“Anybody ought to be able to do that,” said Hi stoutly.
But the trouble was that after an hour’s hard plodding they came to a sort of opening and thought they had reached a road at last, and there before them once more was the House of Rattlers. And that was the time they gave up and cried. They dared not stay near there, so they went on their way hastily, but not running now, sobbing as they went.
They were lost, that was all there was to it. They were quite completely lost on a mountain they never had visited before—a mountain where nobody lived and where the only neighborly things were rattle snakes.
They were both wondering if they were going to die there, to starve and be heard of no more. Of course, years and years from then their “skelingtons” might be found. But however interesting that might be for others, it really would do them no good at all, when you came to think of it.
Ugh, how chilly the morning air was! And how wet their clothes were! And how empty their stomachs! And the rattlers—the rattlers!
There was a strange, bell-like sound in the distance, a deep, musical, beautiful sound. It rang over the hills with a note at once sad and glad. The boys stopped in their tracks and listened. It came again, like church bells, only faster. It thrilled the two forlorn wanderers, and brought the light back to their faces.
“Bike!” shouted Hi. “It’s Bike. He’s followed us. Oh, Bike, Bike, here we are, you blessed old houn’ dawg! Here! Here!”
They put their fingers in their mouths and whistled, they shouted, they laughed, they hugged each other; and then, over a rise came Bike, wild-eyed with delight, large, it seemed, as a bear, and bursting with importance.
He leaped on them till he knocked them down; he insisted on licking their faces, on pretending to bite their calves, on lathering them as if they were puppies. He couldn’t have enough of them nor they of him. But after all, he came to his senses sooner than they.
“Enough of this,” he seemed to say. “For goodness sake, let’s be getting home.”