Dora turned. “Then somewhere along here was where poor Little Bodil was thrown into the road.”
The cowboy nodded. A saw-tooth peak rose just beyond them.
Dora, gazing at it, speculated aloud: “Could a wild beast have slunk around the curve there snatched the child and dashed away with it to its cave?”
“We’ll probably never know,” Dick replied. “That could have happened, couldn’t it Jerry?”
“I reckon so,” the cowboy began, when Mary caught his arm again. “Oh, Jerry,” she cried, “are there wild animals now—I mean living here in these mountains?”
The cowboy glanced at Dick before he replied. “None, Little Sister, that will hurt you. Don’t think about them.”
But Mary persisted. “At least tell me what wild animal lives around here that might have dragged Little Bodil to its lair.”
Jerry, realizing that there was nothing else to do, said in as indifferent a tone as he could, “I reckon there may be a mountain lion or so up here, and a puma perhaps. That’s sort of a big cat, but it’s a coward all right! Gets away every time if it can.” He hoped that would satisfy Mary but instead she looked up at the grim peak above them, her eyes startled, searching. “I saw a picture once, oh, I remember it was in my biology book, of a huge catlike creature crouched on a ledge. It was about to spring on a goat that was on the mountain below it. Underneath the picture was printed, ‘The Puma springs from ledges down upon its unsuspecting prey.’ I remember it because it both fascinated and terrorized me.”
“Mary,” the cowboy took both her hands and smiled into her wide blue eyes, “will it make you feel better about wild animals attacking us if I tell you that Dick and I are both carrying concealed weapons?”
Mary smiled up at Jerry as she said, “You think I’m a silly, I know you do, and I don’t blame you. I’m not going to be fearful of anything again today.” Then, as she glanced down the steep road up which they had come, she returned the conversation to the subject from which they had so far digressed. “Jerry, which way do you suppose the three bandits came?”