Chapter XII: Losing Their Bearings

Bob chose to consider this a direct challenge.

"I expect that it would be queer if we didn't make some sort of effort to find out what the light means. Where is it, Frank?" he remarked, with perfect coolness.

"Well, it must have gone out while you were speaking, Bob, as sure as anything," the other replied. "But I saw it, I give you my word I did. Huh! there she comes again, just like it was before. Step over here; the spur of the rock is in your way there. Now look straight up. Get it?"

"Easy, Frank. A fellow might think it was a star, if he didn't know the mountain was there. Now it's getting bigger right along."

"That's so, Bob. And yet it doesn't seem to be a fire, does it?"

"More like a lantern to me," declared the Kentucky boy. "Say, what d'ye reckon anybody could want a lantern up there for? Can you see any swinging motion to the light Frank?"

"It does seem to move, now and then, for a fact," admitted the other, after watching the gleam for a short time.

"About like a brakeman might swing his lantern if he was on a freight train in a black night, eh?" continued Bob.

"Hello! I see now what you're aiming at, Bob; you've just got a notion in your head that the lantern is being used for signalling purposes."

"Well, does that strike you as silly?" demanded Bob Archer.

"Silly? Hum! well, perhaps not, because it may be the right explanation of the thing. But whatever would anybody up there be signalling for, and who to, Bob?"

"There you've got me," laughed the other. "I'm not so far along as that yet. P'raps it might be one of the rustlers, telling something to another of the same stripe, who is located in camp out yonder on the plain. Then, again, how do we know but what it might be that Peg Grant lot? And Lopez. Don't forget little Lopez, Frank. Prospectors could have a lantern; in fact, I understand they often do carry such a thing along with 'em when they go into the mountains to pan for dust in the creek beds."

"So," said Frank, who evidently was doing considerable thinking.

They stood there for some little time, looking up at the light. Bob was merely indulging in various speculations regarding its source. On the other hand Frank busied himself in locating the strange glow, so that he might be able to know when he reached the spot, in case it was invisible at the time they arrived.

"Do we go?" asked Bob, when he, too, found his impatience getting the better of him; whereupon Frank, who had evidently been waiting for some sign, immediately took him up on it.

"If you're ready, we'll start right away," he said, quietly. "Luckily I've been studying the face of Thunder Mountain at times during the afternoon, and I reckon I can pilot the expedition all right."

But when Frank said this so confidently he failed to consider the intense darkness that might baffle all his plans of campaign. Still, Bob had the utmost confidence in his chum's ability to pull out of any ordinary difficulty. And, since his Kentucky spirit had been fully aroused, he was ready to accompany Frank anywhere, at any time.

Before they had been ten minutes on the way each of the boys sincerely wished that the idea to investigate had never appealed to them, for they began to have a rough time of it. But both were too proud to admit the fact, and so they kept crawling along over the rocks with their rifles slung on their backs, at times finding it necessary to clutch hold of bushes or saplings in order to save themselves from some tumble into holes, the actual depth of which they had no means of even guessing in the darkness.

The light was gone. Of course that might not mean it had vanished entirely; but at least it could no longer be seen by the boys who were climbing upward.

Bob was hoping his comrade would propose that they call it off, and proceed to spend the balance of the night in the first comfortable nook they ran across. But Frank himself was loath to give the first sign of a backdown. Consequently they continued the laborious task which was likely to bring no reward in its train, only the satisfaction of knowing they had accomplished the duty which they had in mind at the time of the start.

An hour must surely have gone since they first left the little green glade where the horses were staked out, and their supplies cached.

Bob found himself blown, and trembling all over with fatigue, because of the unusual exertion. The heat, too, was troublesome. But not for worlds would he be the first to complain. Frank was setting the pace, and he must be the one to call a halt.

"Phew! this is rough sledding," remarked Frank, finally, as he stopped to wipe his streaming face.

Of course Bob also came to a halt.

"Well, it is for a fact," he admitted with a little dry chuckle; for he felt really pleased to think that he had held out so long, and forced Frank to "show his hand."

"Seems to me we ought to have struck something," suggested Frank.

"Do you really mean you think we've come far enough for that?" questioned Bob.

"I reckon we have, though it's so dark I can't be dead sure. You don't happen to glimpse anything queer around here, do you, Bob?" and while speaking Frank, perhaps unconsciously, lowered his voice more or less.

"Nary a thing," replied the other, breathing fast, as if to make up for lost time.

"And I don't get any whiff of smoke, do you?" continued Frank.

"Oh! you're thinking about that volcano business again, eh?" chuckled Bob. "Nothing doing, Frank. Gee! we must be up pretty high here!"

"Feels like it," returned the prairie boy, accustomed to the heavier air of the lower levels at all times. "Makes me breathe faster, you know. But that was a hot old climb, Bob."

"All black up yonder in the sky, with never a star showing," observed the boy from Kentucky.

"Oh! we're going to get it, sooner or later," declared Frank, cheerfully. "Can't escape a ducking, I take it. But here we are, half way up old Thunder Mountain, and not a thing to show for our work. That's what I call tough!"

"Got enough?" asked his chum, invitingly.

"You mean of course for to-night only, because you'd never think of such a thing as giving up the game so early, Bob?"

"Well, I was only going to make a little suggestion," returned the other.

"Hit her up, then; though perhaps I could guess what it's like, Bob."

"All right then. You know what I mean--and that since we're away up here, we might as well make up our minds to hunt an overhanging ledge, and take a nap. But say, what're you sniffing that way for, Frank?"

"Just imagined that I got a faint whiff of smoke; but of course it was all in my eye," replied the other.

"Was it? I tell you I had a scent of it myself right then," declared the taller lad, showing signs of considerable excitement.

"Seems to come and go, then, for I don't get it any more. What was it like, Bob? Did you ever smell sulphur burning?"

"Lots of times, and helped to use it too, disinfecting," replied Bob, readily. "Spent months with my uncle, who is a doctor in Cincinnati, during an epidemic, and he often had to clean out rookeries just to stamp out the disease. But this wasn't any sulphur odor I caught, Frank."

"Then you could recognize it; eh?" asked his chum.

"It was burning wood, I give you my word for that," replied Bob, firmly.

"Hum. That sounds more like it. We'll let the volcano matter sizzle for a little while, and look around for something smaller. Burning wood must mean a fire, Bob!"

"That's what they say, always; where there's smoke there must be fire. But it seems to me we ought to see such a thing on this black night, Frank."

"Unless it's hidden, as we make our cooking fire; or else the blaze is at the last gasp. Then, after all, we may have been a little off about that light we saw," Frank continued.

"The one we said was a lantern? Then you think, now, it might have been a fire?" questioned the Kentucky lad.

"Well, I just don't know what to think. But let's look around a bit, and see if we can locate this fire," Frank suggested.

After moving around for a short time as well as the darkness allowed the two boys came together again.

"No luck, eh?" questioned Frank.

"Didn't find a thing; but I stumbled over a creek and came near taking a header down-grade that would have made that plunge of Peg's take a back seat. Just in the nick of time I managed to grab a little tree. Phew! it shook me up, though," and Bob rubbed one of his shins as though he might have "barked" it at the time of the encounter.

"Same here; only I didn't happen to fall," replied Frank.

"So it seems as if we were no better off than before," remarked Bob, dejectedly.

"We've learned where the fire isn't, if that's any satisfaction to us," chuckled his chum, trying to make the best of a bad bargain.

"And that smoke smells so meaning-like, it's sure a shame we can't just get a line on where it comes from," Bob went on to say.

Frank seemed to catch a significance in his words, for he turned sharply on his companion, saying:

"Look here, have you been getting a whiff of it again, Bob?"

"Why, yes, several of 'em in fact, Frank," replied the other, in what seemed to be a surprised tone. "But what does that matter, when neither of us can find any fire around? I sniffed and sniffed, but although I just turned my eyes in every direction not even a tiny spark could I see. And that happened just three times, Frank."

"What! do you mean you smelled smoke three separate times since you left me?" demanded the saddle boy.

"I'm sure it must have been three, because it was between the first and second times that I tripped. Yes, and always in just the same place too, which was queer enough."

"That sounds kind of encouraging, Bob," declared Frank.

"Do you think so?" asked the other, puzzled to account for Frank's newly awakened interest. "Tell me why, won't you, please, Frank?"

"Sure, after you have answered me a question," Frank promptly remarked.

"All right, let's have it, then," his chum returned.

"Do you think you could find that exact spot again?" asked Frank.

"Meaning where I sniffed that smoke each time? Why, I guess I can, because I went back there twice, all right. Couldn't be quite satisfied that there wasn't _something_ around there I ought to discover. But it turned out a fizzle, Frank."

"Perhaps it wouldn't be so unkind to me, though," the Western boy declared. "Take me to that place, Bob, and right away. It strikes me I'd just like to get another little whiff of that same wood smell, myself. It wouldn't be the first time I'd followed up a smoke trail."

"Gracious! that sounds interesting, and I hope you can do it, Frank!" breathed Bob, his admiration for his chum awakening once more.

"First of all, get me to that place. Lead off, and I'll be close at your heels. And, Bob, don't forget that spot where you came near having your tumble. Keep your level head about you."

"I'll sure try to, Frank. Come on then."

Bob led the way through the darkness. Although he had been out West for so short a time Bob Archer was rapidly learning the ways practiced by those who live close to Nature. He began to observe always all that he saw, and in such a way that he could describe it again, in every detail.

And so it chanced that, having marked his course when coming back after his unsuccessful search for the fire, he was able, not only to lead his comrade thither, but to warn him every time they approached a dangerous slide, where a trip might hurl one some hundreds of feet down the face of Thunder Mountain.

"Here is the place, Frank," Bob suddenly said, in a cautious whisper.