“You are likely to know it, if you go up there,” Clay laughed. “I advise you to keep away.”
“Do the bears of British Columbia talk?” asked Case, who was closer to the dog and the shelf of rock than his companion.
“Yes; with their teeth,” answered Clay.
“Well, this bear, the one up on the rocks, is trying to coax the dog up to him,” answered Case. “I heard him tell Captain Joe that he was making a great mistake in looking upon him as an enemy, or words to that effect. Captain Joe doesn’t believe him, at that!”
“You heard a voice up there?” interrogated Clay, hardly crediting the statement. “I guess you are having a dream!”
Captain Joe passed out of sight in the dusk and his hoarse protests died away. Clay called to him to come back, but the dog did not make his appearance.
“I’m going after him,” Case declared. “He may get shot. There’s a man in there, all right!”
Clay held his chum back with both hands and called again and again to the dog. Directly Captain Joe returned, looking very much like a boy who had been invited to a delightful excursion and then detained at home by parental command. He crouched down at Clay’s feet, but kept his eyes on the rocks above.
“I guess the dog knows,” Case argued. “You can’t fool Captain Joe. There is some one hiding in the rocks.”
“Look here,” argued Clay, “we’ve been lying here since early this morning, haven’t we? Well, that is only a narrow place, between the spur and the almost perpendicular wall of rock, and we would have seen anybody sneaking about, wouldn’t we? Why, I’ve been up there where the dog went half a dozen times to-day, and there was no sign of a person there, no sort of a place for one to hide in. You heard a wild animal growling, that’s what you heard.”