“Don’t shoot!” the voice said, in what seemed to be a tremor of alarm.
Ben sprang back to the tent and lifted his automatic from the blanket where he had laid it. Mr. Havens motioned toward another weapon and Ben placed it in his hand. Then the two stood waiting.
“Don’t shoot!” the voice from the darkness repeated. “We mean you no harm! We are lost in the mountains!”
“Who are you?” asked Ben, as footsteps advanced and three figures became distinguishable under the light of the fire.
“Campers who have lost our way,” was the answer.
The three men came on until their faces as well as their figures were under the glow of the blaze. They held their hands out to show that they were not carrying weapons.
“The shots you heard were directed at a mountain rat,” Ben explained, as the men came up to where he stood.
The men revealed by the light of the camp-fire appeared at first sight to be entirely unfamiliar with the usages of the mountains. They were dressed in tailor-made clothes of good material, but their faces were blackened by smoke and bore scraggly beards of a week’s growth.
“Beg pardon,” one of the men said briskly as he stepped closer to the fire. “Our intrusion is entirely unpremeditated.”
“We left our camp early this morning,” another member of the little group cut in, “and lost our way. We have been chased by grizzlies and have fallen into gulches and canyons until we are about used up.”