“He’s gone!” he said aloud. “Whoever ’twas has gone on farther.” Then, as he glanced among the near pines, he thought, “I might have known he’d be gone by this time. A sheep-rustler, or a bandit, either, wouldn’t just stay on a mountain-peak.”
Truly disappointed, the boy climbed to the highest point, and, shading his eyes, looked in every direction.
The sun was high, the lake a deep emerald hue, with here and there the reflection of a fleecy white cloud slowly drifting across its mirror-like surface, for not a breath of air was stirring. Then the lad’s gaze swept the mountain-ranges beyond.
“Guess I’m not much good at catching sheep-rustlers,” he commented, “but then, I wouldn’t think much of one, or a bandit either, who’d sit here and wait to be caught.”
The lad suddenly realized that he was very hungry. He sat on a rock near, and looked meditatively about as he munched on the sandwich which he had taken from his pocket.
Suddenly he leaped to his feet, ran a little way toward the burned-out camp-fire, and, kneeling, examined the ground. A footprint! It hadn’t been made by the soft leather shoe that Washoe Indians often wore. Rising, and still munching his bread and meat, he placed his own smaller foot in the print.
“Whoever he is, he’s a big fellow!” he said admiringly. “A reg’lar giant.” Then, having finished the bread, he drew a rosy apple from the depth of another pocket where it had been bulging. The boy walked about, poking in the ashes; then suddenly, with a whoop of delight, he knelt down, jammed the remaining piece of apple in his mouth to dispose of it speedily, and with his freed hands drew forth a sheet of partly burned, much-blackened paper that had writing on it.
“Whizzle!” he ejaculated. “How I hope it’s a clue.”
He spread the paper on a flat boulder, and knelt to examine it closely. The fire and the smoke had done their best to make it hard for him to decipher the finely written words. It seemed to be the fragment of a personal letter written to a relative, but not one reference was made to holding up a train or rustling sheep. At the very bottom, in a scorched place, the boy found something which caused him to leap to his feet and prance about as a wild Indian would, when celebrating a joyous occasion.
“Hurray! Hurray!” he fairly shouted, and the near peak echoed back the cry. Then, climbing again to the highest boulder, the lad once more shaded his eyes, this time with an even greater eagerness to discover some sign of a camp. At last, over on the next mountain which was so perilously steep that few attempted to scale it, and up near the top, the boy’s eyes found what he sought—a camp-fire.