"I want that message," I said, as soon as I could.

"What message?" he growled back, from over his gun.

"That Scouts' message you took from the fellow who took it from us."

"Oh, h.e.l.lo!" he grinned. "Were you there? They let you go, did they?"

"No; I got away to follow you. I want that message."

"Why, sure," he said. "If that's all you want." And he seemed relieved.

"Come and get it." He stuck his free hand behind him and fumbled, and then he held up the package.

I started right up, but Scout Ward sprang ahead of me. "I'll get it. You and Van stay behind," he bade.

He didn't wait for us to say yes, but walked for the rock; and just as he reached it, and was stretching to take the package, the man, with a big oath, jumped for him.

Jumped for him, and grabbed for him, sprawling out like a black cougar.

Van Sant and I yelled, sharp; Ward dodged and tripped and went rolling; and as the man jumped for him again I shot my arrow at him. I couldn't help it, I was so mad. The arrow was crooked, where it had been mended (I really didn't try to hurt him), and maybe it _went_ crooked; but anyway it hit him in the calf of the leg and stayed there. I didn't think I had shot so hard.

The man uttered a quick word, and sat down. His face was screwed and he glared about at us, with his pistol muzzle wavering and sweeping like a snake's tongue. That arrow probably hurt. It hadn't gone in very far, but it was stuck.

"I'll kill one of you for that," he snarled.

"No, you won't," answered Scout Ward, scrambling up and facing him. "If you killed one you'd have to kill all three, and then you'd be hanged anyway."

"You got just what was coming to you for acting so mean," added Scout Van Sant. "You grabbed for Ward and we had to protect him."

They weren't afraid, a particle, either of them; but I was the one who had shot the arrow, and all I could say was: "It isn't barbed. You can pull it out."

"Yes, and I'll get blood poisonin', mebbe," snarled the man. He kept us covered with his revolver muzzle. "You git!" he ordered.

With his other hand he worked at the arrow and pulled it out easily.

The point was red, but not very far up.

"You'd better cut your trousers open, over that wound," called Scout Van Sant. "Did you have on colored underdrawers?"

"None o' your business," snarled the man. "You git, all of you."

"Wait a minute. Don't use that old handkerchief," spoke Scout Ward. And away he ran for the packs. They were very busy Scouts, those two, and right up to snuff. The arrow wound seemed to interest them. He came back, and I saw what he had. "Here," he called; "if you'll promise not to grab me I'll come and dress that in first-cla.s.s shape. You're liable to have an infection, from dirt."

"I'll infect _you_, if I ketch you," snarled the man, fingering his wounded leg and dividing his glances between it and us.

"Well, if you won't promise, I'll lay this on this rock," continued Scout Ward, as cool as you please. "You ought to cut the cloth away from that wound; then you dissolve this bichloride of mercury tablet in a quart of water, and flush that hole out thoroughly; then you moisten a pad of this cloth in the water and bind it on the hole with this surgical bandage. See?" (Note 46.)

"I'll bind you on a hole, if I ketch you," snarled the man. That hole ached, I reckon.

But Scout Ward advanced and laid the first-aid stuff on a stone about ten feet from the man, so that he could crawl and get it.

"Now hadn't you better give us that message? It's no good to you, and it's done you harm enough," said Scout Van Sant.

"Give you nothin', except a dose of lead, if you don't git out p.r.o.nto,"

snarled the man. "You git! Hear me? GIT! If you weren't kids, you'd git something else beside jes' git. But I'm not goin' to tell you many more times. GIT!"

The Red Fox Patrol Scouts looked at me and I looked at them, and we agreed--for the man was growing angrier and angrier. There was no sense in badgering him. A fellow must use discretion, you know.

"All right; we'll 'git,'" answered Scout Ward. "But we'll keep on your trail till you turn over that message. You've no business with it."

The man just growled, and as we turned away he began to pull his trouser-leg up further and to fuss with his dirty sock and his pink underdrawers there. Those were no things to have about an open wound.

"You'd better use that first-aid wash and bandage," called back Scout Ward.

We went to the packs and the Red Fox Patrol Scouts slung them on. They wouldn't let me carry one. We didn't know exactly what to do, now: whether to go on and wait, or wait here, while we watched. Only--

"You Scouts take the trail for your rendezvous," I said. Rendezvous, you know, is the place where Scouts come together; and these two boys were on their way to meet the rest of their party, for Salt Lake and the Yellowstone, when I had come in on them.

"No," they said; "your trail is our trail. Scouts help each other. We can meet our party somewhere later, and still be in time."

Scouts mean what they say, so I didn't argue, and I was mighty glad to have them along. We decided to follow the trail we were on for a little way, and then to climb the side of the gulch and make Sunday camp where we could watch the man's movements.

We pa.s.sed the dug-out; up back of it the beaver man was tying his bandanna handkerchief around his leg! He didn't look at us, and he hadn't touched the first-aid stuff on the rock.

As we hiked on, I kept noticing that smell of smoke--a piny smoke; and it did not come from the dug-out, surely. Now I remembered that I had been smelling that piny smoke all day, and I laid it to the two camp-fires, but I must have been mistaken. Or else there was another fire, still--or I had the smell in my nose and couldn't get it out. When you are in the habit of smelling for something, you keep thinking that it is there, all the time. A Scout must watch his imagination, and not be fooled by it.

We climbed the side of the gulch, through the trees; the Red Fox boys carried their packs right along, without resting any more than I did.

They were toughened to the long trail. The sun began to be clouded and hazy. When we halted halfway up, and looked back and down, at the dug-out, the man had hobbled across from the dug-out and was leading back his horse.

Just then Scout Ward spoke up. "It is smoke!" he exclaimed, puffing and sniffing. "Boys, it's a forest fire somewhere."

So they had been smelling it, too.

I looked at the sun. The haze clouding it was the smoke!

"Climb on top, so we can see," I said; and away we went.

The timber was thick with spruces and pines. Up we went, among them, for the top of the ridge. We came out into an open s.p.a.ce; beyond, the ridge fell away in a long slope of the timber, for the snowy range; and old Pilot Peak was right before us, to the west. The sun was getting low, and was veiled by smoke drifting across it. And on the right, distant a couple of miles, up welled a great brownish-black ma.s.s from the fire itself.

A forest fire, and a big one! The smell was very strong.

The Red Fox Scouts looked at me. "What ought we to do?" asked Scout Van Sant. "Maybe you know more about these forest fires than we do."

Maybe I did. The Rockies are places for big forest fires, all right, and I'd heard the Guards and Rangers talk, in our town. The timber was dry as a bone, at this time of year. The smoke certainly was drifting our way. And fire travels up-hill faster than it travels down-hill. So this ridge, surrounded by the timber, was a bad spot to be caught in, especially if that fire should split and come along both sides. No timber ridge for us!

"Turn back and make for the creek; shall we?" proposed Scout Ward.

That didn't sound good to me, somehow. The creek was beginning to pinch out, this high up the gulch, and a fire would jump it in a twinkling.

And if anything should happen to us, down there,--one of us hurt himself, you know, in hurrying,--we should be in a trap as the fire swept across. Out of the timber was the place for us.

But away across, an opposite slope rose to bareness, where were just gra.s.s and rocks; and between was a long patch of aspens or willows, down in the hollow. If we couldn't make the bareness, those aspens or willows would be better than the pines and evergreens. They wouldn't burn so; and if they were willows, they might be growing in a bog.