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CHAPTER XXV
THE OUTLAW RANCH

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 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.”

“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 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 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 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 to the Big Bend of the Columbia River. Mountain Jim had told the boys that their route would skirt the bases of some of the peaks covered with eternal snow, among which the great white Rocky Mountain goat ranges. There might even be a chance, he declared, for a sight of the famous Big Horn sheep, although these animals are now so wild as to be almost inaccessible to hunters.

They set out in high humor, the new ponies being hitched to more sedate companions so as to keep their spirits within bounds. But notwithstanding this, the lively little animals plunged and leaped about till it appeared as if their packs would come off. Throughout the morning they progressed steadily toward the great snow-covered peaks that shone and glittered like diadems toward the northwest. Black ridges of rock appeared among the white coverings of their flanks, giving them an odd, striped appearance.

A stop was made for dinner at the side of a roaring torrent, whose green, cold waters came from the snow-capped peaks toward which their way now lay. While Jim cooked the meal, aided by Jimmie, the boys scattered in every direction gathering firewood or looking at the scenes about them. All at once there came a wild whoop of dismay from Persimmons, who had been entrusted with the duty of tethering Topsy, one of the new ponies.

The little animal had taken fright at the smell of the lion skin, which was rolled up on Baldy’s back, and before anyone could stop her she was off toward the torrent. Ralph was in his saddle in a second and after her, swinging his lasso in true cowboy fashion.

“Yip! yip!” he yelled, delighted at the prospect of a brisk chase.

But Topsy, although she hesitated a minute on the brink of the torrent, did not, as Ralph had surmised, turn and dash along the bank. Instead, she plunged right into the seething waters, pack and all, and struck out for the opposite shore.

Ralph only paused a minute and then he was into the stream after her, urging his unwilling pony into the cold water. Reaching the middle of the stream, he slipped off his pony and swam beside him till shallower water was reached.

The swift current carried them down stream for quite a distance, but at last the struggling pony’s feet found solid bottom, and he scrambled out not more than a hundred yards behind Topsy. All this had happened so quickly that those left behind had hardly time to realize it before Ralph gained the opposite shore. Then Jim hailed him:

“Can you get her, Ralph?”

“Sure!” hailed back the boy positively, and clapping his big, blunt-rowelled spurs to his pony he was off into the woods after the fleeing pack animal. The wood proved to be only a strip of pine and tamaracks, and beyond was a rocky ledge leading up the side of a high mountain, for by this time they had reached the heart of the Rockies and big peaks towered all about them.

“Yip! yip!” cried Ralph entering fully into the spirit of the chase. As for Topsy, apparently not feeling the weight of the heavy pack at all, she dashed on like a lightning express. Ralph was sorry that the chase was not among the trees, for in the timber Topsy would have found it hard to get along so quickly with the encumbering pack on her back. But up the rocky ledge, which zig-zagged like a trail up the mountain, she fairly flew. The noise of her speeding hoofs was like that of castanets.

“Well, a stern chase is always a long one,” thought Ralph, as he shook a kink out of his rope and spurred after her as fast as his pony was capable of going. The camp was soon left far behind and still the boy found himself on a narrow trail, or shelf of rock, that inclined steeply up the mountain side. Below him the ground dropped off to unknown depths, and on his other hand a wall of rock shot up so steeply that hardly a tree or a bush found footing on it. As they rose higher Ralph experienced a sensation as if he was riding into cloudland. Frequently he would lose sight of Topsy, and then again he could glimpse her as she darted around a shoulder of the mountain, only to be lost to view again.

“Gracious, this is like being slung up between heaven and earth,” thought Ralph, as he loped up the trail as fast as his pony could carry him. Glancing down he saw that a sort of blue mist veiled the depths of the abyss below him. He was many feet above the tops of the tallest of the big pines. Afar off, through the crisp, clear air, he could see more ridges, but he appeared far above them. To anyone gazing at him from below, the boy would have looked no larger than a fly on some steep and lofty wall.

“Fine place to meet anything,” he said to himself. “This road was only built for one.”

At the same instant another thought flashed across him. Up to this time, in the heat of the chase, he had cast reflection to the winds.

The trail was narrowing. Unless it widened further up, how was he to turn his pony around and retrace his steps?

CHAPTER XXVI
CARTHEW OF “THE MOUNTED.”

This thought had hardly occurred to him when he was saved further pondering by the sight of Topsy coming flying back along the ledge. Her nostrils were distended in a frightened way and her coat was flecked with foam. For a flash he saw her as she turned a shoulder of rock, and then she vanished again as the trail turned inward toward the cliff face. Ralph had only a second in which to act.

He glanced about him. It appeared impossible that two ponies could pass on the narrow trail. Yet he would have to let Topsy get by or else be backed off into the depths below. In emergencies such as the boy now faced, the mind usually rises to the occasion and works with the rapidity necessary to dictate quick action. It was so in Ralph’s case.

He swung his pony in toward the cliff face, clinging to it closely, as the only possible salvation. In a flash Topsy came swinging around the turn, going at full gallop. Ralph held his breath as he felt her sides graze his right knee! But she galloped safely by with hardly a fraction of an inch to spare between her hoofs and the edge of the trail!

To his huge joy and relief the emergency was passed, and without accident. In another minute he had swung his pony around, its small, nimble legs bunched together to make the turn, and was off down the trail after the runaway. Almost at the bottom several riders were advancing toward the boy. The recreant Topsy was between him and the newcomers, whom Ralph recognized as his camp mates. Mountain Jim was at their head and they had set out in search of Ralph a short time before.

Topsy, thus hemmed in, allowed herself to be captured without making much resistance, and a much chastened pony was led back into camp, where the professor was awaiting the return of the party.

“Lucky thing that she turned,” was Ralph’s comment, “for I don’t think that ledge went much further up the mountain side.”

“Reckon it didn’t,” was Jim’s reply, “and if you had found a spot where it was much narrower, you’d have been in an ugly fix.”

“Not a doubt of it,” commented Ralph as he thought of his feelings when he was uncertain whether Topsy would be able to pass him or not.

As to what had turned the runaway pony in such a fortunate manner, opinions were divided. Mountain Jim inclined to the belief that the trail had come to an end and that the pony had had sense enough to turn. Ralph, with the recollection of the animal’s terror fresh in his mind, was positive that some wild beast had scared the recreant Topsy and caused her to dash back.

The discussion over the exciting incident had hardly ceased, when hoof beats were heard coming along the trail by which they had arrived at their camping place. All looked up with interest, for travelers were few in that wild part of the Rockies. Their curiosity was not long in being gratified.

Through the trees came riding a stalwart figure on a big bay horse. The newcomer was clean shaven, bronzed and capable looking. He wore a big sombrero, riding boots, and trousers with a stripe down the sides. His appearance, for he carried a carbine in a holster and pistols in his belt, was somewhat alarming to the boys, who exchanged hurried whispers. But Mountain Jim soon quieted their fears.

“It’s a trooper of the Northwest Mounted Police,” he exclaimed, and then, as the rider drew nearer, he cried out in a glad voice:

“Great Blue Bells of Scotland, if it ain’t Harry Carthew!”

“By Jove! Jim Bothwell!” cried the new arrival in a gratified tone. “Upon my word, I’m glad to see you. But what brings you here?”

As he spoke, he gazed with some curiosity about the camp and at the youthful faces of the young adventurers.

“Sort of piloting these lads and Professor Wintergreen through the Rockies, Harry,” was the rejoinder. “Where are you mushing along to?”

“I’m bound for Muskeg Lake,” was the response, “just coming through from Fort Grainger.”

“Won’t you rest here a while?” asked the professor.

“Don’t mind if I do,” said the big trooper. “The goin’s been rough and both I and Dandy here” – he patted his horse – “are a bit fagged, don’t you know.”

“Sit down and have a bite to eat,” said Jim hospitably. “I guess Dandy can shift for himself all right.”

The trooper unsaddled his mount and was soon seated in the shade of a big tree, his back against its trunk, while he dispatched with gusto the food Jim placed before him. When he had finished, he and Jim lit their pipes and began to talk, while the boys and the professor listened interestedly. The man was a new type to them. Self-reliant, big-limbed, clear-eyed, and active as a cat in all his movements, he appeared a fit person for the hard and often dangerous work of the famous Northwest Mounted.

He and Jim, it seemed, were old friends, the veteran guide having aided him in the years past to corner and make prisoners of a band of cattle rustlers. Jim told him about their experiences at the outlaw ranch and the trooper promised to report the matter to his superior officers at once.

“That red-bearded fellow is a character we’ve been after for a long time,” he said, “and thanks to you, I guess we’ll be able to round him up at last. Nevins of Ours almost had him once years ago, but he slipped through his fingers.”

“What became of Nevins?” asked Jim interestedly. “That man always made me wonder what a chap like him wanted to join the Northwest for.”

Trooper Carthew drew thoughtfully on his pipe. Then after a minute he looked up and spoke softly.

“Nevins has gone on a trail he won’t come back from, Jim.”

“Dead?”

The other nodded.

“How’d it happen?”

“What kills a lot of unseasoned men in the service: snow madness!” was the rejoinder. “It’s a thing I don’t often talk about, but if any of your young men here,” he nodded toward the boys, “think that life in the Northwest Mounted is any cinch it might be a good thing to tell ’em the yarn.”

“We wish you would,” said Ralph, scenting a story out of the ordinary.

“Well, it happened a dozen winters ago,” began Trooper Carthew, “and it must be fifteen since I’ve seen Jim. Time slips by here in the mountains. Well, as Jim here said, Nevins was a man who ought never to have gone into the Mounted. He was a nervous, harum-scarum kind of man. I don’t know where he came from or what made him join, but anyhow there he was, and it fell to my lot to look after him.

“We were sent on detachment duty up to a place called Bear Rock. Jim knows where it is, and as you don’t, the best way I can describe it to you is to say that a one-horse board-and-canvas town anywhere in the wilds you’ve a mind to place it, would have been a metropolis alongside of it.

“There were a few Cree Indians around – I forgot to say it was up in the Yukon Country – and that was all the society we had. Not even skin thieves or horse rustlers ever came up there. It was too poor pickin’s even for them.

“Things began to go wrong the first winter. I saw that the loneliness of it all was beginning to prey on young Nevins’ nerves. I call him young, but I expect he was older than he looked. Mind you, he never said anything in the way of complaint, but I’d seen men go that way before, and I saw that he was not built for the job. I tried to get him to go back to division headquarters and report sick, or ask to be transferred or something. But he was a proud cuss, and ‘No,’ says he, ‘I’ll stick it out.’

“Well, if you’ve never been stuck off in the Yukon, sixty miles from any place, with a man whom you suspect is beginning to get snow madness, you’ve no idea what a business it is. Nevins had a nice little habit of getting up in the middle of the night and saying that he saw faces looking at him through the window, and voices calling down the chimney, and little things like that.

“By the middle of the second winter he got so bad that it began to get on my nerves, too, and I’d begun to look about and listen and think I heard things. I soon saw that this wouldn’t do, and so decided to ride into White Lake, the nearest station, and explain matters. Besides, Nevins was really in need of a doctor. His face was drawn and pale and he could hardly be trusted out by himself on the trail, for he was always shooting at something or other that he thought he saw, but which wasn’t there at all. Oh, he was a bad case, I tell you. I began to be scared that some night he might take a fancy to get up and shoot at me. I began to lose sleep and get pretty nearly as peaked as he was.

“When I broke the news to him that we were going back to the station he got mad as a hornet. He was no kid, he said. He could stick it out. All he wanted was to shoot the enemies that were after him, and then he’d be all right. I quieted him down by telling him that our time at the post was up anyhow, and that we were due to report back at White Lake without delay.

“As soon as he saw, as he thought, that we were not leaving on his account he brightened up wonderfully. He took an interest in getting the shack in order for the next comers and talked about our trip almost all night. I patted myself on the back. He seemed like a cured man already, and when we started out with our parkees on our backs and our snow shoes on our feet, you’d have thought that there wasn’t a thing the matter with him.

“Sometimes there was a queer glitter in his eyes, though, that showed me that he wasn’t as right as he seemed to be by any means, and that a doctor and some companionship were needed before a thorough cure could be effected. As we left the shack he turned and shook his fist at it without saying a word, but his face showed me how much he had suffered there and how glad he was to be saying good-by to it all.

“Mushing, as they call traveling in the Yukon, is slow work on a broken trail, and that one from the shack to White Lake was about as bad a specimen as I ever traveled over. But Nevins didn’t seem to mind it. He was so eager to get back to civilization – as if you could call White Lake civilization – that he was always ahead of me. But I didn’t like his gait. It was awkward, zig-zaggy, not the trail of a man who is sure of himself. Nevins was living on his nerves. I caught myself praying they didn’t explode before we reached White Lake!

“Once I offered to take a turn at breaking the trail. But, ‘No, what do you think I am? A baby?’ says he angrily, and after that we plugged along in silence. Nevins’ head was poked forward and he appeared to be in a desperate hurry to get along, almost as if he was afraid something was after him.

“‘You’ll blow up if you don’t slow down, Nevins,’ I said once, but he only made an irritable reply and kept right on.

“I began to be worried. If he did break down I would be in a nasty fix. I’d seen snow madness before and knew what it was. That night I fairly forced him to halt. He was getting so crazy that he wanted to keep on in the dark, but I stuck out at that and he finally quieted down. Yet every now and then as we ate our sough-dough flap-jacks and gulped down our tea before turning in, I saw him keep looking back along the trail we’d come, as if he was scared somebody or something was coming after him to take him back to that shack.

“The next day we mushed on, Nevins still in the lead. We were due at the Lake that night, but I began to doubt if Nevins would make it. He started to talk and mutter to himself, and finally he turned around on me and asked me if I heard anything coming after us down the trail. I laughed the thing off as best I could, but I tell you it’s no joke being out in those wilds with a snow-crazed man, especially when he has a rifle, and maybe might take a crazy notion to try his marksmanship in your direction! I watched Nevins mighty close, you can bet.

“At noon we stopped and ate a half frozen meal, with Nevins staring back up the trail. As we resumed our march he was still muttering to himself and I noticed that he was fumbling with his rifle in a way that was not at all reassuring. I tried to get him to give it to me, making the excuse that it would lighten his load. He looked at me cunningly.

“‘I half believe that you’re in league with those fellows that want to take me back to that shack,’ says he, in a way that made me feel sick, for I knew then that he was crazy, sure enough – and me alone with an armed maniac and miles from any human being!”