“Now, you fellows,” said he, as we got sat cross-legged before the map, “we have got to get to the other side of this river somehow or go home again. There are three ways of doing it: by fording, by rafting, or by going a long way down-stream to the bridge marked here. The last is out of the question, for our friend Squeaky is probably waiting there for us now. I think that if we can’t find a ford in a couple of days we had better build a little raft at some point where the river is not too swift, ferry our things across, and make the horses and mules swim. I have no doubt we might find a ford if we were to follow up the stream far enough, but you see the country is very little known up in that direction, for most of the branch streams are marked with dotted lines, showing that they are unexplored. So I think a raft— Hallo! Ulysses. What’s the matter with you?”
Ulysses, who had been peacefully snoozing in the shade, at this moment sprang to his feet and began to growl, sniffing the breeze which blew up the river. Jack rose and looked in that direction through the tops of the willows, but hardly had he straightened up ere he ducked down again, and whispered:
“Horsemen. Riding on the other side of the river about a mile off. Coming this way. Get your rifles.”
At some remote period in the earth’s history there had occurred in this neighbourhood a great volcanic eruption, covering the wide-spreading plain with a thick bed of lava. Into this lava-bed the strong, ceaseless flow of the river had cut a channel some fifteen to twenty feet deep, in the perpendicular walls of which there was no apparent break except at the point where the little stream upon which we were encamped ran down to the river. From where we stood we could see a long way down-stream, and with much anxiety we watched the approaching riders. Was Squeaky there? That was the question that troubled us. Had he somehow got wind of our movements, and had he abandoned his post at the bridge below in order to seek for our trail up the river?
“I can’t make them out,” said Jack, who was gazing at them intently through the glass. “The sun is just behind them——”
As he spoke the cavalcade suddenly vanished as though the earth had swallowed it up; but in another minute it reappeared in the river. There was evidently a break in the wall which we could not see.
“It’s all right,” exclaimed Jack, as soon as he got sight of them against the dark background of the rocks. “The first is a white man, then comes a pack-horse, then two little boys on one pony, bareback, then another pack-horse, and the last is an Indian; a squaw, I expect, from her size.”
“Well, that’s a comfort,” said Percy, in a tone of much relief; a sentiment in which we all emphatically coincided.
“What are they going to do?” I asked presently. “What are they riding up the river like that for?” For they were splashing along up-stream close under the opposite bank.
“There’s a ford here somewhere,” replied Jack, “and it must come out at this point; there’s no other place. They know what they are about, you may be sure. That man is an old trapper, I expect.”