Above the cabin, through the roaring and soughing of the wind among the spruce, came the long drawn yelling, harassed, pitiful cry of a coyote. From the cañon the cry was answered. Again and again the two human-like voices wailed despairingly at each other while the boys involuntarily drew nearer together and Ross laid a caressing hand on the gun and finished his speech:
"That’s exactly what Uncle Jake told me–how the coyotes and wolves prowled around, and he didn’t mind them nor the loneliness at all."
Leslie nodded. "I noticed that he didn’t seem to mind your being away in the same way I did. He just took to his pipe and his bunk and seemed settled for a rest until you got back again. That didn’t add any to my restfulness, I can tell you, for what could I do up in the tunnel without him? I rustled around a bit trying to decide what to do when the door opened and there was Miller again, or Weston rather. I was as surprised as they make ’em until he said:
"’Say, young feller, Doc he sent me back t’ round up a book on medicine that he may need. It’ll be layin’ round loose som’ers, maybe in that hair covered chist of hisn.’"
Leslie went on to say that when he had opened Ross’s emergency chest Weston professed to have forgotten the name of the book he had been directed to fetch, and, consequently, had taken all the books, stuffing them carelessly into his game pouch. Then the storm had again swallowed him up.
"After he went away," said Leslie, "I got to thinking pretty strongly about the dynamite. If it was so easy for one man to get into the valley from the land only knew where, why couldn’t the McKenzies make their way back and spirit the dynamite off for good and all? We’d gone and touched off that charge under Soapweed Ledge to make ’em understand that we had it again, you know."
"Yes, I know!" affirmed Ross grimly. "Geese that we were!"
"Well, those sticks got on my nerves, and I made up my mind to fasten them up if such a thing were possible. So I put on my snow-shoes and began to rattle around in the storm to see what I could do. I thought no one could come up into the tool house from under because of the mass of snow all around, and because the dynamite box was so heavy with all of your and our and the McKenzies’ sticks in it that it held the floor boards down with a vengeance. But I wasn’t taking any chances after seeing what our ’friends the enemy’ were capable of doing, so I got all the spike nails that Weimer had and nailed down the floor. Then I plowed through the storm up to Wilson’s shack, shoveled my way in, collected all the tools that could be used to pry or hammer with and brought ’em back to our tool house. And with them, Ross, I brought a great padlock and chain that I recollected seeing up there rusty and unused. I oiled it and put a bar across the tool-house door and padlocked it. And if I do say it, it would cost a man some time and strength and racket to get into that shack. It would also take some tools, and there’s none in the valley except what are behind that locked door, for before night came I had raided the McKenzie cabin and brought over all their tools. Then," continued Leslie, "I went to sleep feeling some better."
"I’ll bet you," cried Ross eagerly, "that it’s because you fastened up the dynamite that you’re here! I do believe that when Weston went back it would have been easier to cache that if he could have got it than to have brought you here."
"I don’t know, Ross." Leslie gave a short laugh. "It was easy enough to get me here, as easy as to get you. I–but you want the story as it comes."