“Do tell,” exclaimed the rough-looking stranger, “and you’re only a kid, too! Yankee?”
Ralph nodded. Just then Jim reappeared at the crack on the top of the fallen rock, and as his eyes fell on the stranger he uttered a yell of astonishment.
“Great Blue Bells of Scotland,” he shouted, “it’s Bitter Creek Jones!”
“That’s me,” rejoined the stranger shifting in his saddle, “but who may you be? Come out and show yourself.”
“I can’t. My door is locked on the outside, so to speak; but I’m Mountain Jim Bothwell—remember me?”
The stranger broke into a great roar of delight.
“Wa’al, do tell. If this ain’t luck. Mountain Jim! I ain’t never forgot that day on the Bow River that you saved me from that bunch of huskies that was goin’ to hold me up and take my dust away frum me. But come on out. Let’s shake your paw, old pal!”
“Sorry, but I’m not receiving to-day,” responded Mountain Jim. He hastened on to explain what had happened within the last few hours, interrupted constantly by Bitter Creek Jones’ astonished exclamations.
“I heard an almighty firin’ an’ blazin’ away frum over this neck of the woods,” he said, “and I jes’ nacherally come over ter see what in Sam Hill was goin’ forward. So ye’re all walled up, hey? Jes’ wait a jiffy while I take a look at that rock. It’ll be tough luck if Bitter Creek can’t get you out’n that mouse-trap without’n you havin’ ter ride fifty miles fer help.”