They started on, moving with extreme care that they might not meet with another such disaster. The remaining pack mule was a much better animal than the one they had lost. He was possessed of better sense, too, and seemed to understand that great responsibilities rested on his shoulders.
As for the trail, it was the same rugged, narrow path that they had been following for hours.
“What if we should meet someone here?” wondered Walter apprehensively.
“Back up or jump over,” answered Ned.
Stacy shivered.
“I don’t like it at all,” he muttered.
The Professor uttered a shout.
“What is it?” cried the boys all together.
“Land ho!” was the answer.
The boys craned their necks to see what the Professor had discovered, but he was just 86rounding a bend beyond which they could not see. When they had made the turn the boys shouted, too. The trail, they saw, opened out into a broad pass. The ground there, though uneven, was fairly level, thickly wooded with slender Alaskan cedar, its yellow, lacy foliage drooping gracefully from the branches. Tall and straight, the cedars shot up into the air until it seemed as if their slender tops pierced the sky.