“He feels just like I used to feel when the big boys sent me out of a ball game at Lincoln park,” Clay laughed. “He thinks there is something going on here that he ought to be in with.”
When the dog disappeared from view the boys turned to the canyon.
“There’s a ridge we can follow,” Clay said, pointing, “and it will bring us out some distance to the right of the fire, with a lift of rock between us and our mysterious friends. Be careful, though, for it is getting darker every minute.”
“If it wasn’t dark,” Alex grunted, “we wouldn’t be going into the canyon at all.”
The boys made their way as silently as possible down the “hogsback,” but, with all their caution, a dislodged stone now and then thundered from under their feet to the bottom of the canyon. However, the wind was still blowing a gale, and they hoped that this would drown the noise of their advance.
It took them a long time to get down to the level of the campfire, which now supplied all the light they had to guide them. There were a few stars visible, but a low-lying mass of clouds was scudding overhead, and these shut out what little light came from above except at rare intervals.
“This doesn’t look much like a day on the Columbia!” Alex declared, blowing warm breath on his half-frozen fingers. “Huh! It is cold enough here to freeze the ears off a brass cat!”
“If the Rambler could talk,” Clay said, falling into the mood of his chum, “she’d be saying things about being taken on a cruise to the top of the Rocky Mountains. Look out, now! The ledge turns here, and straight ahead is a drop of a thousand feet, I guess, from the time it takes to bring the sound of a rolling stone back to us.”
The adventurous lads turned with the ledge, crawling now on hands and feet and keeping close to a ridge which formed the summit of the long crag. Presently they came to a rock which blocked their way.
The campfire was just beyond the rock, so they did not attempt to pass around the obstruction. They nestled down in the shelter of the boulder for a time and listened, but the wind was so strong that it carried any words which might have been spoken at the fire off to the east.