“I’ve got a picture of your doing that! Now look here,” Carl went on, “you want to remember that I’m staying here by this machine in zero weather, or worse, so you don’t want to go poking about until daylight. My fingers are frozen stiff now!”
“Run up and down and keep warm, little one!” laughed Jimmie.
Before Carl could reply the boy was off, scrambling up the rocky face of the slope which led to the summit. It was stinging cold, and the boy needed all the exercise he was getting in order to keep his blood in circulation. Although not on the main ridge of the Great Divide, the boy was pretty high up.
Before he came to a position from which the valley to the west might be seen, Jimmie found that he was wading in snow. There was no moon, but stars shone down from a clear sky.
When he reached the crest he saw the camp-fire two or three hundred feet below, built on a shelf of rock which seemed to afford no protection whatever from the cold winds swirling around the peaks.
“I don’t believe that’s any camp at all!” the boy mused. “It’s just a signal station, and the operator is probably wrapped up in fur overcoats a foot thick. I guess about all I can do here,” he went on, “is to see if there is another fire in sight.”
The western slope of the ridge was much steeper than the one he had already ascended, so at times the lad approached the hostile camp-fire a great deal faster than he wanted to. He tried to proceed cautiously, without making any noise, but now and then when his feet slipped and he rolled half a dozen paces, to be caught at last by a little crevice or a narrow shelf, small rocks became dislodged and went thundering down.
“Might just as well take a band,” Jimmie mused disgustedly.
When the boy came to within a few yards of the fire he saw that only one figure was in sight. As he had predicted he would be, the lone guardian of the fire was well bundled up in furs. If the motors had attracted his attention his manner gave no indication of the fact.
“Looks like a wooden Indian,” chuckled Jimmie.