There wasn’t any answer and the man, or whatever it was, was gone. It was so dark we couldn’t see which way he had gone.
Harry said, “That’s funny; this is a queer place to meet anybody.”
Will Dawson said, “I guess it was just a tramp.”
“Or a leopard,” Tom Warner said.
“Or maybe a what-is-it,” Charlie Seabury chimed in.
Anyway, we didn’t want to run any risk of losing the trail, so we didn’t bother about him, but kept on up the mountain.
The higher we got, the worse it was. There was what we call mongrel forest, tall trees and thick brush underneath. But it was straight going now, without any up and down places. The trail was easy to follow, only we had to go in single file, the first fellow (that was Harry) keeping it by holding a lantern low.
Pretty soon he stopped and said, “There’s brush burning somewhere around here; I can smell it.”
Ralph Warner said, “Listen.”
We all stood stark still and just as plain as could be, I could hear a crackling sound quite a way off.