“Well, of all the nerve!” gasped Ralph. “To visit our camp on a thieving expedition mounted on a stolen pony from our pack train; can you beat it?”
“You can’t,” chorused the boys.
“Can’t even tie it,” commented Percy Simmons, standing with his hands in his pockets and legs far apart, surveying the scene of vandalism.
An investigation showed that some flour, beans, and a big hunk of bacon had been taken, besides canned goods.
“Say, I’d like to get my hands on that fellow for just about five minutes,” declared Mountain Jim angrily. “The skunk’s broken every law of the woods. If he had been hungry and asked for grub he’d have been welcome, but not to sneak it off this way. I’d just like to get hold of him.”
“Couldn’t we notify the Northwest Mounted Police?” asked the professor mildly.
“There ain’t no station closer than MacLean’s,” was the reply, “an’ that’s a good sixty miles off the other way. Besides that, we don’t go much on police in matters of this kind.”
Mountain Jim’s face took on a grim look. It was just as well for that mysterious individual that he was not within reach of those clenched and knotted fists right then. However, even with the draught that had been made on their stock of provisions, they still had a large enough supply to last them to the Big Bend, where Mountain Jim assured them they could get anything they wanted “from a pin to a threshing machine” at a store kept by a French-Canadian.
However, as they all felt a desire to push onward, they did not waste much time discussing the visit of the thief in the night. Instead, Mountain Jim and Ralph busied themselves with preparations for their start, and soon after breakfast they jogged off to an accompaniment of a chorus of good-wishes and farewells. Their road lay down the little valley in which they had camped, and before long an elbow of craggy cliff shut out the little canvas settlement from view.
The road was level for a short distance and they made good time, the ponies loping along as if they enjoyed it. Soon Mountain Jim consulted his compass and declared that the time had come for climbing a ridge and making “across country” for the ranch where he hoped to get the ponies.