“About having broiled rattlesnake for supper,” Valerie retorted. “I’ve heard it is very good with mustard.”
It was but a short ride to Bear Rock, so named because a huge boulder so resembled the head of a ferocious grizzly. Once there, the girls dismounted and gathered wood for a fire. They would eat a cold luncheon, but insisted on at least having hot coffee to drink. The horses were tethered and the girls gathered about the fire. Seated on stones, for the ground was still damp from the heavy rains of the day before, the girls waited for the two men to join them. They drank their coffee and had long finished their lunch before the clatter of hoofs reached them and Jim and Tom rode up.
“We’ll have a new campsite tonight,” Tom said at once. “Jim and I want to do a little more sleuthing so we might as well go along and camp when it gets dark, no matter where we are.”
“That’s better than leaving us behind at any rate,” Carol declared. “I’m rather anxious to get a look at this trail.”
“Just a lot of hoof marks,” Tom answered blandly.
That was all it proved to be and the girls were disappointed. They didn’t know what they had expected to find, but certainly more than this. Unexperienced in trail reading they didn’t realize what a wide, easy-to-read trail had been left. If they had, they might have been suspicious. Even so, Tom and Jim, western bred and experienced in trailing both men and animals, should have been suspicious. But they weren’t.
In the northern region of Arizona are plateaus broken by high mountains. Between the foothills of a high range was a winding trail and it was this that the Adventure Girls and their friends followed, winding in and out through forests thick with pine trees and cottonwoods, jack rabbits darting across the trail, making the horses prance and rear, and the girls getting so weary they could hardly stay in their saddles.
At last Jim called a halt beside a small stream. The sun was sinking swiftly. Darkness was creeping into the east. When they had pitched their tents and supper was started, the girls took time out to admire the scenery of their surroundings. They were camped on the base of a rugged plateau broken in two by a narrow pass through which they proposed to ride on the morrow. Overhanging the pass was a huge boulder, balanced precariously on the edge of the jutting cliff.
“Just one push is all that needs to block up that whole pass,” Tom declared.
“Let’s hope nobody pushes it tomorrow when we are going through there,” commented Janet cheerfully.