Clay paddled back to the Rambler, and Case, led on by the dog, started off into the cedar thicket. At first Captain Joe trotted along calmly in the white circle thrown by the electric candle in the boy’s hand, but as he penetrated deeper into the forest, following a wide canyon running between two precipitous ranges, he became excited and dashed on so rapidly that it was with difficulty that Case kept pace with him.
It was dark as a pocket in the forest, and the underbrush made progress difficult, but the boy and the dog kept resolutely on for nearly half an hour before coming to a halt. Then Captain Joe bristled his back, showed his teeth, and emitted a succession of threatening growls.
“What is it, old boy?” asked Case, hoping that the boys were not far off, as he was becoming weary as well as fearful for their safety.
Captain Joe advanced through a thicket for a few paces and then backed out, showing that, whatever it was that he was investigating, it was not very far away. Case did not urge him on, for he did not know what peril lurked in the darkness of the undergrowth. The dog continued to growl, but did not again advance into the tangle from which he had just emerged.
There was no wind whatever in that sheltered place, and there was only the roar of the rapids below the Rambler to break the silence, except that now and then a night bird flew protestingly from a perch in a nearby tree and winged to a more secluded position. Case stood with his light on the thicket for a moment, listening.
Then he heard a giggle from a great cedar in the middle of the tangle of bushes. It was not a laugh, but a positive giggle. The tree, only forty or fifty feet away, was thick of bough, and Case could not see into its top, but the giggle was repeated, and he walked forward.
There was no mistaking that giggle! Alex was hiding in the tree! Clay supposed that the boy had seen the light coming and had climbed the cedar for the purpose of playing a joke on his chum, so he walked on into the tangle at its foot and called out:
“Alex! Come out of that, you crazy loon! What are you doing up there, anyway? Come down or I’ll send a couple of bullets up there.”
The giggle came louder than ever, and Alex’s voice came down from the lower boughs of the tree.
“You might keep your light going,” the lad up the tree said, in a casual manner, “for if you let it switch off you’ll probably receive a visit from the grizzly bear that has been keeping me up in this tree for a couple of hours. And keep Captain Joe away. His Grizzlyship could kill him with one poke.”