It lay below him, ashimmer in the summer sun, a panorama of green, light and dark of shade, with the silver ribbon of the Klimminchuck appearing and disappearing down its length. It was, perhaps, as beautiful a mountain valley scene as eye ever beheld; but Sandy McCrae would not have looked at it twice save for a thin, gray thread which appeared above the treetops some miles away. It became a column, ballooned, and then was invisible. But he knew that somebody had just started a fire.
He picked out the spot with the glasses. Smoke was plainly visible through the powerful lenses. It was close to the river—beside the bank, in fact—and he could catch glimpses of one or two horses. But, because of the trees, he could see little more.
"Darn the luck," said Sandy. "There's the biggest hide in the whole range waiting for me, and somebody has to come butting in. Well, there's only one thing to do."
That thing being to get back to camp as fast as possible, Sandy proceeded to do it. He went downhill at a pace that would have shaken an older and heavier man to pieces; for going downhill is, contrary to the popular idea, much harder on the human frame than going up. He broke into camp and roused McHale from a state of somnolence and tobacco.
"I could 'a' tanned your young hide when you bulled off after that bear," said the latter. "Now I seem to see what them salvation scouts calls 'the finger of Providence' in the play. In other words, it's plumb safe to keep one eye skinned. Do I look like I was scared, Sandy?"
"Nah!" said Sandy contemptuously.
"Well, you're going to see me act like I was." He rose swiftly, his laziness falling from him now that there was work to do. "Go and fetch in them cayuses. I'll break camp."
The horses being on picket caused no delay. When Sandy brought them in, McHale had their entire outfit in two heaps, ready to pack. With the skill and swiftness of experience they made the packs, threw the hitches, drew the lash ropes tight. The result was two compact bundles which could not work loose.
"I dunno who our friends are," said McHale, as they rode out of camp, "but if it's this here Dade bunch, say, what a surprise they'd have give me all by myself. I can just see me gettin' up in time to fall down."
"They've got no license to chase us all over," said Sandy. "We don't have to stand for it, do we? How'd it be if we held up their camp? Or else we could lay for them as they came along, and settle it right there."