“A camp-fire, Ken, and although no one at all was in sight, the coals were still smoldering. Now, who do you suppose would be breakfasting on that high peak? It isn’t a trail that leads anywhere in particular, is it?”
“The Washoe Indians go over that way to Lake Tahoe fishing, but it doesn’t sound like Indians,” the boy said. Then his eyes lighted with hope. “Do you ’spose maybe ’twas a train-robber hiding?”
“Goodness, I hope not!” Miss Bayley shuddered. “I’d heaps rather have met your bear.” Then she added, “Have there been any trains robbed lately?”
The boy had to confess that he hadn’t heard of any. “There used to be lots of train and stage hold-ups when my dad was a boy,” he said, “but nowdays nothing much happens.” There was real regret in the tone of the lad, as though life in the Sierra Nevadas had become too tame to be of real interest. Then his eyes again brightened. “Well, anyhow, it might have been a sheep-rustler. How I’d like to trail him, if ’twas. There’s a State bounty for cornering one, Miss Bayley.”
The girl-teacher laughed at the boy’s eagerness. “Well, Ken,” she confessed, “all I saw was a smoldering camp-fire, and since a bear, a coyote, or a mountain lion cannot make a fire, we shall have to believe that a man had breakfasted there at sunrise, but I heard no one and saw no one.”
“Oh, Miss Bayley, teacher, how I’d like to ’vestigate. I’d like to, awful well, if I could get ’scused a little early. It gets dusky so soon now, and I’d need to have two hours of daylight, certain.”
This was an unusual and unexpected request, but the holiday spirit was in the heart of the girl-teacher, and so, to the great joy of the lad, she granted it. Then she added, as a new thought suggested itself: “I don’t know, dear boy, that I ought to let you go, if you think it might be a bandit in hiding, or anything like that. Would you be safe?”
The boy’s expression was hard for Miss Bayley to interpret. “Oh, teacher! Boys aren’t scared of bandits. They like ’em! You know that Robin Hood fellow in the book you and Dixie bought me in Reno. Now, he was a bandit, wasn’t he? A reg’lar bandit.”
The girl-teacher had to agree. “But, Ken,” she protested feebly, “he was a story-book bandit. They are different in real life, aren’t they?”
“I dunno,” the boy had to acknowledge. “I haven’t met one yet, but I’d like to. Gee whiz, Miss Bayley, I wish I could start right now. I sure do! Maybe he’s goin’ on somewhere else this afternoon. Maybe I’d catch him if I went this very minute.”