remained like Bart, staring stupidly at the unwonted scene before them as a second bear followed the first, which, in spite of Sam’s efforts to get into safety, had overtaken him, crept right upon him, and throwing itsforepaws round him and the branches as well, hugged him fast, while the second came close up and stood there growling and grunting and patting at its companion, who, fortunately for Sam, was driving the claws at the ends of its paws deeply into the gnarled branch.

“If I don’t fire they’ll kill him,” muttered Joses, as the huge branch visibly bent with the weight of the three bodies now upon it. “If I kill him instead it would be a mercy, so here goes.”

He raised his rifle, took careful aim, and was about to draw the trigger, but forbore, as just then the report of Bart’s piece rang out, and the second bear raised itself up on its hind legs, while the foremost backed a couple of feet, and stood growling savagely with its head turned towards where it could see the smoke.

That was Bart’s opportunity, and throwing himself upon his breast, and steadying his rifle upon a piece of rock, he fired again, making the foremost bear utter a savage growl and begin tearing furiously at its flank.

Then Joses’ rifle spoke, and the first bear reared up and fell over backwards, a second shot striking the hindmost full in the head, and one after the other the two monsters fell headlong, the first seeming to dive down, making a swimming motion with its massive paws, the second turning over back downwards.

They both struck the rock about fifty feet below the branch, and this seemed to make them glance off and fly through the air at a fearful rate, spinning over and over till they struck again at an enormous distance below, and then plunged out of sight, leaving Bart sick with horror to gaze upon the unfortunate Sam.

Chapter Twelve.Sam gets a Fright.Bart was brought to his senses by Joses, who exclaimed sharply:“Load, my lad, load; you never know when you may want your piece.”Bart obeyed mechanically as Joses shouted:“Now then, how long are you going to sit there?”Sam, who was seated astride the gnarled old limb, holding on tightly with both hands, turned his head slightly and then turned it back, staring straight down into the awful depths, as if fascinated by the scene below.“Here, hi! Don’t sit staring there,” cried Joses. “Get back, man.”Sam shook his head and seemed to cling the more tightly.“Are you hurt, Sam?” cried Bart.Sam shook his head.“Why don’t you speak?” roared Joses, angrily. “Did the beasts claw you?”Sam shook his head, but otherwise he remained motionless, and Bart and Joses went round to where the tree clung to the rocky soil, and stood gazing out at their companion and within some fifteen feet of where he clung.“What’s the matter, Sam; why don’t you come back?” asked Bart.The man responded with a low groan.“He must be badly hurt, Joses,” exclaimed Bart. “What are we to do?”“Wait a moment till I think,” said Joses. “He’s hurt in his head, that’s what’s the matter with him.”“By the bears’ claws?”“No, my lad, they didn’t hurt him. He’s frit.”“Frightened?” said Bart.“Yes! He’s lost his nerve, and daren’t move.”“Let’s say a few encouraging words to him.”“You may say thousands, and they won’t do no good,” said Joses. “He’s got the fright and badly too.”“But the bears are gone?”“Ay, that they are, my lad; but the fall’s there, and that’s what he’s afraid of. I’ve seen men look like that before now, when climbing up mountains.”“But it would be so easy to get back, Joses. I could do it directly.”“So could he if he hadn’t lost his nerve. Now what’s to be done?”“Shall I creep out to him?” said Bart eagerly.“What, you? what good would it do? You don’t think you could carry him back like a baby?”“No,” said Bart, “but I might help him.”“You couldn’t help him a bit,” growled Joses, “nor more could I. All the good you could do would be to make him clutch you and then down both would go at once, and what’s the use of that.”“If we had brought a lasso with us.”“Well, if we had,” said Joses, “and could fasten it round him, I don’t believe we could haul him off, for he’d only cling all the tighter, and perhaps drag us over the side.”“What is to be done then?” said Bart. “Here, Sam, make an effort, my lad. Creep back; it’s as easy as can be. Don’t be afraid. Here, I will come to you.”He threw down his gun, and before Joses could stop him, he climbed out to the projecting limb, and letting his legs go down on either side, worked himself along till he was close behind Sam, whom he slapped on the back.“There,” cried Bart. “It’s easy enough. Don’t think of how deep down it is. Now I’m going back. You do the same. Come along.”As he spoke and said encouraging things to Sam, Bart felt himself impelled to gaze down into the depths beneath him, and as he did so, the dashing bravery that had impelled him to risk his life that he might encourage his follower to creep back, all seemed to forsake him, a cold perspiration broke out on face and limbs, accompanied by a horrible paralysing sense of fear, and in an instant he was suffering from the same loss of nerve as the man whom he wished to help.Bart’s hands clutched at the rough branch, and he strove to drive his finger nails into the bark in a spasmodic effort to save himself from death. He was going to fall. He knew that he was. Nothing could save him—nothing, and in imagination he saw himself lose his hold of the branch, slip sidewise, and go down headlong as the bears had fallen, to strike against the rocks, glance off, and then plunge down, down, swifter and swifter into space.The sensation was fearful, and for the time being he could make no effort to master it. One overwhelming sense of terror had seized upon him, and this regularly froze all action till he now crouched as helpless and unnerved as the poor fellow before him who never even turned his head, but clung to the branch as if insensible to everything but the horrors of his position.Joses shouted to him, and said something again and again, but Bart only heard an indistinct murmur as he stared straight down at the tops of the pines and other trees half a mile below him; and then came a dreamy, wondering feeling, as to how much pain he should feel when he fell; how long he would be going down all that distance; whether he should have to fall on the tops of the pine-trees, or amongst the rough ravines of rock.And so on, thought after thought of this kind, till all at once, as if out of a dream, a voice seemed to say to him:“Well, I shouldn’t have thought, Master Bart, as I’d taught all these years, was such a coward!”The words stung him, and seemed to bring him back to himself.Coward! what would Maude think of him for being such a coward? Not that it would much matter if he fell down there and were smashed to death. What would the Doctor, who had given him so many lessons on presence of mind, coolness in danger, and the like? And here was he completely given up to the horror of his position, making no effort when it was perhaps no harder to get back than it had been to get forward.“I won’t think of the depth,” said Bart, setting his teeth, and, raising himself upright, he hitched himself a few inches back.Then the feeling of danger came upon him once more, and was mastering him again rapidly, when the great rough voice of old Joses rang out loudly in a half-mocking, half-angry tone:“And I thought him such a brave un too.”“And so I will be,” muttered Bart, as he made a fresh effort to recover from his feeling of panic; and as he did so, he hitched himself along the branch towards the main trunk with his back half turned, threw one leg over so that he was in a sitting position, and the next minute he was standing beside Joses, with his heart beating furiously, and a feeling of wonderment coming over him as to why it was that he had been so frightened over such a trifling matter.“That’s better, my lad,” said Joses quietly; and as Bart gazed on the rough fellow’s face, expecting revilings and reproaches at his cowardice, he saw that the man’s bronzed and swarthy features looked dirty and mottled, his eyes staring, and that he was dripping with perspiration.Just then Joses gripped him by the shoulder in a way that would have made him wince, only he did not want to show the white feather again, and he stood firm as his companion said:“’Taint no use to talk like that to him. It won’t touch him, Master Bart. It’s very horrid when that lays hold of you, and you can’t help it.”“No,” said Bart, feeling relieved, “I could not help it.”“Course you couldn’t, my lad. But now we must get old Sam back, or he’ll hang there till he faints, and then drop.”“O Joses!” cried Bart.“I only wish we could get a bear on the bough beyond him there. That would make him scuffle back.”“Frighten him back?” said Bart.“Yes; one fright would be bigger than the other, and make him come,” said Joses.“Do you think that if we frightened him, he would try to get back then?” whispered Bart.“I’m sure of it,” said Joses.“Do as I do then,” said Bart, as he picked up his rifle. Then speaking loudly he exclaimed:“Joses; we must not leave the poor fellow there to die of hunger. He can’t get back, so let’s put him out of his misery at once. Where shall I aim at? His heart?”“No, no, Master Bart; his head. Send a bullet right through his skull, and it’ll be all over at once. You fire first.”Without a moment’s hesitation, Bart rested the barrel of his rifle against the trunk, took careful aim, and fired so that the bullet whistled pretty closely by Sam’s ear.The man started and shuddered, seeming as if he were going to sit up, but he relapsed into the former position. “I think I can do it, Master Bart, this time,” said Joses; and laying his piece in a notch formed by the bark, he took careful aim, and fired, his bullet going through Sam’s hat, and carrying it off to go fluttering down into the abyss.This time Sam did not move, and Bart gazed at Joses in despair.“He’s too artful, Master Bart,” whispered the latter: “he knows we are only doing it to frighten him. I don’t know how to appeal to his feelings, unless I was to say, ‘here’s your old wife a-coming, Sam,’ for he run away from her ten years ago. But it wouldn’t be no good. He wouldn’t believe it.”Bart hesitated for a few moments as he reloaded his rifle, and then he shouted to Sam:“Now, no nonsense, Sam. You must get back.”The man paid no heed to him, and Bart turned to Joses to say loudly:“We can’t leave him here like this. He must climb back or fall, so if he won’t climb back the sooner he is out of his misery the better.”“That’s a true word,” said Joses.“Give me your axe then,” said Bart, and Joses drew it from his belt, when Bart took it, and after moistening his hands, drove it into the branch just where it touched the tree, making a deep incision, and then drove it in again, when a white, wedge-shaped chip flew out, for the boy had been early in life taught the use of the axe.Then cutting rapidly and well, he sent the chips flying, while every stroke sent a quiver along the great branch.Still Sam clung to the spot where he had been from the first, and made no effort to move; and at last, when he was half-way through the branch, Bart stopped short in despair, for the pretence of cutting it off had not the slightest effect upon Sam.“Tired, Master Bart?” cried Joses just then; and snatching away the axe, he began to apply it with tremendous effect, the chips flying over the precipice, and a great yawning opening appearing in the upper part of the branch.“Don’t cut any farther, Joses,” whispered Bart; “it will give way.”“I shall cut till it begins to, Master Bart,” replied the man; and as he spoke he went on making the chips fly, but still without effect, for Sam did not move.“I shall have to give up directly, my lad,” whispered Joses, with a peculiar look; “but I’ll have one more chop.”He raised the axe, and delivered another sharp blow, when there was a loud crack as if half a dozen rifles had gone off at once, and almost before the fact could be realised the branch went down, to remain hanging only by a few tough portions of its under part.Bart and Joses looked over the precipice aghast at what they had done, and gazed down at Sam’s wild face, as, with his legs dislodged from their position, he seemed to have been turned right over, and to be clinging solely in a death grip with his arms.Then, with cat-like alacrity, he seemed to wrench himself round, holding on to the lower part of the bough with his legs; and the next moment he was climbing steadily up, with the bough swinging to and fro beneath his weight.It was a question now of the toughness of the fibres by which the bough hung; and the stress upon the minds of the watchers was terrible, as they crouched there, gazing over the edge of the awful precipice, momentarily expecting to see branch and man go headlong down as the bears had fallen before them.But Sam climbed steadily up during what seemed to be a long time, but which was only a few moments, reaching at last the jagged points where the branch was broken, when there came an ominous crack, and Sam paused, as if irresolute.“Keep it up,” panted Bart, and his words seemed to electrify the man, who made one or two more clutches at the branch, and then he was in safety beside his companions, staring stupidly from one to the other.“I didn’t think I was going to get back,” he said at last. “It was you cutting the branch did it. I shouldn’t have moved else.”There was no show of resentment—no annoyance at having been treated in this terrible manner. Sam only seemed very thankful for his escape, and trotting off to where he had dropped his rifle when pursued by the bears, he rejoined his companions, and proceeded with them back towards the camp; for they had not the least idea where to find a way down into the plain, even if they had entertained any desire to try and get the skins and some steaks off the bears.As they journeyed on, Sam related how he had suddenly come upon one of the bears feeding upon the fruit of a clump of bushes, and as the animal seemed tame and little disposed to fly from him he had refrained from firing, but had picked up a lump of rock and thrown it at the beast.The stone hit its mark, and uttering a loud grunting yell, the bear charged its assailant, Sam to his horror finding that the cry had brought a second enemy into the field, when he dropped his rifle, fled for his life, and took refuge from the following danger in the way and with the result that we have seen.

Bart was brought to his senses by Joses, who exclaimed sharply:

“Load, my lad, load; you never know when you may want your piece.”

Bart obeyed mechanically as Joses shouted:

“Now then, how long are you going to sit there?”

Sam, who was seated astride the gnarled old limb, holding on tightly with both hands, turned his head slightly and then turned it back, staring straight down into the awful depths, as if fascinated by the scene below.

“Here, hi! Don’t sit staring there,” cried Joses. “Get back, man.”

Sam shook his head and seemed to cling the more tightly.

“Are you hurt, Sam?” cried Bart.

Sam shook his head.

“Why don’t you speak?” roared Joses, angrily. “Did the beasts claw you?”

Sam shook his head, but otherwise he remained motionless, and Bart and Joses went round to where the tree clung to the rocky soil, and stood gazing out at their companion and within some fifteen feet of where he clung.

“What’s the matter, Sam; why don’t you come back?” asked Bart.

The man responded with a low groan.

“He must be badly hurt, Joses,” exclaimed Bart. “What are we to do?”

“Wait a moment till I think,” said Joses. “He’s hurt in his head, that’s what’s the matter with him.”

“By the bears’ claws?”

“No, my lad, they didn’t hurt him. He’s frit.”

“Frightened?” said Bart.

“Yes! He’s lost his nerve, and daren’t move.”

“Let’s say a few encouraging words to him.”

“You may say thousands, and they won’t do no good,” said Joses. “He’s got the fright and badly too.”

“But the bears are gone?”

“Ay, that they are, my lad; but the fall’s there, and that’s what he’s afraid of. I’ve seen men look like that before now, when climbing up mountains.”

“But it would be so easy to get back, Joses. I could do it directly.”

“So could he if he hadn’t lost his nerve. Now what’s to be done?”

“Shall I creep out to him?” said Bart eagerly.

“What, you? what good would it do? You don’t think you could carry him back like a baby?”

“No,” said Bart, “but I might help him.”

“You couldn’t help him a bit,” growled Joses, “nor more could I. All the good you could do would be to make him clutch you and then down both would go at once, and what’s the use of that.”

“If we had brought a lasso with us.”

“Well, if we had,” said Joses, “and could fasten it round him, I don’t believe we could haul him off, for he’d only cling all the tighter, and perhaps drag us over the side.”

“What is to be done then?” said Bart. “Here, Sam, make an effort, my lad. Creep back; it’s as easy as can be. Don’t be afraid. Here, I will come to you.”

He threw down his gun, and before Joses could stop him, he climbed out to the projecting limb, and letting his legs go down on either side, worked himself along till he was close behind Sam, whom he slapped on the back.

“There,” cried Bart. “It’s easy enough. Don’t think of how deep down it is. Now I’m going back. You do the same. Come along.”

As he spoke and said encouraging things to Sam, Bart felt himself impelled to gaze down into the depths beneath him, and as he did so, the dashing bravery that had impelled him to risk his life that he might encourage his follower to creep back, all seemed to forsake him, a cold perspiration broke out on face and limbs, accompanied by a horrible paralysing sense of fear, and in an instant he was suffering from the same loss of nerve as the man whom he wished to help.

Bart’s hands clutched at the rough branch, and he strove to drive his finger nails into the bark in a spasmodic effort to save himself from death. He was going to fall. He knew that he was. Nothing could save him—nothing, and in imagination he saw himself lose his hold of the branch, slip sidewise, and go down headlong as the bears had fallen, to strike against the rocks, glance off, and then plunge down, down, swifter and swifter into space.

The sensation was fearful, and for the time being he could make no effort to master it. One overwhelming sense of terror had seized upon him, and this regularly froze all action till he now crouched as helpless and unnerved as the poor fellow before him who never even turned his head, but clung to the branch as if insensible to everything but the horrors of his position.

Joses shouted to him, and said something again and again, but Bart only heard an indistinct murmur as he stared straight down at the tops of the pines and other trees half a mile below him; and then came a dreamy, wondering feeling, as to how much pain he should feel when he fell; how long he would be going down all that distance; whether he should have to fall on the tops of the pine-trees, or amongst the rough ravines of rock.

And so on, thought after thought of this kind, till all at once, as if out of a dream, a voice seemed to say to him:

“Well, I shouldn’t have thought, Master Bart, as I’d taught all these years, was such a coward!”

The words stung him, and seemed to bring him back to himself.

Coward! what would Maude think of him for being such a coward? Not that it would much matter if he fell down there and were smashed to death. What would the Doctor, who had given him so many lessons on presence of mind, coolness in danger, and the like? And here was he completely given up to the horror of his position, making no effort when it was perhaps no harder to get back than it had been to get forward.

“I won’t think of the depth,” said Bart, setting his teeth, and, raising himself upright, he hitched himself a few inches back.

Then the feeling of danger came upon him once more, and was mastering him again rapidly, when the great rough voice of old Joses rang out loudly in a half-mocking, half-angry tone:

“And I thought him such a brave un too.”

“And so I will be,” muttered Bart, as he made a fresh effort to recover from his feeling of panic; and as he did so, he hitched himself along the branch towards the main trunk with his back half turned, threw one leg over so that he was in a sitting position, and the next minute he was standing beside Joses, with his heart beating furiously, and a feeling of wonderment coming over him as to why it was that he had been so frightened over such a trifling matter.

“That’s better, my lad,” said Joses quietly; and as Bart gazed on the rough fellow’s face, expecting revilings and reproaches at his cowardice, he saw that the man’s bronzed and swarthy features looked dirty and mottled, his eyes staring, and that he was dripping with perspiration.

Just then Joses gripped him by the shoulder in a way that would have made him wince, only he did not want to show the white feather again, and he stood firm as his companion said:

“’Taint no use to talk like that to him. It won’t touch him, Master Bart. It’s very horrid when that lays hold of you, and you can’t help it.”

“No,” said Bart, feeling relieved, “I could not help it.”

“Course you couldn’t, my lad. But now we must get old Sam back, or he’ll hang there till he faints, and then drop.”

“O Joses!” cried Bart.

“I only wish we could get a bear on the bough beyond him there. That would make him scuffle back.”

“Frighten him back?” said Bart.

“Yes; one fright would be bigger than the other, and make him come,” said Joses.

“Do you think that if we frightened him, he would try to get back then?” whispered Bart.

“I’m sure of it,” said Joses.

“Do as I do then,” said Bart, as he picked up his rifle. Then speaking loudly he exclaimed:

“Joses; we must not leave the poor fellow there to die of hunger. He can’t get back, so let’s put him out of his misery at once. Where shall I aim at? His heart?”

“No, no, Master Bart; his head. Send a bullet right through his skull, and it’ll be all over at once. You fire first.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Bart rested the barrel of his rifle against the trunk, took careful aim, and fired so that the bullet whistled pretty closely by Sam’s ear.

The man started and shuddered, seeming as if he were going to sit up, but he relapsed into the former position. “I think I can do it, Master Bart, this time,” said Joses; and laying his piece in a notch formed by the bark, he took careful aim, and fired, his bullet going through Sam’s hat, and carrying it off to go fluttering down into the abyss.

This time Sam did not move, and Bart gazed at Joses in despair.

“He’s too artful, Master Bart,” whispered the latter: “he knows we are only doing it to frighten him. I don’t know how to appeal to his feelings, unless I was to say, ‘here’s your old wife a-coming, Sam,’ for he run away from her ten years ago. But it wouldn’t be no good. He wouldn’t believe it.”

Bart hesitated for a few moments as he reloaded his rifle, and then he shouted to Sam:

“Now, no nonsense, Sam. You must get back.”

The man paid no heed to him, and Bart turned to Joses to say loudly:

“We can’t leave him here like this. He must climb back or fall, so if he won’t climb back the sooner he is out of his misery the better.”

“That’s a true word,” said Joses.

“Give me your axe then,” said Bart, and Joses drew it from his belt, when Bart took it, and after moistening his hands, drove it into the branch just where it touched the tree, making a deep incision, and then drove it in again, when a white, wedge-shaped chip flew out, for the boy had been early in life taught the use of the axe.

Then cutting rapidly and well, he sent the chips flying, while every stroke sent a quiver along the great branch.

Still Sam clung to the spot where he had been from the first, and made no effort to move; and at last, when he was half-way through the branch, Bart stopped short in despair, for the pretence of cutting it off had not the slightest effect upon Sam.

“Tired, Master Bart?” cried Joses just then; and snatching away the axe, he began to apply it with tremendous effect, the chips flying over the precipice, and a great yawning opening appearing in the upper part of the branch.

“Don’t cut any farther, Joses,” whispered Bart; “it will give way.”

“I shall cut till it begins to, Master Bart,” replied the man; and as he spoke he went on making the chips fly, but still without effect, for Sam did not move.

“I shall have to give up directly, my lad,” whispered Joses, with a peculiar look; “but I’ll have one more chop.”

He raised the axe, and delivered another sharp blow, when there was a loud crack as if half a dozen rifles had gone off at once, and almost before the fact could be realised the branch went down, to remain hanging only by a few tough portions of its under part.

Bart and Joses looked over the precipice aghast at what they had done, and gazed down at Sam’s wild face, as, with his legs dislodged from their position, he seemed to have been turned right over, and to be clinging solely in a death grip with his arms.

Then, with cat-like alacrity, he seemed to wrench himself round, holding on to the lower part of the bough with his legs; and the next moment he was climbing steadily up, with the bough swinging to and fro beneath his weight.

It was a question now of the toughness of the fibres by which the bough hung; and the stress upon the minds of the watchers was terrible, as they crouched there, gazing over the edge of the awful precipice, momentarily expecting to see branch and man go headlong down as the bears had fallen before them.

But Sam climbed steadily up during what seemed to be a long time, but which was only a few moments, reaching at last the jagged points where the branch was broken, when there came an ominous crack, and Sam paused, as if irresolute.

“Keep it up,” panted Bart, and his words seemed to electrify the man, who made one or two more clutches at the branch, and then he was in safety beside his companions, staring stupidly from one to the other.

“I didn’t think I was going to get back,” he said at last. “It was you cutting the branch did it. I shouldn’t have moved else.”

There was no show of resentment—no annoyance at having been treated in this terrible manner. Sam only seemed very thankful for his escape, and trotting off to where he had dropped his rifle when pursued by the bears, he rejoined his companions, and proceeded with them back towards the camp; for they had not the least idea where to find a way down into the plain, even if they had entertained any desire to try and get the skins and some steaks off the bears.

As they journeyed on, Sam related how he had suddenly come upon one of the bears feeding upon the fruit of a clump of bushes, and as the animal seemed tame and little disposed to fly from him he had refrained from firing, but had picked up a lump of rock and thrown it at the beast.

The stone hit its mark, and uttering a loud grunting yell, the bear charged its assailant, Sam to his horror finding that the cry had brought a second enemy into the field, when he dropped his rifle, fled for his life, and took refuge from the following danger in the way and with the result that we have seen.

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