The fire in the canyon went out so suddenly, at sunrise, that we were sure it had been quenched with water. I swept the great forest with the glasses and was glad that there was not anywhere the least signs of a fire. We had our breakfast, washed the dishes, piled all our things close up against the lookout — there was n’t room for them inside — and then time hung heavy upon our hands. We had too many worries to continue gathering beads and arrow-points or to explore my cave hole.
From the south side of the little rock butte upon which the lookout is perched, the mountain makes a long and very steep drop to a narrow, bare ridge running south and separating the forks of Black River and White River. We happened to be looking down upon it, soon after breakfast, and saw three large deer — all bucks, apparently — come tearing out of the timber upon its east slope, pause for a moment on top, looking back whence they had come, and then race on down into the timber of the west slope.
“A mountain lion must have frightened them!” Hannah exclaimed.
“More likely our grub thief; they came up from his canyon,” I told her, and turned my glasses that way just in time to see two big turkey gobblers come running up on the bare slope, spring into the air and sail off, down over the timber. Hannah saw them, too, although she had no glasses, and cried; ‘‘Now we shall see what frightened the deer, and them!”
But we did n’t, although we closely watched the place for a long time. And finally I said: “It was man that frightened the deer and turkeys; had it been a lion, it would have come out on their trail, a little way, anyhow. The chances are that right now that grub-stealer is there near the edge of the timber, staring up at us!”
And at that Hannah shivered. “How dreadful to think that one is being watched by the snake eyes of a robber — murderer, maybe! I just can’t bear it!” She sprang up and went into the shelter of the lookout. I followed, and tried the telephone, got no answer to my calls, and went outside to watch again.
The morning dragged on, oh, how slowly! We became so nervous that we could n’t sit still; we just milled around and around the lookout, staring down, and now and then trying the silent telephone. And then, near noon, we shouted and waved our hands, and Hannah danced, for there was Uncle John hurrying toward us in the trail up from the cabin.
‘‘So! You’ve moved camp, I see!” he exclaimed, coming up on top and staring at our outfit pile against the lookout. “Well, how goes it? We went over to Riverside Station, found that the telephone was n’t working, and your mother got to worrying and sent me up to learn how you are? ”
“Oh, such a time we have had! Terrible!” Hannah cried, and told him all our troubles, I putting in a word now and then.
He looked very solemn when we had finished, asked some questions, and then said; “I guess your camp robber is Henry King.”
“Henry King!” we cried. Did n’t we know him — know of him! Wife-beater, lazy, drinking, gambling man who had drifted into Nutrioso — a settlement a few miles east of us — several years back, married Jennie Ames, and treated her so badly that she had left him!
‘‘Yes, Henry King!” Uncle John went on. “He enlisted and was sent to Camp Kearny, and about a month ago deserted. Well, at daylight, about ten days ago, his nearest neighbor there in Nutrioso, old Mr. Jacobs, saw him sneaking away from his cabin with his rifle and a pack on his back —”
“And he was once a fireguard — I'll bet he kept a Forest Service key, and claimed that he lost it,” I said.
“No doubt. He would do that all right. Well, we’ll just go down in the canyon and get Mr. King, and give the fifty dollars reward for him to the Red Cross,” said Uncle John.
“But he will fight! You will be killed!” Hannah cried.
Chapter IV.
Hunting the Deserter
No. We’ll get the drop on him!” Uncle John told her, grimly.
‘‘You said ‘we.’ Do you mean that I can go with you?” I asked.
“Sure you can go. I may need you to help herd him. Hannah can fireguard for you while we are gone,” he answered.
“Oh, no! No! I would n’t stay here alone for all the world!” sister cried.
“Then you will come with us. The telephone is n’t working; you can’t do any good here if a fire does break out. Let’s have some lunch and be off,” Uncle John told her.
Hannah made no answer to that. She looked scared as she turned from us to start a fire in the stove.
Of course I asked Uncle John about the firebugs, but he knew no more about them than I, and doubted that they had been found. I told him, then, about my find of the cave hole, and about seeing old Double Killer. And then we had lunch and planned how we should go after the deserter. We were to sneak down through the timber and strike the bottom of the canyon at a point below the little grass park, where I had seen the campfires, and then cautiously, step by step, move up and make our capture.
‘‘Afraid?’’ Uncle John asked Hannah, when she had washed the lunch dishes.
“Yes, scared, but going with you, all the same!” she answered.
We took up our rifles and Hannah belted on her pistol, and we started down the trail to the cabin, where Uncle John’s horse was tied and restlessly pawing the ground; and from there we turned off along the divide, followed it for four or five hundred yards, and began the descent into the canyon. The going was good under the spruces for some distance, and then we began having trouble to find a way past a series of small cliffs; there we had to be very careful where we stepped, lest we dislodge rocks to go crashing down and give the camper warning of our approach. When, at last, we arrived at the bottom of the canyon, we found that it was very narrow and full of boulders — some of them as large as a house—with only a few clumps of willows here and there along the stream. The grass park that we were heading for is on the south side of the stream, so we crossed and turned up toward it, and almost at once came into a well-used game trail running parallel with the creek, and about fifty yards above it. We had not followed it far when Uncle John, in the lead, paused and pointed at a muddy place in it: there, half obliterated by the hooves of passing deer, were the footprints of a man who had gone up the trail.
‘‘Days old. Wore broad shoes. Army shape,” he whispered to us as we bent over the tracks. “I guess we get Mr. Deserter, poco pronto “But he will fight!” said Hannah.
“Wife-beaters generally don’t fight! However, maybe you’d better keep well behind us from here on,” he told her.
Hannah said no more. We started on, but instead of dropping back she kept close behind me. Uncle John, looking over his shoulder, motioned her to slow up. She shook her head so determinedly that her two hair braids flopped straight out, and were so funny — her face red, her eyes snapping, that we put hand to mouth and laughed.
All the same, this was no laughing matter. Why should n’t the deserter fight when he well knew that, if he was captured, he would go to jail for years and years? I was bound to face whatever was to happen, ahead there on the trail, but, oh, how I wished that Henry King had never
