ON THE TRAIL
The Ramblers were so pleased with the ranch-house and their new-found acquaintances that next morning they accepted the cattle king's invitation to remain another twenty-four hours.
Two days later they were lolling on the shore of a lake surrounded by magnificent hills. In places they saw almost perpendicular walls of glistening rock, wild-looking slopes covered with timber, and jutting crags. And all this appeared again, with wonderful clearness, in the still water of the lake.
The bronchos, tethered to trees close by, cropped the long tangled grass or drank from a shallow inlet which extended some distance back.
A noonday repast had just been finished, and the glowing coals were still sending out a grateful warmth, for the air was cold and penetrating.
"Where are we, I wonder?" murmured Jack for the tenth time.
"Somebody had better run over to the corner grocery and find out," grinned Tim. "Want to send some picture postals home?"
"How in the dickens shall we ever find our way back to anywhere?" went on Jack, grumblingly. "May take the rest o' our lives to do it. We haven't even seen a glimpse o' that mountain where Wanna's gold mine—"
"Hey, cut it out, Jacky," interposed Dick. "You're breaking rule number one again—that makes the seventy-eighth time."
"Suppose you think some bear, or little birdlet, or panther is listening!" jeered Jack. "Hang it! Bet nobody else would be silly enough to fight his way through walls o' bushes an' wade wet creeks like we have. How do you know we're goin' in the right direction, eh?"