The Motor Rangers Through the Sierras

by John Henry Goldfrap

  CHAPTER X.

  ALONG THE TRAIL.

  "Voss iss dot aboudt mein horse?"

  The group examining that noble animal turned abruptly, to find thequadruped's owner in their midst. Herr Muller still wore his famousabbreviated pajama suit, over which he had thrown a big khaki overcoatof military cut belonging to Nat. Below this his bare legs stuck outlike the drum sticks of a newly plucked chicken. His yellow hair wasrumpled and stood up as if it had been electrified. Not one of the boyscould help laughing at the odd apparition.

  "Well, pod'ner," rejoined Cal, taking up the horse's broken hitchingrope and leading it back to its original resting place, "you're purtylucky ter hev a horse left at all. This yar Ding-dong Bell almost 'puthim in the well' fer fair. He drilled about ten bullets more or lessaround the critter's noble carcass."

  "But couldn't hit him with one of them," laughed Nat, to Ding-dong'sintense disgust. The stuttering lad strode majestically off to theauto, and turned in, nor could they induce him to go on watch againthat night.

  The morning dawned as fair and bright and crisp as mornings in theSierras generally do. The sky was cloudless and appeared to be bornealoft like a blue canopy, by the steep walls of the canyon enclosingthe petrified forest. The boys, on awakening, found Cal already up andabout, and the fragrance of his sage brush fire scenting the clear air.

  "'Mornin' boys," sang out the ex-stage driver as the tousled headsprojected from the auto and gazed sleepily about, "I tell yer this isther kind of er day that makes life worth livin'."

  "You bet," agreed Nat, heading a procession to the little spring at thefoot of one of the giant petrified trees.

  "It's c-c-c-c-cold," protested Ding-dong, but before he could utterfurther expostulations his legs were suddenly tripped from under himand he sprawled head first into the chilly, clear water. Joe Hartleywas feeling good, and of course poor Ding-dong had to suffer. By thetime the latter had recovered his feet and wiped some of the water outof his eyes, the others had washed and were off for the camp fire. Withan inward resolve to avenge himself at some future time, Ding-dong soonjoined them.

  If the petrified forest had been a queer-looking place by night, viewedby daylight it was nothing short of astonishing.

  "It's a vegetable cemetery," said Cal, looking about him. "Each ofthese stone trees is a monument, to my way of thinking."

  "Ach, you are a fullosopher," applauded Herr Muller, who had just risenand was gingerly climbing out of the tonneau.

  "And you're full o' prunes," grunted Cal to himself, vigorously slicingbacon, while Nat fixed the oatmeal, and Joe Hartley got some cannedfruit ready.

  Presently breakfast was announced, and a merry, laughing partygathered about the camp fire to despatch it.

  "I'll bet we're the first boys that ever ate breakfast in a petrifiedforest," commented Joe.

  "I reckin' you're right," agreed Cal, "it makes me feel like anossified man."

  "Dot's a feller whose headt is turned to bone?" asked Herr Muller.

  "Must be Ding-dong," grinned Joe, which promptly brought on a renewalof hostilities.

  "I've read that the petrification is caused by particles of ironpyrites, or lime, taking the place of the water in the wood," put inNat.

  "Maybe so," agreed Cal, "but I've seen a feller petrified by too muchforty rod liquor."

  "I wonder what shook so many of the stony stumps down," inquired Joe,gazing about him with interest.

  "Airthquakes, I guess," suggested Cal, "they get 'em through here oncein a while and when they come they're terrors."

  "We have them in Santa Barbara, too," said Nat, "they're nasty thingsall right."

  "Come f-f-f-f-from the e-e-e-earth getting a t-t-t-t-tummy ache,"sagely announced Ding-dong Bell.

  While the boys got the car ready and filled the circulating water tankwith fresh water from the spring, Herr Muller and Cal washed the tindishes, and presently all was ready for a start. Herr Muller decidedthat he would ride his horse this morning and so the move was made,with that noble steed loping along behind the auto at the best pace hisbony frame was capable of producing. Luckily for him, the going wasvery hard among the fallen stumps of the petrified trees, and the tall,column-like, standing trunks, and the car could not do much more thancrawl.

  All were in jubilant spirits. The bracing air and the joyous sensationof taking the road in the early dawn invigorated them.

  "I tell you," said Cal, "there's nothing like an early start in theopen air. I've done it a thousand times or more I guess, but it alwaysmakes me feel good."

  "Dot iss righd," put in Herr Muller, "vunce at Heidelberg I gets meoop by sunrise to fighd idt a doodle. I felt goot but bresently I gedtpoked it py der nose mit mein friendt's sword. Den I nodt feel sogoodt."

  While the others were still laughing at the whimsical German'sexperience he suddenly broke into yodling:

  "Hi lee! Hi lo! Hi lee! Hi lay! Riding along by der fine summer's day; Hi lee! Hi lo! Hi lee! Hi lay! Riding along on my----"

  "Ear!" burst out Joe, as the German's horse caught its foot in a gopherhole, and stumbled so violently that it almost pitched the caroler overits head.

  "That's ther first song I ever heard about a Chink," commented Cal,when Herr Muller had recovered his equilibrium.

  "Voss is dot Chink?" asked Herr Muller, showing his usual keen interestin any new word.

  "Gee whiz, but you Germans are benighted folks. Why, a Chink's aChinaman, of course."

  "Budt," protested the German spurring his horse alongside the auto andspeaking in a puzzled tone, "budt I voss not singing aboudt a Chinaman."

  "Wall, I'll leave it to anyone if Hi Lee and Hi Lo ain't Chink names,"exclaimed Cal.

  Whatever reply Herr Muller might have found to this indisputableassertion is lost forever to the world. For at that moment Nat, who wasat the wheel, looked up to see a strange figure coming toward them,making its way rapidly in and out among the column-like, petrifiedtrunks. His exclamation called the attention of the others to it andthey regarded the oncoming figure with as much astonishment as did he.

  It was the form of a very tall and lanky man on a very short and fatdonkey, that was approaching them. The rider's legs projected till theytouched the ground on each side like long piston rods and moved almostas rapidly as he advanced. What with the burro's galloping and theman's rapid footwork, they raised quite a cloud of dust.

  "Say, is that fellow moving the burro, or is the burro moving him?"inquired Joe, with perfectly natural curiosity.

  Faster and faster moved the man's legs over the ground, as he camenearer to the auto.

  "I should think he'd walk and let the burro ride," laughed Nat.

  As he spoke the boy checked the auto and it came to a standstill. Thetall rider could now be seen to be an aged man with a long, whitebeard, and a brown, sunburned face, framed oddly by his snowy whiskers.He glanced at the boys with a pair of keen eyes as he drew alongside,and stopped his long-eared steed with a loud:

  "Whoa!"

  "Howdy," said Cal.

  "Howdy," rejoined the stranger, "whar you from?"

  "South," said Cal.

  "Whar yer goin'?"

  "North," was the rejoinder.

  "Say, stranger, you ain't much on the conversation, be yer?"

  "Never am when I don't know who I be talking to," retorted Cal. Theboys expected to see the other get angry, but instead he broke into alaugh.

  "You're a Westerner all right," he said. "I thought everybody knew me.I'm Jeb Scantling, the sheep herder from Alamos. I'm looking fer somegrass country."

  "Bin havin' trouble with the cattlemen?" inquired Cal.

  "Some," was the non-committal rejoinder.

  "Wall, then you'd better not go through that way," enjoined Cal,"there's a bunch of cattle right through the forest thar."

  "Thar is?" was the somewhat alarmed rejoinder, "then I reckon it's noplace fer me."

  "No, you'd better try back in the mountains some place," advised Cal.r />
  "I will. So long."

  The old man abruptly wheeled his burro, and working his legs in thesame eccentric manner as before soon vanished the way he had come.

  "That's a queer character," commented Nat, as the old man disappearedand the party, which had watched his curious actions in spellboundastonishment, started on once more.

  "Yes," agreed Cal, "and he's had enough to make him queer, too. Asheepman has a tough time of it. The cattlemen don't want 'em aroundthe hills 'cos they say the sheep eat off the feed so close thar ain'tnone left fer the cattle. And sometimes the sheepmen start fires toburn off the brush, and mebbe burn out a whole county. Then every oncein a while a bunch of cattlemen will raid a sheep outfit and clean itout."

  "Kill the sheep?" asked Joe.

  "Yep, and the sheepmen, too, if they so much as open their mouths toholler. I tell you a sheepman has his troubles."

  "Was this fellow just a herder, or did he own a flock?" inquired Nat.

  "I've heard that he owns his bunch," rejoined Cal. "He's had lots oftrouble with cattlemen. No wonder he scuttled off when I tole him tharwas a bunch of punchers behind."

  "I'm sorry he went so quickly," said Nat, "I wanted to ask him somequestions about the petrified forest."

  "Well, we're about out of it now," said Cal, looking around.

  Only a few solitary specimens of the strange, gaunt stone trees nowremained dotting the floor of the canyon like lonely monuments.Presently they left the last even of these behind them, and before longemerged on a rough road which climbed the mountain side at a steepelevation.

  "No chance of your brake bustin' agin, is ther?" inquired Cal, ratherapprehensively.

  "No, it's as strong as it well can be now," Nat assured him.

  "Glad of that. If it gave out on this grade we'd go backward to ourfunerals."

  "Guess that's right," agreed Joe, gazing back out of the tonneau at thesteep pitch behind them.

  Despite the steepness of the grade and the rough character of the road,or rather trail, the powerful auto climbed steadily upward, the rattleof her exhausts sounding like a gatling gun in action.

  Before long they reached the summit and the boys burst into a shoutof admiration at the scene spread out below them. From the elevationthey had attained they could see, rising and falling beneath them, likebillows at sea, the slopes and summits of miles of Sierra country. Hereand there were forests of dense greenery, alternated with bare, scarredmountain sides dotted with bare trunks, among which disastrous forestfires had swept. It was a grand scene, impressive in its magnitude andsense of solitary isolation. Far beyond the peaks below them could beseen snow-capped summits, marking the loftiest points of the range.Here and there deep dark wooded canyons cut among the hills reachingdown to unknown depths.

  "Looks like a good country for grizzlies or deer," commented Cal.

  "Grizzlies!" exclaimed Joe, "are there many of them back here?"

  "Looks like there might be," rejoined Cal, "this is the land of bigbears, big deer, little matches, and big trees, and by the same tokenthere's a clump of the last right ahead of us."

  Sure enough not a hundred yards from where they had halted, there stooda little group of the biggest trees the lads had ever set eyes on.The loftiest towered fully two hundred feet above the ground, while aroadway could have been cut through its trunk--as is actually the casewith another famous specimen of the Sequoia Gigantea.

  The foliage was dark green and had a tufted appearance, while thetrunks were a rich, reddish brown. The group of vegetable mammoths wasas impressive a sight as the lads had ever gazed upon.

  "Them is about the oldest livin' things in ther world," said Cal gazingupward, "when Noah was building his ark them trees was 'most as big asthey are now."

  "I tole you vot I do," suddenly announced Herr Muller, "I take it aphotogrift from der top of one of dem trees aindt it?"

  "How can you climb them?" asked Nat.

  "Dot iss easiness," rejoined the German, "here, hold Bismark--dot issvot I call der horse--und I gedt out mein climbing irons."

  Diving into his blanket-roll he produced a pair of iron contrivances,shaped somewhat like the climbing appliances which linemen on telegraphsystems use to scale the smooth poles. These were heavier, and withlonger and sharper steel points on them, however. Rapidly Herr Muller,by means of stout straps, buckled them on, explaining that he had usedthem to take pictures from treetops within the Black Forest.

  A few seconds later he selected the tallest of the trees and beganrapidly to ascend it. The climbing irons and the facility they lent himin ascending the bare trunk delighted the boys, who determined to havesome made for themselves at the first opportunity.

  "He kin climb like a Dutch squirrel," exclaimed Cal admiringly, as witha wave of his hand the figure of the little German grew smaller, andfinally vanished in the mass of dark, sombre green which clothed thesummit of the great red-wood.

  "He ought to get a dandy picture from way up there," said Joe.

  "Yes," agreed Nat, "he----"

  The boy stopped suddenly short. From the summit of the lofty tree therehad come a sharp, piercing cry of terror.

  "Help! help! Quvick or I fall down!"