“What I want to know is, what started it?” said Mr. Stone.
“Party went in ahead of you this morning, to fish at Marion Lake,” said the ranger. “Cigarette, probably. Idiots! Snoop around there, Norman, and see what you can discover tonight. I’ll be over in the morning myself. I want to stick by here tonight and make sure this doesn’t blow up again. Well, boys, Uncle Sam is grateful to you, all right!”
They went back to the pack train, and then resumed their journey, crossing the black, smoking patch of the fire, and waving good-bye to the ranger and his helpers.
“Well, there are two precious hours gone,” Norman growled. “We’ll have to make camp in the dark.”
“But we stopped a bad fire,” said Bennie. “Aren’t you glad?”
“Sure, I’m glad. But I hate to camp in the dark. Get up!”
He kicked his horse, and all the train behind picked up to a faster pace. They didn’t hold it long, though, for the trail began to go up-hill presently, and the character of the forest to change. Instead of the big yellow pines, the path rose into a forest of smaller trees of many kinds, and shrubs, too. Spider did his best to pull off specimens of the foliage or needles as he rode past, so he could identify them. The guide would not let them stop.
Even at the top of the pass they were still in the forest, and could get no outlook. But as the trail grew level again, on the pass, they ran into snow-drifts and pools of water just melted. It was the first sign of anything cool that day. Over the pass the trail began to descend into a wild forest of big evergreens, and for the next few weary miles Bennie, for one, had little idea of where they went. He was dizzy from lack of food and his exertions in the heat, and he was so saddle sore that he had to keep shifting his weight to try to ease the stiffness. His bones and his head both ached. It was getting dark in the forest, too, whenever they had to go down into the bottom of a ravine. Nobody was saying a word, except, the horse rustler, who kept yelling at the pack horses to make them hurry.
At last, when it seemed as if he couldn’t stand his saddle another minute, and when it was so dark in the deep, damp woods that Norman was almost invisible at the head of the train, they heard him call, “Turn left,” and followed him down a side trail, so dim they would never have detected it in the dark.
A moment later there was light ahead, and they were on the shore of Marion Lake! The woods went right down to the water. There was no beach. The lake itself was a good-sized pond, perhaps a mile long, and across it rose up the snow-draped, needle-pointed spires of Three Fingered Jack, nearly 8,000 feet high. Nobody looked at the view, however; there was no time. The boys got out the tents and sleeping bags, the cook set up the stove and prepared food by lantern light. The doctor and Mr. Stone rustled wood. Norman and the helper took the horses off in the darkness to find a bit of open pasturage if they could. For half an hour, weary as they were, everybody worked like mad. And then, dirty as they were, they all rushed to the stove at the cry of “Come and get it!”