“Then there would be a lost kid to go with the Lost Mine,” declared Jim humorously. “Yes, boys, I’m going to take you above timber-line.”
“Well,” said Jeems philosophically, “it is a whole lot better than going over the range altogether, as might have been the case if we had taken the trail through the big canyon over yonder.”
“Say, Jeems!” exclaimed Jo, with a catch in his voice, “you never told Jim and Juarez about the time you was sitting with your back to a tree and they slipped up and tied you, and if we hadn’t come along there was no telling what might have happened to you.”
“That was a close call,” said Jeems. “It was when you, Jim and Juarez were off hunting, and the boys had gone fishing. They got back just in the nick of time.” Then he went solemnly to work to tell of the thrilling escape he had had. At the climax of his narrative, Tom and Jo burst into roars of laughter.
“What’s the matter with you two guys?” inquired Jim. “I bet my hat that you were at the bottom of this rascality.”
The two admitted their guilt, and, after his surprise was over, Jeems took it good-naturedly, while even Jim had to laugh, for it was certainly a successful practical joke.
“Sometime,” said Jim prophetically, “you two kittens will get caught up with.”
The boys had now ridden above the stunted trees that marked the limits of timber line, but they did not cross over the barren, rocky summit that rose above them for two thousand feet, covered with a broad mantle of snow, but instead bore south through a deep gorge, that threatened to close its rocky jaws upon them at every turn. But Jim was too good a scout to lead them where they would be trapped.
Before noon they had made their way out of the gorge and were upon the northwestern slope of the great mountain. Looking off, while they gave their horses time to breathe, they saw a somewhat different looking section of the range than that which they had been traveling through the past day. From the height where they now stood the vast region beneath them was made up of low mountains, extending onward like recurring billows of the sea, hemmed in by peaks and higher mountains.
“Down there somewhere is the Lost Mine,” said Jim, with a sweep of his hand.