Turning his eyes at last from the snow-covered summits, the boy gazed eagerly over the forest to left and right, studying the landscape for some indication of a signal. Directly he saw the column of smoke arising from the campfire strengthening into a black mass, and knew that the boys were answering his call not knowing by whom it had been sent forth. He smiled whimsically as he turned his eyes away.
“That tells me where the camp is, anyway!” he laughed.
Five minutes later, just as the boy was about to descend from his tree, he caught sight of the signal for which he had been waiting. Two columns of smoke arose from a point on the timber line near strange snow formation which he had been considering.
“There’s our Boy Scout!” he declared, scrambling quickly to the ground.
Once out of the tree, the boy made no haste in approaching the spot from which the signal had come. Instead of proceeding in a direct line he turned down the slope and walked swiftly to the north.
Half an hour’s steady traveling brought him to a point almost directly east of the columns of smoke. He could not see the smoke at all now, but knew of its location by the snow-capped cliff almost in front of which it had lifted. After reaching this point he walked directly west.
It was no easy matter, climbing the rugged side of the mountain, but the boy persisted in his work until at last he came to a shelf of rock which seemed to be not far away from where the signals had been shown. Stopping to rest, he looked toward the camp for some indication of further activity in the way of signals there but none came.
The campfire itself, and the face of rock into which the cave had long ago been cut, were not in sight from the point where he stood, the timber line creeping up in the form of an inverted “V” and shutting out all that portion of the lower level to the south.
Just as the boy was about to proceed, the long, snarling, vicious call of a wolf came from a thicket not far away. The boy involuntarily drew his automatic revolver and stepped behind the bole of a giant pine.
In a moment the call came again and again.