“Go bring him, Captain Joe,” ordered Case. “Go tell Alex that the last call for supper is on in the dining car.”
Captain Joe wiggled his stumpy ears, agitated his excuse for a tail, and turned a wrinkled nose to the north. In a moment he started away in that direction.
“Here!” called Clay, “Alex didn’t go in that direction! Come here, you foolish dog, that’s not the right way to go! Come on back here!”
Captain Joe looked back condescendingly, as if he realized that he was doing business with a very young person who really did not know what he was talking about, and, crouching down, uttered a low threat of a growl.
“There’s something in there,” Case decided, “some man or some wild animal. Captain Joe doesn’t often make mistakes. I’ll get a searchlight and take a look. He may have discovered something good to eat!”
“Be careful,” advised Clay. “It isn’t more than a hundred feet back to the wall of rock, and whatever is in there, man or beast, is pretty close to us. Wait until I get my gun.”
The searchlight revealed nothing save bare rock and stunted, starved shrubs which grew protestingly in such shallow soil as had found its way into the crevices of the rocks.
“You’re a rattle-headed dog, Captain Joe,” Clay admonished, as the boys turned back toward the platform car and its cargo of motor boat.
But Captain Joe was not inclined to accept this reproof lightly. Instead of going back with the boys, he bounded to a sloping shelf of rock and uttered a succession of growls, menacing and deep-chested.
“There is something up there!” Case commented. “It may be a bear. There are bears in British Columbia, you know.”