"Fish, fish, fish--little, big, and in between," he cried as he waved the bag in front of him. "I've never had such fishing."

"Hurrah for the fisherman," called Chuck, as he came through the trees with a half-dozen small pails in his hands. "Ham gets the fish, I get the berries, and we all get the stomach-ache, see?"

"Let's look at the fish" shouted every one.

"Bet they are only minnies," cried Phil.

"Minnies, your grandmother," scornfully replied Ham. "I have one there that's a foot and a half long if it's an inch. The others aren't so big."

He emptied the contents of the bag on the ground and stood proudly over them, a merry twinkle in his eye.

Willis nudged Mr. Allen. "He's found our bag of fish, but don't tell."

Mr. Allen arose, and, holding up the big fish by the tail, said, "Ham, you're the only original fisherman. That's the very fellow that pulled me in and came near drowning me." Ham hurried off to the stream to clean the catch and to laugh over his cleverness. Breakfast was a thoroughly enjoyed meal that morning, for, besides the fish and the sweet wild berries, there were just enough fish stories told to give the real thing the proper seasoning.

"I'd rather sit on those big boulders along Goose Creek, just where it empties into the backwaters of Cheeseman Dam, and catch a few big fellows like that one than to take an extended trip to Europe," solemnly declared Ham.

"I'd rather fish in the Narrows of Platte Canyon and pull out a fine big rainbow every now and then than ride in a New York subway," added Chuck.

"And I'd rather see Mr. Allen catch _another_ big trout like that one you're eating," remarked Willis, with a wink at Mr. Allen, "than to catch all the ba.s.s in the State of Michigan."

By nine o'clock the party was again on the trail, traveling northwest around the base of Black Mountain.

"It's going to be a scorcher," exclaimed Fat. "I'm about melted already.

I hope they haven't shipped that bear away from Cather Springs yet. I'd like to see it. They caught it in a bear trap last week. There is hardly a season goes by, any more, but what they get some kind of wild game.

Last year it was a big mountain lion, the year before it was a badly-wounded mountain sheep, this year it was a bear and two cubs."

"That lion must have been the one that followed Ham up Pike's Peak. How about it, Ham?" said Mr. Allen teasingly. Ham did not reply. The smile disappeared from his face, and he dropped to the back of the line. "Ham, won't you tell us that story some time?" urged Mr. Allen. "I've never heard the real story, and I'd like to know about it."

"I've forgotten every detail, Mr. Allen," said Ham, "and I've forgotten them for good. It wasn't nearly as big a joke as every one supposed, though, I'll tell you that. I'll never come any nearer to handing in my heavenly pa.s.sport and not do it than I did that time. Let's forget it. It brings back unpleasant thoughts."

At noon they camped in the shadow of a great overhanging rock and rested.

Fat found, upon opening his pack, that he had left what remained of his loaf of bread at the last camping place, along with two cans of milk and a box of raisins.

"The oracle is coming true," dryly remarked Ham. "It always does, if it's interpreted properly. Fat, the swine of carelessness have consumed your living."

By three o'clock the party reached Cather Springs, which was nothing but the home of an old mountaineer--a quaint little log cabin, a barn, and a corral, in which stood two very patient, tired-looking donkeys and a large, raw-boned mountain horse. A little to one side of the cabin stood the spring house--a low, rustic affair, built of young trees. A slab-door stood slightly ajar, and through the opening there came the voice of a woman, softly singing to herself. A thin column of gray smoke was curling gently from the rough stone chimney. At one side of the house, in the shade of a great pine tree, was nestled a little flower garden that gave every sign of having had careful attention each day. On the back stoop was stretched out, at full length, a husky Collie dog. He was evidently asleep, for he did not stir as the boys came down the trail toward the picturesque little cabin.

"Great Caesar's ghost!" exclaimed Ham. "Take a peep at a few of those jay-birds. I never saw so many in my life. I'll bet the lady feeds them.

Watch me knock that saucy fellow off that dead limb."

He raised his gun and shot. There was an awful scolding, jabbering, and flapping of wings, but no deaths--fortunately for Ham. The dog came to life in less than a second, and expressed himself freely on the imprudence of such an interruption to his mid-day nap. Likewise, the spring-house door suddenly opened and out popped a funny, little old lady.

"Boys, boys!" she called in a high, quavering voice, "don't shoot the blue jays. It does beat all how right-down destructive all boys are, anyway--shooting poor, harmless little birds for sport." The jays, on hearing the familiar voice of their benefactress, began to alight in twos and threes close by, and approved her every word with as much vigor as their tiny throats could command. The little old lady came straight toward Ham.

"Young man," she cried, as she shook her long, bony finger in his face, "young man, who ever gave you the right to come into this beautiful wilderness to maraud and murder and kill such beauties as them jays that G.o.d has put in these woods to be companions and friends to us lonely mountain folks? Who do you s'pose built this here canyon and that green meadow and this little spring and these hills, and all the little wild folks as lives in 'em? I should think you would hang your head and look like a whipped puppy if ye're little enough to shoot jay-birds, just to see the blue feathers a flutterin' in the air. 'Pon my soul, you hunters is beyon' my understandin'. S'pose that bird you shot has a nest, which, like as not, she has, an' it's full o' little fuzzy b.a.l.l.s o' bird flesh this minute, all mouths an' stomachs, a waitin' for their mother to bring supper, an' they just keep a waitin' an' a waitin' till they starve, cause you was mean enough to kill the mother bird just for fun." Ham's hat had long since come off, and he stood with downcast eyes, not knowing what to say. The old lady looked him up and down with a look of abject pity and scorn as she went on:

"Didn't you ever stop to consider how many things the Almighty has put into these hills to love, young man, if you ain't too selfish an' proud an' mean to see 'em? I wonder what He thinks of a boy like you, anyway?

You're like a demon sneakin' through a wonderful picture gallery a cuttin' holes in the pictures just for fun. I know every jay in this valley, young man, every single one--and they know me. When food gets scarce, an' cold nights come, an' snow begins to fall, I feed 'em.

They understand all I say to 'em, an' they bring their young ones for me to see as quick as they're big enough. They tell me when it's goin' to storm, an' when a hawk is flyin' over my chicken pen, an' when berries is ripe, an' when strangers is comin'. They're my little family; I care for 'em every day an'--" The flood gates were opened. The little old lady cried as if her heart would break, while the jays gossiped and chattered at the unusual uproar.

Suddenly she turned and went into the house, and the boys, without a word, quietly pa.s.sed up the trail and into the flat, green meadow ahead.

Ham whistled softly to himself as he strode along.

"Beats the Dutch," he said to Mr. Allen, as the two dropped back together, "how a fellow will forget himself now and then. I'd have done just what she did, only I would have gotten mad instead of just feeling bad. I'm mighty thankful I didn't kill that bird."

"What a great joy these simple out-of-doors people get out of nature,"

replied Mr. Allen. "I'd give half my college education to be able to see and hear and understand the things that little old lady does in these old hills. Every time a bird chirps or a squirrel barks she knows what it says. I think the Master must have been thinking of some such a pure-hearted body as she when He told the people that the poor in spirit would inherit the earth. She doesn't go out in society much, nor she hasn't any party dresses, nor probably never saw a grand opera in her life; but see what she has that most people never get."

In a few moments more they had crossed the little meadow, climbed up through a zigzag trail through the trees, and came out onto the railroad track, just where it crossed the stage road. Directly in front of them rose the crag-tipped cap of St. Peter's Dome. On one hand was the old wagon road, that first pathway of mountain civilization, winding down the canyon in long, graceful curves until it was lost in the distant haze, while on the other hand ran the steel rails of more modern civilization.

As they stood resting for a few moments they heard the rumble of heavy wheels, a wheezing and puffing, a shrill whistle, a cloud of black smoke, a shower of cinders, and the evening express pa.s.sed upward into the cool, dark shadows, carrying its load of human necessities into the heart of the Rockies.

It was six o'clock when the last one in the party reached the rickety wooden stairs that made the last ascent of a hundred feet to the Dome possible. Ham and Willis had been on top for some minutes, and were sitting on a huge boulder just at the foot of a lodge-pole that had been erected on the very summit for a flagstaff. Certainly it was a sight to be remembered for many a day--a marvelous wonderland, stretching out in every direction. The detail of plants, trees, and winding trails was swallowed up, and only the vastness of the valleys and canyons could be seen, with here and there a silver ribbon of a stream. Far up in the blue vault two great eagles soared and circled. Here and there the last golden rays of sunlight fell on the distant ridges and lighted up the tree tops with a beautiful iridescence.

"What a sight!" exclaimed Willis. "Now, where is Cookstove Mountain, for I am especially interested in it. O yes, I see it. It's that great granite cliff that is so flat on the top. Wouldn't it be grand if we could build a cabin near St. Peter's Dome, so sometimes in the evening we could climb up here to sit and watch the stars come out? I want to be in the mountains and camp in them and hike in them. I am beginning to understand their charm more and more. I know now what it is that Old Ben has, and Daddy Wright, and the little old lady we saw this afternoon, that I have not. It is a big optimism, a love for everything that lives and is a part of the Great Creation."

"I don't know of anything that will take the selfishness and conceit out of a fellow like a few hours spent on a mountain top," said Mr. Allen.

"It makes a fellow right down glad he's alive," remarked Ham. "I always get more out of a view like this than I do out of the best sermon I ever heard."

"I wish we could camp right here," exclaimed Chuck; "but we can't, and we had better be getting down before dark."

Just at the base of the Dome a little stream trickled over the rocks and down into the canyon. They followed it back from the railroad and soon had a cheery fire burning and a comfortable camp made for the night. It was in a little meadow just at the edge of a grove of small aspens, and at one side of the tiny stream lay a great round boulder that had evidently rolled down from the summit of the Dome at some previous date.

Beds were arranged in a row along the side of it, and a pile of dead sticks placed in a convenient position for the night's fire. The evening breezes were already beginning to play hide-and-seek in the valley, and the leaves on the trees were clapping their innumerable hands in applause at the brightly-burning fire. The sparks flew upward and the shadows danced in and out of the illuminated circle like so many happy fairies.

"Do you hear it, fellows? There, now, listen! Don't you hear it?" Ham was saying as he sat back from the fire. "There it is, calling, calling!"

"What is calling?" asked Willis, straining his ear to catch the sound.

"Mother Nature," answered Ham, dryly. "Mother Nature's call--the call of the wild. See, even the leaves are beckoning us back farther into the deep, quiet wilderness. Some day I will part with my earthly possessions and answer that call, for, do you know, I believe that the Indian did come the nearest to living an ideal life of any of us!"

Every one knew that Ham was in for a long, private soliloquy, and so began supper operations, for, although they had all heard the call of Mother Nature, as Ham put it, to some of them at least it was only an empty stomach calling to be fed.

Mr. Allen and Willis were the last ones to take to their blankets, for they had many things to talk over between themselves.

What can draw out the innermost thoughts of a fellow's heart more quickly than a chat with a sympathetic friend when both are seated before a fire in such a place and on such a night? If you really wish to know a fellow in a few days' time, you need to camp with him, to eat with him, and to sit with him before an open fire in the wilderness under a canopy of stars with the music of Nature about you. Then man speaks with man, and all the conventionalities of life are forgotten.

"Yes, I have often wondered if I will ever find my father's partner,"

Willis was saying. "I would rather see him than any man on earth, sometimes."

"Wouldn't you be happier if you didn't ever find him, though?" questioned Mr. Allen.

"No, I wouldn't, Mr. Allen, because he could explain so many things to me that I have wondered about. I don't know that I ever told you, but it has always seemed so strange to me that my uncle, Mr. Williams, has never once mentioned my father's name to me. He was the last man that saw him alive, yet he has never spoken of him. I have been going to talk with him several times, but he is so gruff and absorbed I can't get up my nerve. There is one thing that has bothered me a lot lately, though, and I've never told you of it, but I'm going to now. I probably never would have thought much about it if it hadn't been for what the old prospector told me the other day over on Cheyenne. I've been wondering if there possibly could be any connection between his not wanting me to come on this trip and the fact that he was just then sending men to do his a.s.sessment work on the claim that once belonged to my father.

"There is another thing, too, Mr. Allen. I feel ashamed of even thinking of such things, yet the night we had our meeting at Bruin Inn I heard that same prospector discussing a Mr. Williams with Old Ben. I heard him say that Williams was a thief and a sanctimonious old hypocrite. The thing that bothers me is, how much does Williams know of my father's affairs that he has not told my mother. Surely he would not dare to be crooked in such a thing as that."

"If you could locate Mr. Kieser, he probably could tell you some things,"

slowly added Mr. Allen. "Well, there is one thing sure: 'Murder will out,' and with the suspicion I now have, I'll keep quiet, keep my eyes open, and see what I can learn. That Cheyenne claim must be worth holding, or he wouldn't send men away up there to do that work. That costs money!"