The Frontier Boys in the Sierras Part 28

"Will we stop and see the captain in his cabin on the Plateau?" asked Tom eagerly.

"Sure," declared Jim. "We will spend a few days with him. He is too old a friend to pa.s.s by."

"Won't it be great!" exclaimed Jo. "What will the folks and all the fellars think when they see us coming on our chargers down the main street of Maysville?"

"I reckon about everybody will take to the woods. Think it is band of wild Indians coming down on them."

"We will have to hurry and find that mine," said Tom, "before we can strike the back trail for home."

"I have a kind of feeling in my bones," said Jim, "that we are going to find that mine pretty soon now."

"We ain't more than one day's ride from the section where it is," said Jeems.

"I'm going to look for a new trail this afternoon," said Jim. "You boys can work around home."

"It's about time those mules and horses had some water," remarked Juarez.

"Think it's safe?" inquired Jo.

"To make sure, I'll take a gallop up the valley a ways," said Jim, "to see if they have cleared out."

"That's the idea," agreed Juarez. "I'll take the creek side on my roan."

In five minutes they were mounted and galloped off, Jim scouting along the mountain slope and Juarez taking the other side. They met at the end of the valley where the trail started up the big canyon. Here they dismounted and examined the ground carefully.

CHAPTER XXVIII

A NEW START

"They have vamoosed all right," announced Juarez after examining the trail.

"The whole pack of 'em, too," affirmed Jim.

"Perhaps we can get a view of them," added Juarez.

"We will hitch our horses here," remarked Jim, "and try a squint up the trail from that grove yonder."

This they did, and from their point of vantage they were able to see a part of the trail, two miles distant, where it curved around a shoulder of the mountain.

"Maybe they have got beyond that point," suggested Jim.

"Hardly," replied Juarez. "That's a long steep climb up there. They will have to go slow if any of 'em are hurt."

The boys waited a few minutes with eyes intent upon the trail. Then they saw a man on horseback ride into view, then another and another, until seven had gone round the shoulder of the mountain.

"That isn't all," said Jim, "there's three missing."

"Maybe that Gus Gols is knocked out," said Juarez.

"It begins to look like it," said Jim.

"There they come," cried Juarez. "He is hurt some, for it takes two of his men to hold him on his horse."

"They are not likely to bother us now then," said Jim, "but all the same I am going to see if we cannot find a safe way around."

"All right, Jim," agreed Juarez. "I will go back to camp and look after things."

So they separated. Towards evening Jim came riding into camp, with Caliente showing the effects of a hard climb. Jim dismounted rather wearily.

"Well, what luck?" inquired the boys.

"There is a way around," he said. "It's tough in places, but we can make it all right."

"We ought to get an early start," said Juarez.

"You are right there," agreed Jim. "We will turn in early this evening."

So they did, and by half-past two Jim sounded the early rising alarm.

The boys all got up with alacrity, except Tom, who did considerable growling, as was his custom, but if Tom wanted sympathy he would have to find it in the dictionary, as the fellow said.

The boys lighted a fire within the stockade to get their breakfast by, but it was hidden so that no hint of their plans would be given to a watchful enemy. The boys felt jovial when they got fairly waked up.

The air was cold and bracing, and they all felt that the end of their long journey was drawing near.

By four o'clock everything was ready for the start. The mules were packed, and the boys rode out in silence through the starry darkness across the level floor of the valley. Jim was in the lead, and the rest followed in order. Instead of going up the main trail through the big canyon, Jim bore to the right, making straight through the park where the men had killed the deer.

It was well for the Frontier Boys that they took this way, for Eph, Ed and a number of Mexicans were lying in ambush at a narrow and hidden part of the trail, and, with one concerted rush, were ready to send the boys down five hundred feet. Whether the Frontier Boys would have been so rash as to have walked blindfolded into this trap is doubtful. Nevertheless, when they took the other way they escaped a very serious danger.

When the first steel shining rays of dawn struck the slope of the mountain above them the boys had climbed up several thousand feet and could see the valley below and the distant snow-clad peaks to the south, rosy with the first touch of morning. It was a beautiful sight, and the boys turned sideways in their saddles, taking it all in when their horses stopped to breathe.

"Going to take us above timber-line, Jim?" inquired Juarez.

"He's going to lose us," complained Tom.

"Then there would be a lost kid to go with the Lost Mine," declared Jim humorously. "Yes, boys, I'm going to take you above timber-line."

"Well," said Jeems philosophically, "it is a whole lot better than going over the range altogether, as might have been the case if we had taken the trail through the big canyon over yonder."

"Say, Jeems!" exclaimed Jo, with a catch in his voice, "you never told Jim and Juarez about the time you was sitting with your back to a tree and they slipped up and tied you, and if we hadn't come along there was no telling what might have happened to you."

"That was a close call," said Jeems. "It was when you, Jim and Juarez were off hunting, and the boys had gone fishing. They got back just in the nick of time." Then he went solemnly to work to tell of the thrilling escape he had had. At the climax of his narrative, Tom and Jo burst into roars of laughter.

"What's the matter with you two guys?" inquired Jim. "I bet my hat that you were at the bottom of this rascality."

The two admitted their guilt, and, after his surprise was over, Jeems took it good-naturedly, while even Jim had to laugh, for it was certainly a successful practical joke.