A dull, booming crash that shook the ground under their feet, followed within a few seconds. A cloud of dust and rocks arose from the cave mouth. Suddenly Ralph broke into a shout:

“The rock! The rock! It’s moving!”

“Hold on, boy,” warned the prospector, laying a hand on Ralph’s shoulder. “Watch!”

The big boulder hesitated, swayed, and then, with a reverberating crash, as the blasted terrace under it gave way, it rolled down the hillside. An instant after, Jim Bothwell burst from the cavern and ran toward them. It was all that Ralph, in his joy, could do to keep from embracing him, but just then a sudden shout from Bitter Creek Jones caught and distracted his attention. In their excitement they had forgotten all about[230] the tethered ponies. The great rock was now bounding toward them with great velocity.

It shook the ground as its ponderous weight rumbled down the hillside. The ponies whinnied with terror and tugged and strained at their ropes. But just as it appeared inevitable that they must be crushed, the huge rock struck a smaller one and its course was diverted. Down it went, but on a safe track now, and terminated its career in the clump of thick growing alders that fringed the stream.

“Wow, a narrow escape!” ejaculated Ralph breathlessly.

“Yep, we come pretty durn near killin’ two birds—or ponies, rayther—with one stone,” grinned Bitter Creek Jones; “but all’s well as turns out all right, as the poet says.”

“Bitter, you’re all right,” cried Jim, clutching the hand of the prospector who had turned up so opportunely.

“Shucks! That’s all right, Jim. It wasn’t[231] much to do fer you, old pal,” responded Bitter returning the pressure. “And now,” he went on, as if anxious to change the subject, “you’d better skin that lion and be gettin’ on yer way. It’s drawin’ in late, and this is a bad part of the country to get benighted in, more specially with a bunch of Bloods hanging about all lit up with fire-water.”

“Reckon you’re right, Bitter,” was the response as Mountain Jim deftly made the necessary incisions and he and his friend skinned the dead cougar with skillful hands.

It was not long after that they parted company. Bitter Creek Jones continuing toward the south, while Ralph and Mountain Jim swung on to their ponies and resumed their journey toward the northwest. The last they saw of Bitter Creek Jones he was waving a hearty adieu to them and shouting:

“See you in Alaska north of fifty-three, some time.”

[232]

Then a shoulder of mountain shut him out and they saw him no more.

“There’s a white man,” said Jim with deep conviction, as the ponies carried them from the scene. “He’s rough as a bear, is Bitter, but white right down to his gizzard.”

Ralph regretted that he could not have taken one of the cubs along, but on the rough trip that still lay before them it would have been extremely difficult if not impossible to transport it. So the little den of young cougars had to be left behind to await the return of their wounded mother, an event which, Mountain Jim declared, would take place within a short time.

“Maybe I ought to have killed the whole boiling of them young termagents,” he said. “They’ll grow up and make a heap of trouble for sheepmen, but let ’em be. I ain’t got the heart to make away with a lot of babies like them.”

It was dark when, on topping a backbone of desolate mountain, they saw in a valley below[233] them a light shining amidst the blackness. Jim declared that this must be the ranch for which they were searching, and they made their best speed toward the lonely beacon. If it had been hard traveling by daylight through the forest, it was doubly difficult to make their way by night. But Jim appeared to possess in a superlative degree that wonderful sense of location peculiar to persons who have passed their lives in the great silent places of the earth. It has been noted by travelers that a young Indian boy, who has apparently not noted in the slightest the course followed on a hunting expedition into the great woods, has been able, without any apparent mental effort, to guide back to camp the party of which he formed a member. Such a faculty has been ascribed as more due to instinct, the sense that brings a carrier pigeon home over unknown leagues, than to anything else.

Through the darkness they blundered on, through muskegs, fallen timber and swollen[234] creeks—the latter due to the heavy rains of the afternoon. At length, after it appeared to Ralph almost certain that they must have lost their way, they came out on a plateau and saw shining not half a mile from them the light for which Mountain Jim had been aiming.

A sea captain, with all the resources of highly perfected instruments, could not have made a more successful land-fall. But as they drew nearer to the light, a puzzled expression could have been observed on Mountain Jim’s face had it been clearly visible. Ralph, too, soon became aware of a great noise of shouting and singing proceeding from the vicinity of the light.

“Must have some sort of a party going on,” he observed to his companion.

“I dunno,” was Mountain Jim’s rejoinder. “Donald Campbell used to be a bachelor and no great shakes for company. Maybe he’s married and they’re havin’ a pink tea or something.”

Soon after, they rode up to a rough looking[235] house, behind which, bulking blackly against the darkness, were the outlines of haystacks. Several horses were hitched in front of the place and the door was open, emitting a ruddy stream of light that fell full on one of the animals. Ralph recognized the cayuse with a start. It was one of those that had been ridden by the Bloods. There was no mistaking the animal’s pie-bald coat and wall-eye. He was what is known among cowmen as a “paint-horse.”

Ralph gasped out his information to Mountain Jim. His companion only nodded.

“I’ve been thinking for some time that there is something queer about this place,” he said, “but there’s no help for it, we’ve got to see it through now.”

And then a minute later he made an odd inquiry:
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