The boys tramped all morning without sighting game.
201After a short rest the two boys went on again, bearing more to the left. As they trudged on the sound of rushing water was borne to their ears. Then they came out on a broad stream, a torrent that came from the top of three lofty, ice-covered mountains.
“Let’s work up toward that pass,” suggested Tad, wishing to see the gulch from which the stream was flowing.
They had worked their way upstream for half a mile when Chunky yelled:
“Look there! What’s that?”
Tad saw a hideous head projecting above the bushes. At first he was startled, then he laughed.
“That’s a totem pole, Chunky. They’re put up usually in behalf of the Indian dead to drive the spirits away. Let’s go and look at it.”
The totem pole was standing at the entrance of a second narrow gulch. Sand and shale rock were heaped up at the entrance.
“A stream flowed through here at one time, Stacy. I imagine that it was the same body of water we’ve just been looking at.”
“Yeh,” said Stacy absently. “Say, Tad, let’s see who can first hit that evil-looking thing with a stone.”