Suddenly he was conscious that someone was near his cot. He could hear hard breathing and then he felt a hand creeping over the covers. In a flash he grasped it and yelled aloud to Mountain Jim. Now Jim, no less tired than Ralph, had likewise dropped off to sleep despite his determined efforts to keep awake. But Ralph’s cry brought him out of his cot in a bound.

“Great Blue Bells of Scotland! What’s up?” he roared.

“There’s someone trying to rob me!” yelled Ralph, still clutching the wrist he had caught. The next instant a hand was at his throat and a knee on his chest and he was choked into silence. But his cry had had its effect. Like a runaway[244] steer Mountain Jim came charging through the darkness.

“Who in creation are you, you scallywag? What do you want?” he roared, grabbing hold of Ralph’s antagonist, for by good luck he had come straight in the direction of Ralph’s cry. Without giving whoever the midnight intruder was any chance to reply, Mountain Jim encircled him with his iron arm and hurled him clear across the room. They could hear a crash and grunt as the fellow fetched up, and then a rush of feet through the darkness followed by the crash of a heavy fall, caused apparently by a violent tumble down the steep stairs leading to the attic.

They listened intently and heard somebody picking himself up and limping off.

“Well, what do you think of that?” exclaimed Mountain Jim. “Serves me right for sleeping, though, Ralph. Are you hurt?”

“Not a bit, but I feel half choked. That fellow had a half Nelson on my neck, all right.”

[245]

“I guess I had a whole one on his,” chuckled Jim. “Strike a match, Ralph, and let’s see what we can see.”

The match showed a revolver lying on the floor by Ralph’s bed apparently just as it had been dropped by the intruder when Jim’s mighty arm encircled him.

“Humph! pretty good gun,” commented Jim dryly, looking the weapon over. “I’ll bet a doughnut that the owner never sees it again, though.”

“Who do you think it was?” asked Ralph.

“Old red-whiskers. We’ll look him over in the morning, and by that same token it’s pretty near dawn now. Hear the roosters? Well, as there’s no more sleep for us to-night, we might as well get up and see to the ponies. It would be just like this outfit of scallywags to try to do them some harm or even steal ’em, if your friends, the Bloods, are about.”

But the ponies, which had been turned into a corral the night previous, were found to be all[246] right, and by the time the stars paled they had them saddled and re-entered the house. Jim banged loudly on the table of the room where they had had supper the previous night and demanded breakfast. Before long the landlord came shuffling into the room.

In the pale light they could see that under his left eye he had a big purple swelling. His hands shook, too, and altogether he appeared to be very ill at ease.

“How’d you sleep?” he asked.

“Fine,” rejoined Jim heartily. “In the night a mosquito or some other kind of low down critter bothered me, but I guess I bunged him up tolerably considerable.”

He looked at the red-bearded man with a cheerful grin, and stared him straight in the eyes. The optics of the rascal dropped. He got breakfast in sullen silence and took his pay without a word.

“Oh, by the way,” Jim shouted back to him as they rode off, “I found a gun in that attic last[247] night. If the owner wants it, tell him to come to me, will you?”

The landlord looked at them for an instant and his florid skin turned green. He swung on his heel and fairly fled into the house.

“I’ll turn it over to the Mounted Police,” shouted Jim after him. “I guess they’ll be interested in finding the owner.”

They arrived at Donald Campbell’s new ranch shortly afterward, riding over a fairly good road. The old Scotchman told them that they were lucky that nothing worse had happened to them. The place was suspected to be a “whisky ranch,” and its owner had been in trouble with the police on two or three occasions.

“I guess he’ll be careful who he tackles next time,” remarked Jim with a grin.

The bargain for two tough, hard-looking ponies, broken to pack, was soon struck, and with good wishes from the old Scotchman they rode off. They reached the camp on the return[248] journey that night, and all hands sat up late listening with absorbed interest to the story of their adventures.

The new ponies proved to be anything but tractable the next morning, but eventually they were subdued and their packs firmly “diamonded” to their plunging backs. This done, the way lay clear before the adventurers............