"Oh! Where?"
"I"ll show you. Stand clear of the rope, fellows," ordered Butler.
Stepping to the edge of the trail he glanced down at the body of the mule, swaying with a scarcely perceptible movement. Looking back to see that the rope was clear, Tad drew his hunting knife and stooped over, his companions drawing as near to the edge as they dared.
Butler cut the rope that held the dead mule. The rope suddenly sprang back as the unfortunate pack mule"s body shot down into the shadowy pa.s.s. The other boys instinctively drew back. Their nerve was not quite equal to standing on the brink to watch the sight. With Tad it was different. He seemed not to be at all affected by great heights or great depths. He stood with the toes of his boots over the edge, gazing down until a faint sound from far below told him that the body had struck.
"That"s all, fellows," he said, turning back to them. "I reckon we had better do as the Professor suggests, and get under way at once. I will confess that this bracing air is having some effect on my appet.i.te."
"Don"t speak of it," begged Stacy. "I am trying to forget that I have an appet.i.te, but it"s awful hard work."
"Too bad about the mule, isn"t it?" asked Rector soberly.
Tad nodded.
"Yes, I should say it is," agreed Stacy. "There"s eight dollars of my good money gone down into that hole."
"Never mind. He was wind-broken and undoubtedly would have played out before we got through the mountains. I am glad it wasn"t the other one,"
answered Butler cheerfully. "How is the trail ahead, Professor?"
"I haven"t looked."
Bidding them wait until he made an inspection, Tad walked ahead. He found the narrow trail filled with dirt and shale rock; there were many tons of it heaped up on the trail.
"Oh, fudge!" laughed the boy. "Fate is determined to make us turn back.
But we won"t! We are going through, even if we have to build a tunnel.
Get out the shovel, Ned."
This necessitated undoing the bundle that held all the tools of the outfit, and also entailed the unloading of the pack on the back of the remaining pack mule. Ned soon came trotting up with the shovel. He uttered a long-drawn whistle when he saw the blocked trail.
"We never shall be able to get through that," he groaned.
"Oh, yes we shall. I"ll shovel until I am tired, then you take hold and make the dirt fly."
"I"ll do that all right," returned Rector. "I am too keen for my dinner and supper to delay matters any more than I am obliged to. We ought to make Chunky take a hand."
"No, I wouldn"t risk it. Before he had finished he would have lost the shovel overboard. It is the only one we have. Here goes!"
Tad did make the dirt fly. He was a st.u.r.dy young man, all muscle and grit. He shoveled for twenty minutes, working his way through the great heap of dirt. Then he straightened up, his face flushed and perspiring.
"Go to it, Ned!"
Ned did, with a will. An hour and a half was consumed in clearing the trail, and, when they finished, both boys were wet with perspiration.
"I think we had better walk for the present," suggested Tad. "We shall stiffen up if we ride in our present overheated condition."
Ned nodded.
"I can"t be much lamer than I am. I feel as if I had a broken hinge in my back," he declared.
They started on, moving with extreme care that they might not meet with another such disaster. The remaining pack mule was a much better animal than the one they had lost. He was possessed of better sense, too, and seemed to understand that great responsibilities rested on his shoulders.
As for the trail, it was the same rugged, narrow path that they had been following for hours.
"What if we should meet someone here?" wondered Walter apprehensively.
"Back up or jump over," answered Ned.
Stacy shivered.
"I don"t like it at all," he muttered.
The Professor uttered a shout.
"What is it?" cried the boys all together.
"Land ho!" was the answer.
The boys craned their necks to see what the Professor had discovered, but he was just rounding a bend beyond which they could not see. When they had made the turn the boys shouted, too. The trail, they saw, opened out into a broad pa.s.s. The ground there, though uneven, was fairly level, thickly wooded with slender Alaskan cedar, its yellow, lacy foliage drooping gracefully from the branches. Tall and straight, the cedars shot up into the air until it seemed as if their slender tops pierced the sky.
"How beautiful!" cried Tad.
"Wouldn"t they make fish poles, though?" chuckled Ned.
"Yes, we wouldn"t have to leave home when we went fishing," answered Stacy. "We could just sit on the back porch and drop a hook in the water at the back of the old pasture lot."
"How high do you think those trees are, Professor?" asked Tad.
"All of a hundred and fifty feet. A marvelous growth."
"I think I can appreciate the beauty of it more after I get something inside of me," spoke up the fat boy. "Do we get anything to eat or do we absorb landscape for our supper?"
"I reckon we had better get busy," agreed Tad laughingly.
They began unloading the packs at once. By the time the boys came in with the wood the spot had a.s.sumed a really camp-like appearance. The pots were filled with water and Tad began building a structure that was to be their campfire when he was ready to touch it off.
"Did you find any birch bark, Ned?" he asked.
"Yes, there it is."
"Oh, thank you. The cedar will burn all right, but it is a good thing to have the birch. We shall have a supper worth while in a few minutes.
Stacy, get busy and prepare the coffee."
For once the fat boy did not demur. He was too hungry, and was willing to do almost anything that would hurry the supper along. Not a mouthful had any of them eaten since breakfast.
The ponies were browsing contentedly, but the mule had lain down and gone to sleep. The day was still bright, though the air had grown cooler than when the sun was at its height. Still, a warm glow suffused the faces of the Pony Rider Boys because they had been exercising. They usually were busy, and not one of the lads, unless it were Stacy Brown, had a lazy streak in him. Stacy was const.i.tutionally opposed to doing anything that looked like real work.
The cedar quickly blazed up into a crackling fire, consuming the foliage. Tad took some of the brands and made a small cooking fire that soon was a glowing bed of coals. Over this he broiled the bacon, toasted the bread, and cooked the coffee without the least apparent effort.