He retraced his steps to the point where he had left the trail of the missing ponies and took it up once more. It led down into the valley and Ralph, thinking of the scores of serpents that must haunt the vicinity of the geyser, followed it with a thankful feeling that he had seen the rattlers in time to avoid them.
The traveling down the side of the ridge on which he was now was almost as hard as his clamber up the opposite acclivity. To make matters worse he encountered several muskegs smelling strongly of sulphur, and undoubtedly fed by the sulphurous springs higher up the hill. But the boy was grateful for one thing that the softer ground did for him. It made the traveling harder, but, at the same time, it held the prints of the runaways’ hoofs as clear as day; and as well as Ralph could judge from the look of their prints they were fairly fresh, and told him that he could not be far from the strays.
This encouraged him greatly, and he made good time down the hillside, strewn though the way was with obstacles. He was traveling forward thus, when from a patch of flowering shrubs ahead there came a rustle and a crackling.
Ralph’s heart jumped into his mouth. Mountain Jim had declared that the ponies had been scared by a cougar or a bear. Could the creature be just beyond him in that clump of shrubs?
He examined his rifle carefully.
“I don’t want to be treed again,” he said to himself.
So far as he could see, the rifle was in perfect working order. He stood stock still and waited for a recurrence of the disturbance in the bushes.
But following the rustling that had first attracted his attention no sound came. Ralph’s excited imagination showed him a tawny side a dozen times or more, only to be followed by the discovery that it was some dead or faded leaves and not the flank of a bear or cougar that he had spied.
“If something doesn’t happen pretty quick, I’m going to blow up!” exclaimed the boy to himself as he waited, hardly daring to breathe.