CHAPTER XVI
AN EXCITING CHARGE
It was indeed a beautiful morning, with the sun shining with a clarity that is characteristic only of the higher altitudes. There was quite a procession coming up the steep mountain trail. As yet they could not be made out distinctly, as they were so far down the mountain side. Then they were lost to view in one of the folds of the slope.
“I wonder whom those tenderfeet are?” The voice came from a man who was crouching behind a granite boulder. He had been watching the approaching party intently for some time. “One thing, sartain,” the voice continued, “them fellars will find trouble if they keep traveling in this neck of the woods.”
The speaker was not a prepossessing-looking party. He was of squat figure, very strongly built. His face and neck burned to a brick red. His shirt of a nondescript color was open at the neck, exposing a hairy throat. A rifle was gripped firmly in one powerful paw, and there was a knife and pistol in his belt.
He was an ugly-looking customer, and it was evident that his mission was not a peaceful one. Once more he took a look down the trail. The approaching party was much nearer now and he could count the individuals.
“Five!” he exclaimed. “Looks like they might give the boys trouble. That fellar in front has sartain got a fine horse.”
Already the voices of the five came clearly to his ears, and it would not be long before they would top the ridge, and the scout, for such he was, would be discovered.
“It’s time for me to scat!” he exclaimed.