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CHAPTER XVIII
AT THE “TOP OF THE WORLD”

The morning dawned with the sky a molten green and gold. The mountain peak and the high ridges were a beautiful pink, and below them lay the green and blue of the meadow like a velvet carpet.

“Wonderful!” breathed the girls in chorus.

“Could anything be more beautiful?” murmured Grace.

“This is worth all the hardships we have endured,” declared Elfreda.

The Overlanders continued to admire the scene until breakfast was ready. Immediately after the meal the journey was resumed, each one eager to reach the pink snows above that held so great a fascination for all. They came to the snow line late in the day. The ponies were left in charge of Woo Smith to remain until the party returned from the high peak of the Sierras, which was now their immediate objective.

Now that they were close to it, they discovered that the snow really was pink. No one seemed able to explain this mystery until Tom announced it as his opinion that the pink shade was due to a tiny bright red flower whose petals were found imbedded in the snow. Stacy scooped up a handful of snow and tasted it, and then made a wry face.

“It tastes like turpentine,” he declared.

The Overland Riders danced and capered about in the snow like school children, and tried to snowball each other, but found the snow so crumbly that it could not be rolled into balls. This they overcame by wetting handfuls of snow from their canteens, and then, ere they even thought of making camp, they had a merry snowballing battle thousands of feet above sea level. They battled until their breaths gave out in the rarefied air – threw snowballs at each other until almost exhausted.

“Never mind. Don’t wolly till to-mollow,” comforted Stacy Brown.

With the coming of night a chill settled over the mountain, beside which the previous nights were almost sultry, and a damp, gray cloud hid the lower reaches of the peaks like a great gray blanket. The Overlanders were glad that they were above rather than below that cloud, and they hugged their cook fire, though it was far from being a roaring one, for they did not have fuel to waste.

Tom Gray, who, before the evening was far advanced, went out to examine the strange twisted little trees that grew here and there, discovered that they were full of pitch. He said nothing to his companions, but, moving back a little distance from the camp, he tested one with a match. The trunk of the twisted tree flared instantly. He put out the blaze with snow and returned to camp.

“How would you folks like a real camp-fire?” he asked.

“There ain’t no such thing,” mocked Emma.

Grace gazed at her husband inquiringly, knowing quite well that Tom had some plan for a fire in mind.

“The easiest thing in the world, my dear friends,” chuckled Tom. “All that is needed to make a regular conflagration is the know-how.” Tom struck a match against the trunk of a small scrubby tree against which he was standing, and held the match close to the trunk until he felt the heat, then sprang away from it. The tree blazed up gloriously.

“I did it with my magic wand!” he cried, waving his arms dramatically.

Exclamations of wonder greeted the achievement, and the Overlanders gathered about the blaze, holding out their hands to catch some of the warmth.

“Me savvy nicee piecee fire,” observed Chunky solemnly.

“However did you do it, Tom?” wondered Nora.

“The tree is filled with pitch,” answered Tom Gray. “When we get ready to turn in we will light another one. I don’t suppose we shall get any warmth from it, but we can hear it crackle, which will be some comfort.”

That night the Overlanders made their beds under an overhanging rock where there was no snow, and were lulled to sleep by another of Tom Gray’s burning trees. They awakened in the morning again stiff with cold, but half an hour after sunrise they had fully recovered their spirits and were making preparations for the long hard hike ahead of them.

Each of the men carried a pack on his back, leaving the girls to carry such provisions as they thought would be needed. Even the rifles had been left behind with Woo, the mountain climbers carrying no arms but their revolvers. Ropes, an axe and a shovel were included in the equipment and they finally set out for what Elfreda Briggs characterized as “The Top of the World.”

The peak of the great mountain was reached late in the afternoon, with all hands well tired out. They found the summit of the peak strewn with huge granite slabs, from some of which the snow had been blown away in spots, forming little scooped-out cups in the pink mantle.

“Well, now that we have enjoyed this punk view, suppose we get down to some place where we can make camp and sleep,” suggested Stacy.

“This is where we are to sleep to-night,” answered Tom.

“What! Here?” gasped Stacy.

“Yes. Did we not come up here for that purpose?”

Stacy shivered, and glanced down over the glittering snow field, then shivered some more, but made no further comment.

“This will be the first time that I ever slept in a snow bank, and I trust it may be the last,” observed Emma resignedly. “Last night we found a nice dry spot for our beds, but up here – Br-r-r-r!”

“You will be as comfortable as though you were in your own bed at home,” promised Grace.

“I wish to goodness I had your imagination,” grumbled Chunky. “It must be beautiful to be able to dream things the way you do.”

No fuel for a fire had been brought along on this last leg of the climb above timber line, so supper was a cold meal. Everyone felt so miserable after supper that the Overlanders with one accord began preparing to roll up in their blankets for the night. Hippy had already dug trenches in the snow for the party to sleep in, so they might be out of the wind. The girls talked chatteringly of everything they could think of, to assist them in forgetting their misery, then crawled into their trenches and tightly rolled themselves up in their blankets.

“This is the first time I ever went to bed with my boots on,” complained Elfreda. “Should I live until morning I surely shall have something to brag about.”

“Why, girls, this is an ideal summer resort,” laughingly chided Grace.

The response was a chorus of dismal groans. For a few moments after that the Overlanders lay gazing up at the bright stars, then a gradual warmth overspread their shivering bodies, and one by one they dropped off to sleep, now nearly thirteen thousand feet above sea level.

CHAPTER XIX
BOWLING IN NATURE’S ALLEY

Contrary to expectations the Overland Riders slept soundly all through the night, but the moment they crawled from under their blankets in the morning, they began to shiver.

“Come on! Take a run with me,” urged Tom.

“Please go away and let me die,” moaned Emma.

“We must have exercise to start our blood circulating,” reminded Hippy.

“I don’t want exercise. I want something to warm me up on the inside,” protested Stacy.

Grace and Elfreda, holding hands, were already dancing about in grotesque fashion, taking long draughts of air into their lungs, the color rising to their faces as the circulation of their blood responded to their lively movements.

“Never mind, folks,” comforted Hippy. “If you will all take a lively sprint, then a snow-wash, I will give you something that will please you and fix you up in great shape.”

“I shall be past all human help long before that,” answered Emma.

“Why don’t you transmigrate yourself to a warmer clime for an hour or so?” suggested Stacy.

Tom Gray nodded to Hippy, whereupon Lieutenant Wingate took from his pack a tiny alcohol stove, which he filled from a small bottle and lighted. Over the stove he placed a coffee pot full of white snow dug from underneath the crust where it was not tainted with what Stacy had been pleased to characterize as a “turpentine taste.” As the snow melted in the coffee pot, more snow was added until there was sufficient for their use. The Overlanders, quickly discovering that something unusual was going on, ran to the coffee-maker.

“Wha – at’s this?” demanded Elfreda.

“An alcohol stove – a hot cup of coffee for each in a few moments,” chuckled Lieutenant Wingate.

“Hippy Wingate, did you have that last night?” demanded Emma.

“Yes.”

“And you let us suffer with cold and eat a coffeeless supper?” rebuked Nora Wingate.

“You lived through it. Why kick, now that you are about to have a warm drink?”

“We ought to throw you off the mountain,” declared Grace.

“Don’t do it till he gets the coffee ready,” urged Stacy.

“The reason that I did not use the alcohol kit last night was that I had only enough alcohol to burn the stove for one meal,” explained Hippy. “I knew that you would be in more urgent need of coffee in the morning than you were last night.”

“I withdraw my suggestion that we throw you over,” laughed Grace.

“Are you ready?” called Lieutenant Wingate. “The coffee is.”

“Are we ready? Just watch us,” cried Emma Dean.

Each had an individual cup, and Hippy passed lumps of sugar to them from his own kit. They had no milk, but there was no complaint, for the Overlanders were glad enough to get the coffee black. This, with some biscuit and cold venison, comprised the meal, but they declared unanimously that they had never had a more appetizing breakfast.

“I have decided,” announced Stacy finally, “not to be a party to the plan to throw Uncle Hip overboard – at least not to-day. Good-morning, Sun! Welcome to our happy home,” he added, bowing to the rising sun.

Tom called attention to two birds circling over them, which he said were jays looking for crumbs, whereupon the girls broke up pieces of hard tack and sprinkled them over the ground a few yards from the camp. The jays swooped down on the crumbs, chattering and scolding. Grace then suggested that, having reached the “top of the world,” they resume their journey and explore the lower ridges, taking the whole day for their return to camp. The first quarter of a mile down was a slide rather than a walk, but the Overlanders made merry over their frequent mishaps, finally reaching a long granite slope on the south side of the mountain where there was little snow. There, the sun’s rays blazed down all day long, and there many sparkling streams had their origin.

About them the ground was strewn with boulders from the size of a man’s head up to great spheres of flint-like stone, many as round and glistening as though they had been turned and polished by man.

“Oh, look at the beautiful lake!” cried Nora enthusiastically, pointing to a body of water in the valley far below them. “What is it?”

“It doesn’t appear on my map. I don’t know what it is,” answered Tom.

“Perhaps it is the Aerial Lake that we have been warned against,” suggested Grace.

“I was thinking of that myself,” nodded Tom. “There are trees growing in the lake, but what are those glistening objects farther out?”

“Rocks,” replied Grace, after focusing her binoculars on the shining marks.

“I wonder if I can hit one of them,” said Stacy, picking up a round stone which he sent rolling down the smooth granite slope. The stone shot over a broad, shelving rock, leaped far out into the air, then, after what seemed an interminable time, splashed into the lake. The Overlanders saw a tiny spurt of water as the stone struck the surface of the lake.

“Folks, I’ve got an idea. Greatest thing you ever heard of, too,” cried Hippy.

“Throw it over the cliff,” suggested Emma. “The very best possible use to which you can put your ideas.”

“That is exactly what I am going to do, my dear Emma. Just watch my smoke.”

The Overland Riders were puzzled to know what Hippy had in mind. First, he cut several tough lodge poles, then selecting a boulder half as high as himself, Hippy easily pried it from its resting place with a pole and started it down the slope. The boulder soon began to roll, gaining momentum with the seconds, striking fire as now and then it came into contact with sharp projections of rock.

The boulder finally hit the shelving slabs of granite at the edge of the cliff with a mighty crash and leaped out into the air. The party watched its projectile-like flight with fascinated gaze.

Then came the splash into the lake. The Overlanders did not hear the splash but they saw the water spurt up into the air like a miniature geyser, and fall in a silver shower over a wide area.

“Hurrah!” shouted Stacy, tossing his hat into the air.

Tom Gray was excited, and so were his companions. Stacy Brown was already prying at a boulder with a pole, while Hippy had run to another one and was digging an opening into which to insert his lever, using a flat stone for a fulcrum. Many of the boulders lay resting on the slope and thus were easily thrown out of balance.

“Wait!” cried Elfreda. “We will have a game of bowling.”

“Yes, and the highest one that was ever played,” exclaimed Grace.

“And I’ll be Rip Van Winkle. Show me a soft place to lie down and sleep,” cried Stacy.

“Where are the ninepins?” demanded Emma. “One cannot bowl without having something to bowl at.”

“Use the trees down yonder in the lake,” suggested Hippy. “The one who makes the first score will be free of camp duties for the next twenty-four hours.”

“I won’t play,” declared Chunky. “I know you want to work some sharp game on me.”

“And the one who makes no score at all must do the work for all those who do make scores,” added Elfreda laughingly.

The fat boy sat down stubbornly.

“Go on with your game,” he said.

“What’s the matter? Don’t you want to play, Honey?” asked Nora.

“No. I’m going to be the umpire,” answered Stacy.

“As you please,” laughed Hippy. “You will have to do the chores anyway. Folks, I am going to try to hit the third tree to the left of that group of rocks near the middle of the lake. Now watch me.”

Hippy started a rock, which he had selected with great care. It boomed over the ledge, observed in breathless silence by the spectators, then hurtled far out over the lake, finally smashing into the blue waters, throwing spray high in the air.

“A miss!” shouted the Overlanders.

“He missed it by half a mile,” jeered the umpire. “Why don’t you change your sights? You are shooting over the mark.”

Tom took the next try. He balanced his rock, after having pried it loose, and made it ready for the fall, and sent it crashing along on its way. As nearly as the eye could measure, Tom’s boulder fell some twenty rods to the right of the tree aimed at. Tom then made ready a boulder for Grace. She failed to hit the lake, and derisive howls greeted her effort. Elfreda and Nora did a little better than that. Both hit the lake, but nowhere near the mark they had aimed at.

Stacy got up slowly and yawned.

“You folks make me tired. You ought to go to night school and learn how to roll stones. Why, even our little transmigrating Emma could beat you sharps at throwing stones. Emma, will you roll if I fix a boulder for you?” questioned Stacy.

“Yes, if you promise not to play tricks on me.”

Stacy winked at Emma and nodded sideways to the others, as indicating that the trick was to be played on them, then snatching up his pole he ran to a boulder that he had some time since selected for his own.

After prying the rock into proper position, squinting and sighting and surveying the rock from all sides, he nodded to Emma and offered the pole to her.

“Take it easy. If you can’t move the rock I’ll lend you a hand,” whispered Stacy.

“Ladies and gentlemen, you are now about to witness one of Emma Dean’s most notable transmigration feats. Keep your eyes on the performer and you will see that she has nothing up her sleeve – nor under her hat,” announced Hippy Wingate.

“Tip it over!” commanded Stacy, throwing his weight on the pole with Emma. “Watch the two twin-trees down there, but look sharply or you won’t see them when they disappear from the face of the earth,” he warned, strolling back towards his companions.

Emma’s boulder, not being quite round, moved very slowly at first, and once it threatened to stop altogether and go no further, but finally, gaining new impetus, it started savagely on its way to the ledge, where it did a clumsy hop into the air, then dived for the lake.

“It is going to hit the lake!” cried Grace.

“What did you think we were trying to hit?” demanded Stacy. “If it is a hit – if little Emma makes a killing, I did it. If she misses, she did it.”

“It’s a hit!” yelled Lieutenant Wingate.

“You don’t say?” wondered Stacy, turning quickly, the most amazed member of the Overland party.

Cheers greeted the achievement as two trees standing side by side in the lake disappeared as if by magic. Stacy threw out his chest and paraded back and forth with folded arms, an expression of dignified superiority on his face.

“I don’t have to work for a whole week,” observed Stacy.

“Oh, yes you do,” answered Elfreda. “You know you weren’t in the game – you are only the umpire. Further, Emma won the roll, and will have a vacation until to-morrow afternoon.”

“There goes my Hippy’s roll!” cried Nora, and for the moment attention was centered on Lieutenant Wingate’s rolling boulder. It made a clean hit, knocking down a tree close to the water.

“The racket must be terrific down there,” said Grace. “Hippy, you surely raised a disturbance with that last shot.”

Tom tried once more and sent a boulder into the lake. The Overlanders plainly heard the impact, and could see a shower of broken rock being distributed over the surface of the lake.

Suddenly a new sound smote the ears of the Overland Riders, a familiar sound that they had heard many times in France and on their journeys in their own land.

“What’s that?” demanded Stacy.

“That?” answered Hippy. “Why, that is a butterfly lullaby. You surely ought to know that sound by this time.”

“Woo, woo, woo!” was the sound that smote their ears again.

“Down, all of you! We’re under fire!” shouted Tom Gray.

CHAPTER XX
LEAD AND MYSTERY IN THE AIR

“Are – are we attacked?” wailed Emma Dean.

“Bullets are coming from somewhere, that is certain,” answered Hippy, raising his head from the ground on which he, as well as his companions, had thrown themselves at the first shot.

Following the last two shots, the reports of rifles were distinctly heard by each member of the party, and each pair of eyes was straining to locate the source of the shooting.

“Oh, it must be a mistake,” cried Emma.

“That doesn’t help us any,” replied Tom Gray. “But I do wish we had our rifles.”

“Don’t wolly till to-mollow,” advised Stacy.

Hippy raised himself to a sitting position and waved his handkerchief.

“Woo, woo, woo! – Bang!”

Hippy threw himself over backwards, his feet kicking up into the air, his attitude being so funny that the Overlanders laughed heartily. Their laughter, however, quickly subsided, when they recalled that the last shot had passed very close to them.

Tom Gray had been listening to the whistle of the bullets and to the reports that followed, and the result of his listening and looking was the conclusion that the shooters were getting the range, and that, undoubtedly, smokeless powder was being used.

“I don’t care whether they see me or not,” exclaimed Hippy, getting to his feet, but no sooner had he done so than a bullet whistled so close to him that, as he declared later, he felt the hot breath of it on his cheek.

“Did you see that?” he cried, throwing himself on the ground.

“No. I didn’t see it. I may have sharp eyes, but they aren’t sharp enough to see a bullet on the wing,” retorted Stacy.

“What I cannot understand is, why they are shooting at us,” wondered Elfreda.

“Perhaps they think we have been throwing stones at them,” suggested Emma.

“Rolling stones gather no moss,” interjected Stacy. “Possibly, however, our rolling stones came near gathering in some parties down in the valley, and they are retaliating by shooting at us.”

“Girls! Let’s get out of here,” cried Grace, springing up. “I am weary of hiding.”

“Get down!” shouted several voices.

Grace gave no heed to the command, nor to the bullet that sang over her head, but when one barely grazed her cheek, she decided that she was quite ready to join her companions on the ground again.

“Are we going to lie here all day and let those ruffians shoot at us?” demanded Emma.

“The only other alternative is to crawl away,” answered Tom.

“Crawl where?” questioned Grace.

“To that ridge to the right of us.”

“I’m blest if I do!” retorted Hippy, getting up and walking deliberately towards the rocks indicated by Tom Gray.

The others, with the exception of Stacy Brown, not to be outdone in courage by Lieutenant Wingate, got up and followed him, not hurriedly, but walking slowly, keeping some distance between them, and in this way finally reaching the ridge and safety. Several shots were fired at them on the way, but all went wide of the mark.

“Where is Stacy? Quick! Maybe he has been hit,” urged Nora almost hysterically.

Grace sprang back and peered around the corner of the rocks.

“Oh, girls! Look at him, will you?” she cried.

Leaning as far out from the rocks as they dared, the Overlanders discovered the missing Chunky. He was flat on the ground on his stomach, wriggling along in a fair imitation of a serpent.

“Get up and walk, you tenderfoot!” laughed Hippy. “What are you afraid of?”

“Nothing. I just happened to think how, when I was a baby, I used to creep to the pantry to pick up crumbs, so I thought I’d see if I had forgotten how,” answered Stacy.

“You are a fine hero, aren’t you?” observed Emma sarcastically, when Stacy, having finally reached the protection of the rocks, got up and brushed the dirt from his clothes.

“No. All the heroes are dead. I don’t want to be a hero. What’s the news from the front?”

“Impossible!” muttered Tom, laughing in spite of himself. Tom had been pondering, wondering, trying to account satisfactorily to himself for this attempt on their lives.

“What do you make of it?” asked Elfreda, nodding at him.

“It may have been accidental,” he replied.

Grace shook her head.

“No, they were shooting at us,” declared Hippy.

“I have been wondering, thinking about what Mr. Giddings told us at the ‘Lazy J’ ranch,” said Miss Briggs. “You remember what he said about the mysterious Aerial Lake, don’t you?”

“It is my opinion that we have been bombarding that very same lake,” declared Grace. “That, however, does not explain the shots.”

“Perhaps not,” returned Elfreda, “but it does go a long way towards proving that there is something in what the foreman of the ‘Lazy J’ told us. I, for one, am in favor of giving that lake a wide berth.”

“No, no,” protested Hippy and Grace. “Let’s find out what the mystery is,” added Grace.

“I’ll stay back and watch the horses while you are gone,” offered Stacy.

“Back to camp for us, now. To-morrow we shall decide what is best to be done,” advised Tom.

Having reached the safe side of the mountain, the party took a direct course for their camp, which was located close to what they had named “Bear Mountain,” because its top strongly resembled an ambling bear. They found pretty rough going until they reached a point about a mile from the camp, and there Tom suggested that they move more cautiously, and not blunder into camp, not knowing what they might find there.

They had approached within sight of their camp when Hippy halted and beckoned his companions to him.

“What is it?” questioned Tom.

For answer, Hippy pointed to a jutting rock which they knew lay just back of the camp itself. There, outlined on the rock, was a figure. It did not require very keen eyes to recognize the figure, even at that distance.

“Woo! Thank goodness,” exclaimed Miss Briggs.

“I’ll give him a yell,” volunteered Stacy.

“No, no!” protested Grace. There was that in the attitude of the Chinaman that appealed to Grace’s bump of caution. “Wait until he sees us,” she counseled. “Trust Woo to shout, unless there be good reason why he should not.”

The party moved on cautiously, thus far well screened by foliage, but the instant they appeared in the open, the guide saw them and began excitedly waving his arms.

“Do you see?” nodded Grace.

“He does seem to be excited about something,” agreed Tom.

“If there is likely to be trouble, perhaps I had better fall back as sort of reserve,” suggested Stacy. “In case of trouble it is a wise plan to have reserves, you know.”

No one paid the slightest attention to Stacy’s suggestion, nor did they increase their pace, not wishing to show that they shared the excitement of the guide, though there was a suspicion in their minds as to the cause of that excitement.

As they drew nearer, Woo Smith clambered down from his perch and trotted out to meet them. His face expressed neither pleasure nor alarm.

“Good-afternoon, Mr. Smith,” greeted Emma with dignity.

“Are the ponies all safe?” smiled Grace.

“Him velly good.”

“Then what are you stewing about?” blurted out Stacy Brown.

“Anything wrong, Smith?” asked Tom Gray anxiously.

“Les. Bang, bang!”

“You mean bing, bing, don’t you?” cut in Stacy.

“Me savvy bang, bang!” returned the guide.

“Oh, let it go at that,” urged Hippy. “It doesn’t make much difference either way, whether it is ‘bang, bang’ or ‘bing, bing’!”

“Me savvy boom, boom, too,” added Woo.

“No, no. You mean bang, bang!” insisted Chunky.

“For goodness sake, give the poor fellow a chance,” begged Elfreda laughingly. “You will get him so befuddled that he will not know what he means. Woo, what is the trouble? Have you seen strangers about?”

The guide’s queue bobbed vigorously, as he pointed to a ridge on the other side of the canyon.

“Me savvy man there. Me savvy boom, boom! Bang, bang!”

Grace’s face lighted up.

“We understand, Woo. You heard guns and you saw a man over there,” she nodded. “Did the man see you?”

The Chinaman shook his head.

“Do you think he discovered the camp?” asked Tom Gray.

Woo shook his head again.

“He heard the boom of our bowling game and the shots following. That seems quite clear, but there appears to be no reason why we should be excited about it,” said Lieutenant Wingate.

Grace said she did not agree with him.

“What the guide says, indicates to me that the stranger was not only seeking to wing us, but that he was looking for our camp. Was that all you saw, Woo?”

“No. Me savvy woman.”

“What’s that?” demanded Hippy sharply.

The Overlanders’ interest was aroused anew.

“Me savvy woman. Woman come close and peek. Woman see camp, then go ’way. Br-r-r! Big piecee woman make ugly face!”

“Discovered!” exclaimed Hippy Wingate dramatically.