Chapter 12

IN THE HEART OF NATURE

That night the Indian slept rolled in his blanket with feet close to the campfire in true Indian style. He neither moved nor made a sound all night long so far as the boys knew, but just as the dawn, was graying the skies between the great white glaciers, he was up and striding, away on some pilgrimage of his own. He did not return until two hours later. When the boys awoke Anvik was sitting before the fire with both hands clasped about his bunched knees.

“Good morning,” greeted Tad, who was the first to emerge from the tents.

“Huh!” answered the guide.

“Is the mountain spirit willing that we should make a start this morning?”

“Him gone,” answered the Indian.

“Where?”

“Not know. Mebby Yukon, mebby Caribou,” with a wave of his hand that encompassed all the territory to the north of them. “You mush bymeby?”

“Very soon. We will have breakfast now, then we will get under way.”

Anvik nodded and grunted, then, straightening up, let fall his blanket and began preparing the things for breakfast. One by one the Pony Rider Boys appeared, stretching themselves and yawning. A wash in an icy spring close at hand awakened them instantly. Stacy was the last to emerge from his tent. He sniffed the air, then turned up his nose.

“Bacon!” he grumbled disgustedly.

“Don’t you like it?” asked Tad.

“I was thinking last night that if I keep on eating bacon for many months more I’ll be growing a pork rind in my stomach.”

“You don’t have to eat the bacon unless you want to, Chunky.”

“Yes, I do. It’s either that or starve, and Stacy Brown never will starve so long as there is anything to eat in the shop. Where’s the bath room? I want to wash.”

“Over yonder, and don’t you wash where we get our breakfast water if you know what’s good for you.”

“All water looks alike to me,” answered the fat boy, walking rather unsteadily toward the spring, rubbing his eyes.

Breakfast that morning was rather a hurried affair, for there was much to be done. The supplies had been brought up from the store the night before so there was no need to wait for the place to open, and Anvik proved to be quite handy in striking camp, needing few instructions. He remembered well all that had been told him the previous day.

They got away early. As before, the guide disdained to ride his pony. He trotted along ahead, leading the little animal until some five miles beyond the village when he leaped to the pony’s back, and with a shrill “Yip, yip!” sent it galloping ahead. This made the boys laugh. They did not laugh for long, however. A mile beyond this they swerved from the trail that led up parallel with the border between the United States and the Canadian possessions and struck straight into the wilds.

“Say, where’s the trail?” demanded the perspiring Stacy when the going became so rough that the greater part of the time they were obliged to walk, leaving their ponies to get along as best they might.

“There is no trail. This is the trackless wilderness,” replied Butler. “There is time to go back if you wish to.”

“No, I don’t want to go back.”

Ere that day was ended Chunky almost wished he had gone back while he had the opportunity. Time and time again they were obliged to haul their ponies up the steep sides of rocks by main force. Fortunately, the little animals, used to mountain climbing, were unaffected by dizzy heights or dangerous crossings, and picked their way almost daintily. The boys were perspiring and red of face, but happy. They thoroughly enjoyed this wild traveling. It went beyond anything they had ever experienced.

“I hope you are satisfied,” panted the Professor when at noon they stopped on a little plateau from which gulches fell away on all sides, leaving them, as it were, on a magic island high in the air. “I sincerely hope it is wild enough for you young gentlemen.”

“Not any too much so, Professor,” answered Tad. “I could stand it a lot wilder.”

“At the present rate you will have it that way.”

They built a fire and cooked a light meal, after which all hands lay down for an hour, with the exception of Anvik, who sat bunched in his now familiar brooding position, gazing off into space. As he sat thus, his far-seeing eyes discovered something, but he did not change countenance. He simply sat in dreamy-eyed silence. Perhaps what he saw did not interest him. A column of white smoke had attracted his attention. Promptly on the expiration of the hour that the boys had given themselves to sleep, Anvik stepped briskly to them, shaking each one by the shoulder.

“Mush!” he grunted with each shake.

“I wish you wouldn’t say that,” grumbled Stacy. “It makes me think I’m going to have breakfast.”

“Heap big mush. Big snow, big mountain,” grunted the Innuit, with a sweeping gesture towards the towering peaks of the St. Elias range which they were now entering.

“Have we got to go through that?” begged Walter anxiously.

“Um,” replied the guide.

“But how shall we ever make it?”

“Mush.”

“Yes, mush,” jeered Chunky. “You just spread the mush over the mountain side and slide. Don’t you understand, Walt? My, but you are thick.”

All that afternoon they fought their way through the rugged mountains, making camp that night in a gloomy pass at the foot of Vancouver Mountain, a vast pile that towered nearly fourteen thousand feet high. It seemed to the Pony Rider Boys that they were a long way from civilization, and Tad admitted that he would soon be lost were he obliged to follow a trail up there.

The camp was made about six o’clock, still with broad daylight, but the boys considered that they had done enough for one day. The ponies were weary and Tad knew better than to press them too hard. After supper the freckle-faced boy shouldered his rifle.

Anvik gave him a glance of inquiry.

“Where are you going?” demanded the Professor.

“I’m going to ‘mush’ a little way up the pass to see if I can’t get something worth while for our breakfast.”

“You will get lost.”

“No, that will not be possible. So long as I keep in the pass I shall be all right. Don’t worry; I’ll keep in the pass all right.”

The boy plunged into the thick undergrowth, and no sooner had he done so than the giant mosquitoes and black gnats attacked him in force. Tad fought them until he grew tired of it, then he trudged on grimly, permitting them to do their worst. After a time he decided that he would get no game if he remained down in the pass, so, after carefully taking his bearings, Tad climbed the mountain until he was able to look over the tops of the trees. It was like a level green sea. He sat down in the sunlight, gazing out over the wonderful landscape.

“A world of silence,” he murmured. “If Chunky were here he would say I was getting softening of the brain. Hello!” Tad froze himself. There was scarcely a perceptible flicker of the eyelids as his gaze became fixed on a point of rock just across the pass. There, poised with one foot in the air, stood an antelope. It was a young doe, as Tad surmised it to be. His position was not a favorable one for shooting because he was in plain sight, and the least move on his part no doubt would be discovered by the antelope.

“She must have scented me or else she has got a whiff from the camp. If I don’t make any false moves she will be over in that camp within the next hour.”

Tad raised his rifle slowly. Yet slow and cautious as he was, the antelope’s head went up sharply. So did Butler’s rifle. He took quick aim and pulled the trigger. The report of his shot went crashing from wall to wall, like a series of heavy shots.

The freckle-faced boy leaped to his feet, and to one side, with rifle ready for another shot in case he had missed. But he had not. The antelope had leaped into the air, turned a complete somersault, and went crashing down into the gulch out of sight.

He Raised His Rifle Slowly.

“Hooray! Maybe it was a chance shot, but it was a dandy just the same. Now I wonder if I am going to be able to find her. I think I know how.”

The boy took out his compass and got a bearing on the point where he had last seen the antelope. Noting the course he started down the mountain side, sliding and leaping in his haste. Crossing over the pass was more difficult, for a broad glacial stream was rushing through the center of it. Nothing daunted, Tad plunged in, but was swept off his feet almost instantly and carried several rods down before he was able to check himself by grabbing a rock.

The rifle had been held out of the water most of the way, though it got a pretty good wetting. The water was less swift from the rock on, and Tad essayed another crossing. He fell only once on the way over. This time he went in all over, rifle and all, but he got up grinning.

“It doesn’t matter much now. I can’t be any wetter, and I guess the gun isn’t any the worse off, though I shall have to give it a pretty thorough cleaning and oiling when I get back to camp.”

Having been thrown considerably off his course, Butler found some difficulty in picking it up again, but he found it at last, then guided by the compass made his way straight to where the antelope lay amid a thick mass of undergrowth. He examined her and found that the bullet had entered just behind the left shoulder.

“I couldn’t have done any better than that at fifty yards,” chuckled the boy. “The next question is, how am I going to get her to camp? I reckon I shall have to tote her.”