Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Emmy and the Online
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[Illustration: Straight and true it sped to its mark. The lion had
already crouched for a spring when Nat's missile was discharged.

                                                        --Page 18.]

THE MOTOR RANGERS THROUGH THE SIERRAS

    BY

    MARVIN WEST
    AUTHOR OF "THE MOTOR RANGERS' LOST MINE," ETC.

    NEW YORK
    HURST & COMPANY
    PUBLISHERS

    Copyright, 1911,
    BY
    HURST & COMPANY

CONTENTS

    CHAPTER                                   PAGE
        I. INTO THE SIERRAS                      5
       II. BETWEEN TWO FIRES                    17
      III. IN A RUNAWAY AUTO                    31
       IV. MOTOR RANGERS TO THE RESCUE          43
        V. AN APPOINTMENT ON THE TRAIL          55
       VI. SOME RASCALS GET A SCARE             66
      VII. A PHOTOGRAPHER IN TROUBLE            77
     VIII. LOST IN A PETRIFIED FOREST           87
       IX. THE MIDNIGHT ALARM                   99
        X. ALONG THE TRAIL                     110
       XI. TREED! TWO HUNDRED FEET UP          125
      XII. NAT'S LUCKY ESCAPE                  135
     XIII. THE VOLLEY IN THE CANYON            147
      XIV. A "LOONITACKER" HORSE               159
       XV. THE MOTOR RANGERS' PERIL            170
      XVI. THE HORNS OF A DILEMMA              181
     XVII. IN COLONEL MORELLO'S FORTRESS       191
    XVIII. A RIDE FOR LIFE                     201
      XIX. OUTWITTING HIS ENEMIES              211
       XX. HERR MULLER GETS A CHILLY BATH      220
      XXI. THE FIRE IN THE FOREST              232
     XXII. A DASH THROUGH THE FLAMES           242
    XXIII. THE HUT IN THE MOUNTAINS            258
     XXIV. FACING THEIR FOES                   272
      XXV. THROUGH THE FLUME                   285

The Motor Rangers Through the Sierras

CHAPTER I.

INTO THE SIERRAS.

"Say Nat, I thought that this was to be a pleasure trip?"

Joe Hartley, the perspiration beading his round, good-natured
countenance, pushed back his sombrero and looked up whimsically from
the punctured tire over which he was laboring.

"Well, isn't half the pleasure of running an auto finding out how many
things you don't know about it?" laughingly rejoined Nat Trevor, the
eldest and most experienced of the young Motor Rangers, as they had
come to be called.

"V-v-v-variety is the s-s-spice----" sputtered our old friend William,
otherwise Ding-dong Bell.

"Oh, whistle it, Ding-dong," interjected Joe impatiently.

"_Phwit!_" musically chirruped the stuttering lad. "Variety is the
spice of life," he concluded, his hesitating manner of speech leaving
him, as usual, following the puckering of his lips and the resultant
music.

"That's no reason why we should be peppered with troubles," grumbled
Joe, giving the "jack" a vicious twist and raising the rear axle still
higher. "Here it is, only three days since we left Santa Barbara and
I'm certain that I've fixed at least four punctures already."

"Well, you'll be a model of punctuality when----" grinned Nat
aggravatingly, but Joe had sprung from his crouching posture and made
for him threateningly.

"Nat Trevor, if you dare to pun, I'll--I'll--bust your spark plug."

"Meaning my head, I suppose," taunted Nat from a safe distance, namely,
a rock at the side of the dusty road. "'Lay on, Macduff.'"

"Oh, I've more important things to go," concluded Joe, with as much
dignity as he could muster, turning once more to his tools.

While he is struggling with the puncture let us look about a little and
see where the Motor Rangers, whom we left in Lower California, are now
located. As readers of "The Motor Rangers' Lost Mine" know, the three
bright lads with a companion, oddly named Sandrock Smith, had visited
the sun-smitten peninsula to investigate some mysterious thefts of
lumber from a dye-wood property belonging to Mr. Pomery, "The Lumber
King," Nat's employer. While in that country, which they only reached
after a series of exciting and sometimes dangerous incidents, they
stumbled across a gold mine in which Nat's father had, years before,
been heavily interested.

Readers of that volume will also recall that Hale Bradford, the Eastern
millionaire, and his unscrupulous associates had made a lot of trouble
for Nat and his companions after the discovery. The exciting escape
of Nat in a motor boat across the waters of the Gulf of California
will also be called to mind, as well as the story of how matters
were finally adjusted and Nat became, if not a millionaire, at least
a very well-to-do young man. The gift of the auto in which they were
now touring was likewise explained. The splendid vehicle, with its
numerous contrivances for comfortable touring, had been the present of
Mr. Pomery to the lads, as a token of his esteem and gratitude for the
conclusion to which they had brought the dishonest dealings of Diego
Velasco, a Mexican employed by Mr. Pomery.

On their return to California proper, the lads had spent a brief time
with their parents, and Nat had seen his mother ensconced in a pretty
house on the outskirts of Santa Barbara. It had been a great delight to
the lady to leave the tiny cottage in which straitened circumstances
following the death of Nat's father, had compelled them to live. Joe
Hartley, we know, was the son of a department store keeper of Santa
Barbara, and Ding-dong Bell was the only child of a well-to-do widow.
So much for our introductions.

Inactivity had soon palled on the active minds of the Motor Rangers,
and they had, with the consent of their parents, planned another trip.
This time, however, it was to be for pleasure. As Nat had said, "We had
enough adventures in Lower California to last us a lifetime." But of
what lay ahead of them not one of the boys dreamed, when, three days
before, they had started from Santa Barbara for a tour of the Sierras.
Nat was desirous of showing that it was feasible to hunt and fish and
tour the mountains in an automobile just as well as on horseback. The
car, therefore, carried rifles and shot guns as well as fishing rods
and paraphernalia for camping. We shall not give an inventory of it
now. Suffice it to say that it was completely outfitted, and as the
details of the car itself have been told in the previous volume we
shall content ourselves with introducing each as occasion arises.

The particular puncture which Joe was repairing when this volume opens,
occurred just as the lads were bowling over a rather rough road into
Antelope Valley, a narrow, wind-swept canyon between two steep ranges
of mountains. The valley is in the heart of the Sierras, and though
too insignificant to be noted on any but the largest maps, forms a
portion of the range well known to mountaineers. It is a few miles from
the Tehachapi Pass, at which, geographers are agreed, the true Sierra
Nevadas begin.

"Say, fellows," exclaimed Nat suddenly, looking about him at the
sky which from being slightly overcast had now become black and
threatening, "we're going to have a storm of some sort. If you're ready
there, Joe, we'll be jogging along. We ought to be under shelter when
it hits."

"Yes," agreed Joe, wiping his brow with the back of his hand, "it will
go whooping through this narrow valley like the mischief."

As he spoke he lowered the "jack," and put the finishing touches on
his repair. The auto carried plenty of extra tires, but naturally the
boys wished to be sparing of their new ones while the others offered an
opportunity for a patch.

As the first heavy rain drops fell, sending up little spurts of dust
from the dry road and the dusty chaparral bordering it, Nat started
the motor, and the car was soon whizzing forward at a good speed.
Thanks to its finely-tempered springs and the shock absorbers with
which it was equipped, the roughness of the road had little effect on
the comfort of the riders.

"This is going to be a hummer," shouted Joe suddenly, "we'd better get
up the shelter hood."

Nat agreed, and soon the contrivance referred to, which was like a low
"top" of waterproof khaki, was stretched on its collapsible frames. It
fitted all round the auto, enclosing it like a snug waterproof tent. In
front was a window of mica through which the driver could see the road.
The erection of the shelter took but a few seconds and presently the
car was once more chugging forward.

But as the storm increased in violence, the wind rose, till it fairly
screamed through the narrow funnel of the rocky-walled valley. Through
his window Nat could see trees being bent as if they were buggy whips.

"If this gets much worse we'll have to find cover," he thought, "or
else lose our shelter hood."

He glanced apprehensively at the steel supports of the shelter, which
were bending and bowing under the stress put upon them. As Nat had
remarked to himself, they would not stand much more pressure.

"Say, the rain is coming in here," began Joe suddenly, as a tiny
trickle began to pour into the tonneau. It came through a crack in the
khaki top which had been wrenched apart by the violence of the wind.

"It's g-g-g-gone d-d-d-own the bab-b-b-back of my n-n-n-neck,"
sputtered Ding-dong Bell protestingly.

"Never mind, Ding-dong," comforted Joe, "maybe it will wash your parts
of speech out straight."

"I'm going to head for that cave yonder," exclaimed Nat, after running
a few more minutes.

He had spied a dark opening in the rocks to his right, while the others
had been talking, and had guessed that it was the mouth of a cave of
some sort. And so it proved.

The auto was turned off the road, or rather track, and after bumping
over rocks and brush rolled into the shelter of the cavern. It seemed
quite an abrupt change from the warring of the elements outside to the
darkness and quiet of the chamber in the rocks, and the Motor Rangers
lost no time in lowering the hood and looking about to find out in what
sort of a place they had landed.

So far as they could see, after they had all climbed out of the car,
the cave was a large one. It ran back and its limits were lost in
darkness. The mouth, however, was quite a big opening, being more than
twenty feet across at the base. It narrowed into a sharp-topped arch at
the summit, from which greenery hung down.

"Let's see where we are," remarked Nat, taking off his heavy driving
gloves and throwing them upon the driver's seat.

"You'd have to be a cat to do that," laughed Joe Hartley, gazing back
into the dense blackness of the cavern.

"That's soon fixed," added Nat, and removing one of the lights of the
car from its socket he pressed a little button. A sharp click resulted,
and a flood of brilliant white radiance poured from the lamp. It was an
improved carbide contrivance, the illuminant which made the gas being
carried in its socket.

The boy turned its rays backward into the cave, flooding the rough,
rocky walls, stained here and there with patches of dampness and moss,
with a blaze of light.

"Say," cried Joe suddenly, as the rays fell far back into the cave but
still did not seem to reach its terminus, "what is that back there?"

As he spoke he seized Nat's sleeve in a nervous, alarmed way.

"What?" demanded Nat, holding the light high above his head in his
effort to pierce the uttermost shadows.

"Why that--don't you see it?" cried Joe.

"I do now," exclaimed Nat in a startled voice, "it's----"

"T-t-t-two g-g-glaring eyes!" fizzed Ding-dong Bell.

As he spoke, from behind the boys, came a low, menacing growl. They
faced about abruptly to see what this new source of alarm might be.

As they all turned in the direction from which the growl had
proceeded--namely the mouth of the cave--a cry of dismay was forced
from the lips of the three lads. Stealthily approaching them, with
cat-like caution, was a low, long-bodied animal of a tawny color. Its
black-tipped tail was lashing the ground angrily, and its two immense
eyes were glaring with a green light, in the gloom of the cave.

"A mountain lion!" cried Nat, recognizing their treacherous foe in an
instant.

"And its mate's back there in the cave," called Joe, still more
alarmedly.

"G-g-g-g-get the g-g-g-guns!" sputtered Ding-dong.

This was far more easy to recommend than to accomplish, however. The
lads, never dreaming that they would want their weapons, had left them
in the automobile. The car, as will be recalled, had been left near the
mouth of the cave. The mountain lion advancing toward them had already
passed the auto and was now between them and the place in which their
weapons were reposing.

The mountain lion, or cougar, ordinarily not dangerous unless it gets
its foe at an absolute disadvantage, becomes, during the mating season,
a vindictive, savage brute, if separated from its mate. That this was
now the case was evident. There was no room to doubt that the two green
eyes glaring from the remote blackness of the cave were the optics of
another "lion."

The young Motor Rangers were fairly trapped. Without weapons or any
means of protecting themselves but their bare hands, they were in
imminent peril of a nasty conclusion to their sudden encounter.

CHAPTER II.

BETWEEN TWO FIRES.

Snarling in very much the manner of an angry cat, the lion, which had
appeared at the mouth of the cave, began to come forward more rapidly.
At the same instant, as if by mutual consent, his mate started to
advance from the rear of the cave. It was evident that if they did not
wish to be seriously injured, perhaps killed, the Motor Rangers would
have to act, and act quickly.

But what were they to do? Nat it was who solved the question. The floor
of the cave was littered with boulders of various sizes, ranging from
stones of a pound or so in weight, up to huge rocks beyond a boy's
power to lift.

Stooping down swiftly Nat selected a stone a little larger than a
baseball, and then throwing himself into a pitching posture, awaited
the oncoming cougar, approaching from the cave mouth.

The boy had been the best pitcher the Santa Barbara Academy had ever
produced, and his companions saw in a flash that he meant to exercise
his skill now in a way of which he had little dreamed when on the
diamond. His hand described an evolution in the air, far too quick to
be followed by the eye. The next instant the stone left his grasp, and
swished through the atmosphere.

Straight and true it sped to its mark.

And it struck home none too quick. The lion had already crouched for a
spring on the defenseless lads, who stood between himself and his mate,
when Nat's missile was discharged.

Crack!

The sharp noise of the stone's impact with the skull of the crouching
feline sounded like a rifle shot.

"Bull's-eye!" yelled Joe excitedly.

And bull's-eye it was. The rock had a sharp edge which Nat, in his
haste, had not noticed. As it struck the lion's head it did so with the
keen surface foremost. Like a knife it drove its way into the skull
and the lion, with a howl of pain and fury, turned, stumbled forward a
few paces, and then rolled over.

Before the others could stop him, Ding-dong Bell, entirely forgetting
the other lion, dashed forward to examine the fallen monster. The
result of his action was that his career came very near being
terminated then and there. The cougar had only been stunned, and as the
stuttering boy gave one of its ears a tug, it leaped erect once more
and struck a blow at him with its chisel-like claws that would have
torn him badly had they struck.

But Ding-dong, though deliberate in his speech, was quick in action. He
leaped backward like an acrobat, as he saw the mighty muscles tauten
for action, and so escaped being felled by the blow. He could feel it
"swish" past his nose, however, and entirely too close to be pleasant.

In the meantime, Nat, realizing that his best move would be to get to
their arms, had made a flying leap for the auto and seized an automatic
rifle of heavy calibre. As Ding-dong leaped back he aimed and fired,
but in the darkness he missed, and with a mighty bound the wounded
cougar leaped out of the cave and dashed off through the storm into the
brush on the hillside above.

"One!" exclaimed Nat, like Monte Cristo in the play.

The others gave a low laugh. They could afford not to worry so much
now. True, there was one of the cougars still back in the cave, but
with their rifles in their hands the lads had little to fear.

"I felt for a minute, though, like I did that time the Mexican devil
sprang on me near the gulf village," said Nat, recalling one of his
most perilous moments in Lower California.

But there was little time for conversation. Nat had hardly uttered
his last remark before the cougar at the rear of the cave began to
give signs that it too was meditating an attack. There are few animals
that will not fight desperately when cornered, even a rat making a
formidable foe sometimes under such conditions, and cornered the
cougar unquestionably was.

"She's coming," warned Joe in a low voice, as a rumbling growl
resounded above the roar of the storm outside.

"L-l-let her c-c-come," sputtered Ding-dong defiantly.

"Better climb into the car, boys," said Nat in a whispered tone, "we
can get better aim from an elevation."

Accordingly they clambered into the tonneau of the motor vehicle, and
kneeling on the seat awaited the onslaught which they knew must come in
a few seconds.

"I've half a mind to let her go, if we can without putting ourselves in
danger," said Nat, "it doesn't seem fair somehow to shoot down a poor
brute in cold blood."

"But that poor brute would attack you without hesitation if you lay
injured on a trail," Joe reminded him; "these cougars, too, kill
hundreds of sheep and young calves, just for the sheer love of
killing, for half of what they kill they never touch."

"That's right," agreed Nat, "still fair play is a jewel, and----"

Further words were taken out of his mouth by something that occurred
just at that instant, and settled the fate of the cougar then and there.

Ding-dong Bell, whose unlucky day it seemed to be, had, in his
excitement, been leaning far over the back of the tonneau, peering
into the darkness at the rear of the cave. He was trying to detect the
shadowy outlines of the cougar. A few seconds before Joe Hartley had
said:--

"Look out, Ding-dong, or you'll go overboard."

The stuttering youth's reply had been a scornful snicker. But now,
however, he craned his neck just a bit too far. His upper quarters
over-balanced his stumpy legs and body, and with a howl that rivalled
the cougar's, he toppled clean over the edge of the tonneau.

The floor of the cave sloped steeply toward the rear, and when
Ding-dong struck it he did not stop. Instead, the momentum lent him
by his fall appeared to propel him forward down the sloping floor.
He yelled for help as he felt himself rapidly and involuntarily being
borne toward the hidden cougar.

By some mysterious combination of misfortune, too, the carbide in the
lamp, which had not been renewed since they left Santa Barbara, gave
out with a flicker and a fizz at this moment. The cave was plunged
into almost total darkness. Nat's heart came into his throat as he
realized that if the cougar was not killed within the next few seconds,
Ding-dong's life might pay the forfeit.

"Good gracious!" shouted Joe above poor Ding-dong's cries, "how are we
going to see to shoot?"

"Aim at the eyes," grated out Nat earnestly, "it's our only chance."

As he spoke there came an angry snarl and a hissing snort. It mingled
with a shout of alarm from Ding-dong, who had now stopped rolling, but
was not yet on his feet. The she-cougar had seen his peril and had
taken the opportunity to bring down at least one of her enemies.

Straight up, as if impelled by a powerful steel spring, she shot. But
even as she was in mid-spring two rifles cracked, and with a convulsive
struggle the great tawny body fell with a thud to the floor of the
cave, clawing and scratching and uttering piercing roars and cries.

"Put her out of her misery," said Nat, as Ding-dong, having regained
his feet, darted at the top of his speed for the mouth of the cave.

Once more the rifles blazed away at the two green points of fire which
marked the wounded cougar's eyes. This time dead silence followed
the reports, which reverberated deafeningly in the confines of the
cave. There was no doubt but that the animal was dead. But where was
Ding-dong?

His companion Motor Rangers looked anxiously about them, but could see
nothing of him. In the excitement they had not noticed him dart by.
Presently, however, a slight noise near the cave month attracted their
attention. There was Ding-dong out in the rain, and drenched to the
skin, peering into the cave.

"C-a-can I c-c-c-come in?" he asked hesitatingly.

"Yes, and hurry up, too," ordered Nat in as stern a voice as he could
command. "Your first duty," he went on, "will be to dig down in the
clothes chest and put on dry things. Then you will refill the lamps
with carbide, which you ought to have done two days ago, and after that
you may patch up the tear the wind made in our shelter hood."

"And--phwit--after that?" inquired Ding-dong with so serious an aspect
that they had to laugh.

"I'll think up something to keep you out of mischief," said Nat finally.

While Ding-dong set about his tasks after investing himself in dry
clothes, the others skinned the cougar and kindled a fire with some
driftwood that lay about the cave. Hot coffee was then brewed, and
some of the stores opened. After imbibing several cups of the steaming
mixture, and eating numerous slices of bread and butter, the Motor
Rangers felt better.

By this time, too, the storm had almost passed over, only a slight
drizzle remaining to tell of the visit of the mountain tempest. An
investigation of the cave failed to show any trace of a regular den in
it, and the boys came to the conclusion, which was probably correct,
that the cougars had merely taken to it for shelter from the storm.
However that was, all three of them felt that they had had a mighty
narrow escape. Ding-dong inwardly resolved that from that time on
he would take care to have the lamps packed with carbide, for Nat's
relation of how nearly the sudden cessation of the light had cost him
his life gave the stuttering youth many qualms.

"I guess the storm is about over," said Joe, looking out of the cave
while holding a tin cup of coffee in his hand.

"I see enough blue sky to m-m-m-make a pair of pants for every
s-s-s-s-sailor in the navy," remarked Ding-dong, who had joined him.

"That's a sure sign of clearer weather," said Nat, "come on, boys,
pack up the cups and get the car ready and we'll go ahead."

"Where are we going to stop to-night?" asked Joe. "I guess we can't be
many miles from Lariat, can we?"

"I'll see," rejoined Nat, diving into his breast pocket and pulling out
a map stoutly mounted on tough linen to prevent tearing. He pored over
it for a moment.

"The map puts Lariat about fifteen miles from here," he said.

"What sort of a p-p-p-lace is it?" Ding-dong wished to know.

"A small post-office station," rejoined Nat. "I don't imagine that
there is even a hotel there."

Ding-dong, who didn't object to the luxuries of life, sighed. Somehow,
he had been looking forward to stopping at a hotel that night. He said
nothing, however, well knowing how his complaints would be received.

The auto was soon moving out of the cave in which they had had so
exciting an encounter. Nat was at the wheel and his two companions in
the tonneau. The faces of all were as beaming as the weather had now
turned out. These boys dearly loved the sensation of taking to the road
and proceeding on into the unknown and adventurous.

The rough strip separating the road, as we must in courtesy call it,
from the steep rock-face in which the cave lay, was speedily traversed
and the auto's nose headed north. For some time they bowled along at
a slow speed, the track growing rapidly rougher and rougher, till it
seemed that nothing on wheels could get over it.

"What's the m-m-m-matter?" asked Ding-dong suddenly of Joe Hartley, who
for a bumpy mile or two had sat with his head cocked on one side as if
listening intently for something.

"I'm listening for a puncture," grinned Joe, resuming his posture of
attention.

As the road grew rougher the walls of the valley began to close in.
They grew more lofty as the pass grew narrower, till only a thin strip
of blue sky showed at the summit. The rugged slopes were clothed with
a sparse growth of pine timber and chaparral. Immense faces of rock
cropped out among these. The whole scene had a wild and savage aspect.

Suddenly they reached a spot where the road took an abrupt dip
downward. From the summit the descent looked as steep as the wall of
a house. Fortunately, they carried an emergency brake, so that the
steepness of the declivity did not alarm them. Without hesitating
Nat allowed the car to roll over the summit and begin the drop. The
exhilaration of the rapid motion made him delay applying his emergency
just as soon as he should have, and the car had been running at
considerable speed when there came a sudden shout from Joe:--

"Look, Nat! Look!"

The boy, who had been adjusting his spark lever, looked up suddenly.
They were just rounding a curve, beyond which the road pitched down
more steeply than ever.

At the bottom of the long hill stood an obstacle. Nat at a glance
made it out as a stage coach of the old-fashioned "thorough-brace
type." It was stationary, however, and its passengers stood about it
in scattered groups, while, so far as Nat could see, no horses were
attached to it.

"Better go slow. There seems to be something the matter down there at
the bottom of the grade," the boy remarked.

At the same instant his hand sought the emergency brake lever and he
pushed it forward.

There was a loud crack as he did so, and an alarmed look flashed across
his face as the lever suddenly felt "loose" in his hand. The car seemed
to give an abrupt leap forward and plunge on more swiftly than ever.

Below him Nat could see the scattered figures pointing upward
excitedly. He waved and yelled to warn them that he had no control
over the car which was tearing forward with the speed of the wind. The
ordinary brake had no effect on it under the speed it had now gathered.
Lurching and plunging like a ship at sea, it rushed onward.

Directly in its path, immovable as a rock, was the stage coach. All
three of the Motor Rangers' bronzed, sunburned faces blanched as they
rushed onward to what seemed inevitable disaster.

CHAPTER III.

IN A RUNAWAY AUTO.

"Can't you stop her?" gasped Joe, clutching the forward portion of the
tonneau and gripping it so tight that his knuckles went white.

Nat shook his head. He felt that he had done what he could to slow down
the car. There was nothing left now but to face the end as resolutely
as possible. As long as they lived the Motor Rangers never forgot that
wild ride down the mountainside in a runaway car.

The speed can be described by no other word than terrific. The
handkerchiefs all three of the boys wore about their necks to keep off
sunstroke and dust streaked out behind as stiff as if cut out of tin.
Their hair was blown back flat on their heads by the speed, and every
now and then the car would strike a rock, which at the speed it was
going would throw it high into the air. At such moments the auto would
come back to the trail with a crash that threatened to dislocate every
spring in its composition.

But Nat, his eyes glued to the path in front of him, clung to the
wheel, gripping it till the varnish stuck to his palms. He knew that
the slightest mistake on his part might precipitate the seemingly
certain disaster. Suddenly, however, his heart gave a glad bound.

He saw before him one loophole of escape from a catastrophe. The stage
was halted against the rocky wall on the right-hand side of the trail.
So far over toward the rocky wall was it, in fact, that its hubs almost
scraped it. This left a narrow space between its left-hand wheels and
the other wall of the pass.

True, it looked so narrow that it hardly seemed possible that the auto
could dash through, but it was the only chance that presented itself,
and Nat was quick to take advantage of it. As they saw what the boy
intended to do the onlookers about the stage broke into a cheer, which
was quickly checked as they held their breath in anticipation. It was
one chance in a thousand that Nat was taking. Would he win out?

Closer thundered the auto while the alarmed stage passengers crowded
to the far side of the pass. Nat, his eyes glued on the narrow space
between the stage and the wall of rock, bent low over the wheel. His
heart underwent a terrible sinking sensation as it grew closer and he
saw how narrow the space was. But he didn't give up on that account. On
the contrary, the extremely narrow margin of hope acted as a tonic on
his nerves.

As a naval gunner aims his big projectiles so Nat aimed the thundering
runaway automobile for the narrow opening between the stage and the
cliff.

Almost before he realized it he was there.

There was a quick flash of a brightly painted vehicle and white,
anxious human faces as he shot by the stage and its dismounted
passengers.

An ominous scraping sound was audible for an instant as the hubs of the
stage and the auto's tonneau came in contact. To the left, Nat felt
the scrub growing in the cracks of the rock brush his face, and then,
amidst a shout of joy from behind, the auto emerged beyond the stage,
unharmed save for a few scratches.

As Nat brought it to a standstill on the level, the travellers came
running up at top speed. All were anxious to shake the hand of the
daring boy who had turned seeming disaster into safety by his grit and
cool-headedness.

"Pod'ner, you jammed that thar gas brigantine through that lilly hole
like you wos makin' a poket at bill-yards," admiringly cried a tall
man in a long linen duster and sombrero, about whose throat was a red
handkerchief. He grasped Nat's hand and wrung it as if he would have
shaken it off.

"My name's Cal Gifford. I'm the driver of the Lariat-to-Hombre stage,"
he announced, "and any of you kids kin ride free with me any time
you've a mind to."

"Thank you," said Nat, still a bit trembly from his nervous strain, "I
really believe that if you only had horses we'd accept your invitation
and tow the auto behind."

As he spoke he started to scramble out of the car, the others following
his example. The Motor Rangers were anxious to see what had gone wrong
with their ordinarily trustworthy vehicle.

"Oh, he's quite young," simpered an elderly lady in a big veil, who was
accompanied by her daughter, a girl of about twenty. An old man with
fierce white whiskers stood beside them. They were evidently tourists.
So, too, was a short, stout, blonde little man as rotund as a cider
keg, who stepped up to the boys as they prepared to examine their car.

"Holt, plez!" he said in an authoritative voice. "I vish to take zee
phitograft."

Nat looked somewhat astonished at so curt an order, but the other two
Motor Rangers merely grinned.

"Better let him, pod'ner," suggested Cal Gifford. "He took them road
agents a while back. Caught 'em in the act of sneaking the express
box."

"Chess!" sputtered the little German. "I gedt find pigdures of all of
dem. Dey vossn't looking andt I--click!"

As he spoke he rapidly produced a camera, and before the boys knew
what was happening he had pressed a little lever, and behold they were
"taken." But, in fact, their minds had been busy with something else.
This something was what the stage driver had referred to.

"Road agents?" asked Nat. "You've been held up, then?"

"Yep, pod'ner, that's what it amounts to," drawled Cal nonchalantly, as
if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.

"The varmints stepped out frum behind that thar rock and we didn't hev
time ter say 'Knife' afore we found ourselves lookin' inter the muzzles
of as complete a collection of rifles as you ever saw."

"Un dey tooked avay der horses by der oudtside," put in the German
tourist. "Oh, I schall have me fine tales to tell ven I get me pack by
der Faderland."

"The Dutchman's right," said Cal. "The onnery skunks unhitched our
plugs and scampered 'em off up the trail. I reckon they're in their
barn at Lariat by this time."

"Oh, dear, and we'll have to walk," cried the young lady, bursting into
tears.

"And I haf vot you call it, a oatmeal?--py my pig toe," protested the
German.

"I guess you mean a corn, Dutchy," laughed Cal.

"Vell, I knowed it vos some kindt of cereal," was the reply.

"Seems a shame to see that purty critter cry, don't it?" said Cal,
nodding his head sidewise toward the weeping young lady.

"This is an outrage! An outrage, I say!" her white-whiskered father
began shouting. "Why were those highwaymen not shot down? Why didn't
somebody act?"

"Well, pod'ner, you acted up fer sure," grinned Cal. "Am I mistaken or
did I hear you say you'd give 'em five thousand dollars for your life?"

"Bah!" shouted the white-whiskered man. "It was your duty sure to
protect us. You should have fired at them."

"I'd hev bin a hull lot uv use to yer then, except fer funeral poposes,
wouldn't I?" inquired Cal calmly.

"Bah! sir, bah!" sputtered the angry old gentleman.

"Good thing ther h'aint no mounting lions 'round," drawled Cal. "They
might think we wuz an outfit of sheepmen by all the bah-bahing we be
doin'."

"But how is my daughter to get to Lariat, sir?" begged the elderly
lady. "She hurt her foot in getting off the stage."

"Well, ma'am," said Cal, "supposing yer man yonder takes a try at
carryin' her instead of wasting wind a-bahing?"

"Voss iss diss bah? Maybe I get a picture of him?" asked the German,
bustling up excitedly with his camera all ready for business.

"Oh, sir, my husband was excited. He didn't know what he was saying,"
exclaimed the elderly lady clasping her hands.

"There, ma'am, don't take on. I was only a-having my bit of fun," said
Cal. "Maybe when these boys get their gasoline catamarang fixed up
they'll give us a ride."

"But they cannot take all of us, sir," cried the lady, beginning to
weep afresh.

"There, there, ma'am, never mind ther irrigation--I mean 'Weep not them
tears,'" comforted Cal. "Anyhow, you and your daughter can get a ride."

"But my husband--my poor husband, sir."

Cal turned with a grin at a sudden noise behind them. The
white-whiskered man had now turned his wrath on the unfortunate German.

"Out of my sight, you impudent Teuton," he was shouting. "Don't
aggravate me, sir, or I'll have your blood. I'm a peaceable tourist,
sir, but I have fought and bled in my time."

"Must hev bin bit by a mosquito and chased it," commented Cal to
himself as the lady hastened to console her raging better half, and the
little Dutchman skipped nimbly out of harm's way.

"What yo' bin a-doing to ther ole bell-wether, Dutchy?" inquired Cal.

"I ask him if he blease tell me vere I can get a picture of dot Bah,
und he get madt right avay quvick," explained the Teuton.

While all this had been going on among the tourists and Cal, the
other passengers, mainly mountaineers, had stood in a group aside
talking among themselves. In the meanwhile, the Motor Rangers had been
examining the damage to their car. They found that the connecting
rod working the band of the emergency brake had snapped, and that a
blacksmith would be needed to weld it. Cal, who had strolled up in time
to hear this decision, informed them that there was a blacksmith at
Lariat.

"And a good 'un, too," he volunteered.

The stage driver then made a request for a ride on behalf of the young
lady and her parents.

"Me and the Dutchman and the rest kin hoof it," he remarked. "It ain't
above five mile, and down grade, too."

"A steep grade?" asked Nat, with some appearance of interest as Joe
finished unbolting the loose ends of the broken rod.

"No, jest gentle. It runs on 'bout this way all down into Lariat."

"Well, then," said Nat, with a smile, "I'll save you all the trouble of
walking."

"How's that, pod'ner? We kain't all pile in the hold of that benzine
buggy."

"No; but I can give you a tow."

"What, hitch my stage on ahind your oleomargerinerous gas cart?"

"That's it."

"By the big peak of Mount Whitney, that's an idee!" exclaimed the
delighted stage driver, capering about and snapping his fingers like a
big child. "Wait a jiffy, I'll explain it all to Bah-bah and the rest."

This was soon done, and the Motor Rangers in the interval attached a
rope to the rear axle of the car and in turn made it fast to the front
of the stage. The pole of the latter vehicle was then led over the
tonneau of the auto and Joe and Ding-dong deputed to steer. From the
driver's box of the stage Cal worked the brake.

An experimental run of a few yards was made, and on the gentle grade
the plan was found to work perfectly, the auto towing the heavy stage
without difficulty.

"Now, then, all aboard the stagemotebubble!" shouted Cal, and a few
minutes later all the passengers, delighted with the novelty of the
experience, had piled on board. All delighted, that is, except the
white-whiskered man.

"All aboard that's a-goin' ter get thar!" bellowed Cal, fixing him with
a baleful eye.

"Bah! Bah!" sputtered the white-whiskered one indignantly, nevertheless
skipping nimbly on beside his wife and daughter.

But there came a fresh delay.

"Holt on, blease! Vait! I vish a photegrift to take him!"

"Ef yer don't hurry up Dutchy," shouted Cal, "you'll hev a picter of
yerself a-walking inter Lariat."

But the photo was taken without delay, and amid a cheer from her
overjoyed passengers, the stage, which moved by such novel means,
rumbled onward on its way to Lariat.

CHAPTER IV.

MOTOR RANGERS TO THE RESCUE.

"That came pretty near being like the time we collided with the hay
wagon in Lower California," commented Joe, as the auto got under way,
with her cumbersome tow rattling along behind.

"Yes, only this time we didn't hit," laughed Nat, who had quite
recovered from the strain of those terrible moments when it seemed that
they must go crashing into the stage.

"A m-m-m-miss is as g-g-g-good as a m-m-m-mile any day," said
Ding-dong, as his contribution to the conversation.

As Cal Gifford had said, the road was a gentle gradient between steep
mountain ranges. Consequently, the towing of the coach was an easy
matter. The two boys in the tonneau steered it by giving the pole a
push or a tug as occasion required--much as they would have handled
the tiller of a boat. When the stage showed signs of coming ahead too
fast Cal shoved the foot brake forward, at once checking the impetus.

Quite a small crowd turned out to witness the strange scene as the two
vehicles rolled into Lariat. The place was a typical western mountain
station. There was a small post-office, two or three rough houses
and a hotel. In the heydey of gold mining, Lariat had been quite a
flourishing place, but the hand of decay was upon it at the present
time. The hotel, however, was, as Ding-dong noticed, apparently open
for business. At least several loungers arose from their chairs on
the porch, and came forward with exclamations of surprise, as the two
conveyances lumbered into town.

Nat shut off power in front of the post-office and at the same time
Cal applied and locked the brakes, bringing the stage likewise
to a standstill. The postmaster, a long, lanky Westerner, with a
much-patched pair of trousers tucked into boot tops, was already out in
front of his little domain.

"Ther horses be back in ther barn," he volunteered, as Cal looked at
him questioningly. "They come galloping in here like a blue streak an
hour ago."

"Yep, bin held up again," Cal volunteered as the crowd gathered about
the stage, "and ef it hadn't been for these bubble boys here we
wouldn't hev got inter town yit."

"Take everything, Cal?" asked the postmaster.

"Yep; stock, lock and barrel, as the feller says. Left us our
vallibles, though. I reckon they would have taken them if it hadn't bin
for the noise this here gasolene giglet made as it come over ther hill.
Thet scared 'em, and they galloped off, takin' ther plugs with 'em."

"Consarn 'em! I reckon they're some of Col. Merced Morello's gang.
They've bin active hereabouts lately. Jes heard afore you come in thet
they'd raided a ranch up north an' tuk two hundred head of stock."

"Outrageous! Outrageous!" exclaimed the white-whiskered man, who had
been listening with an angry, red countenance, "why does not some one
capture them?"

"Well, sir," rejoined the postmaster, "if you kin tell us whar ter find
'em we'll furnish ther men to smoke 'em out. But up to date no one
ain't bin able ter git a glimpse of 'em. They jes' swoop down and then
vanish ag'in."

"They've got some hidin' place off in the mountins," opined Cal; "but
you can bet that the old colonel's foxy enough ter keep it close,
wherever it is."

"Betcher life," said one or two in the crowd who had heard.

While this had been going on the Motor Rangers had been hard at work
unhitching their car from the stage. In this operation they had been
considerably bothered by the crowd which, never having seen an auto
before, elbowed right up and indulged in comment and investigation.
Ding-dong caught one bewhiskered old fellow in the very act of
abstracting a spark plug. The boy promptly switched on the current and
the investigator, with a wild yell, hopped backward into the crowd,
wringing his hand.

"The critter bit me," he explained to the crowd. Such was his
explanation of the sharp electric shock he had received.

The proprietor of the hotel now hastened up, and began urging the
passengers on the stage to stay the night in his hotel. Another stage
went on from Lariat, and after a run of sixty miles struck the railroad
in the valley. This stage was to start in half an hour. After a hasty
meal the white-whiskered man and his family, and several of the other
passengers, decided to continue their journey. The boys, however, after
a consultation, came to the determination to spend the night at Lariat.

Their first care had been to hunt up the blacksmith Cal had referred
to, and to give into his hands the connecting rod. He promised to have
it welded as good as new by morning. This arranged, the boys sauntered
back to the hotel just in time to watch the other stage pull out. On a
rear seat sat the white-whiskered man. He was still boiling, despite
the fact that the robbers had not harmed him or his family in any way.
In fact, he occasionally simmered over.

The last the boys saw of him he had gotten hold of a fat, good-natured
little man, who looked like a drummer, and they could hear frequent
exclamations of "Bah!" coming back toward them, like the explosions of
a rapid-fire gun. A moment later the stage vanished behind a rocky turn
in the road.

Soon after the boys were called in to supper. Among the company at the
meal was a tall man with a black mustache drooping down each side of
his mouth in typical Western fashion.

"He looks like the pictures of Alkali Ike," remarked Joe in an
undertone as they concluded the meal and arose, leaving the
black-mustached man and the others still eating.

Outside they found it was a beautiful night. The storm of the afternoon
had laid the dust, and the moon was rising brilliantly in the clear and
sharp atmosphere peculiar to the high regions of the Sierras. In the
silvery radiance every rock and bush was outlined sharply. The road
lay between black curtains of mountainside, like a stretch of white
ribbon.

"Let's go for a stroll," suggested Nat, as they stood about on the
veranda wondering what they could do with themselves till bedtime.

The other two were nothing loath, and so, without bothering to say a
word to any one, the lads sauntered off down the road. The balmy scent
of pines and the mountain laurel hung heavily in the air. Nat inhaled
it delightedly.

"I tell you, fellows, this is living," he exclaimed.

"You bet," agreed Joe heartily.

"T-t-t-that p-p-pie was f-f-fine," said the unpoetical Ding-dong,
smacking his lips at the recollection of the dessert.

"There you go," said Nat in mock disgust, "always harping on eating."

"T-th-that's b-b-better-phwit--than eating on harpoons, isn't it?"
asked Ding-dong, with a look of injured innocence.

"I said harping on eating. Not harpoons on eating," retorted Nat.

"Oh," said Ding-dong. "Well, don't wail about it."

"Say, if you make any more puns I'll chuck you down into that canyon,"
threatened Joe, pointing downward into a black abyss which, at the
portion of the road they had now reached, yawned to one side of the
thoroughfare.

"You make me chuckle," grunted the incorrigible Ding-dong, avoiding the
threatened fate, however, by clambering and hiding behind a madrone
tree.

"Tell you what I'll do," cried Nat suddenly.

"Well, what?" demanded Joe, as Nat stopped short.

"I'll run you fellows a race to the bottom of the hill."

"You're on," cried Ding-dong from his retreat, and emerging immediately
thereafter, "don't bust your emergency brake though, or we'll have more
trouble."

He peered ahead down the moonlit canyon, and noted that the road was
quite steep for a distance of about a quarter of a mile.

The boys were all good runners and experts, in fact, at all branches
of athletics. Their blood fairly tingled as Nat lined them up and they
stood awaiting the word "go."

At last it came.

Like arrows from so many bows the three boys shot forward, Ding-dong
in the lead. How his stubby legs did move! Like pistons in their speed
and activity. There was no question about it, Ding-dong could run. Five
feet or so behind him came Joe and at his rear was Nat, who, knowing
that he was ordinarily a faster runner than either, had handicapped
himself a bit.

He speedily overhauled the others, however, although Ding-dong gave him
a stiff tussle. Reaching the finishing line, Nat looked back up the
moonlit road. Ding-dong and Joe were speeding toward him neck and neck.

"Go it, Ding-dong!" yelled Nat, "come on, Joe."

In a cloud of dust and small rocks the two contestants rushed on.
Suddenly one of Ding-dong's feet caught in a rock, and at the impetus
he had attained, the sudden shock caused him to soar upward into the
air, as if he were about to essay a flight through space.

Extending his arms spread-eagle fashion, the fleshy, stuttering youth
floundered above the ground for a brief second, and then, as Joe dashed
across the line he came down with a resounding crash. Flat on his face
he fell in the middle of the dusty road.

"Pick him up," exclaimed Nat as he saw the catastrophe.

Joe, who had by this time checked his speed, headed about after Nat,
and started for the recumbent Ding-dong. As they neared his side,
however, the lad jumped up with a grin on his rotund features.

"Fooled you, didn't I?" he chuckled.

"Goo--d gracious. I thought you had fractured every bone in your body,"
exclaimed Nat.

"Can't hurt me; I'm made of cast-iron," snickered Ding-dong.

"I always knew that applied to your head," said Joe, determined to
tease the boy a bit in revenge for the fright he had given them, "but I
never realized before that the complaint had spread all over you."

"I'd have won the race anyhow if I hadn't taken that tumble," retorted
Ding-dong, and as this seemed to be no more than the truth the others
had nothing to say in rejoinder.

"I guess we had better be getting back to the hotel," said Nat, "we
want to get an early start to-morrow, so a good night's sleep will be
in order."

But the words were hardly out of his mouth before he stopped short.

The boy had heard voices, apparently coming from the air above them.
He soon realized, however, that in reality the speakers were on the
mountain-side above them. In fact, he now saw that a trail cut into
the road above the point at which they stood. In their dash down the
hill they had not noticed it. The other lads, who had also heard the
voices, needed no comment to remain quiet.

While they stood listening a figure appeared on the trail, walking
rapidly down it. As the newcomer drew closer the boys recognized
the features and tall, ungainly outline of the man with the black
mustache--"Alkali Ike." He came forward as if with a definite purpose
in mind. Evidently, he was not, like the boys, out for a moonlight
stroll.

As he approached he stopped and listened intently. Then he gave a low,
peculiar whistle. It was like the call of a night bird.

Instantly, from the hill-side above them they heard the signal--for
such it seemed--replied to.

At the same instant whoever was on the hillside above began to advance
downward. The boys, crouching back in a patch of shadow behind a
chaparral clump, could hear the slipping and sliding of their horses'
hoofs as they came down the rocky pathway.

CHAPTER V.

AN APPOINTMENT ON THE TRAIL.

"Something's up," whispered Joe, as if this fact was not perfectly
obvious.

"Hush," warned Nat, "that fellow who just came down the trail is the
chap we noticed at supper."

"Alkali Ike?"

"Yes. That's what you called him."

"He must have a date here."

"Looks that way. If I don't miss my guess he's here to meet whoever is
coming on horseback down that trail."

"Are you going to stay right here?"

"We might as well. I've got an idea somehow that these chaps are up to
some mischief. It doesn't look just right for them to be meeting way
off here."

"That's right," agreed Joe, "but supposing they are desperate
characters. They may make trouble for us."

"I guess not," rejoined Nat, "we're well hidden in the shadow here.
There's not a chance of their seeing us."

"Well I hope not."

But the arrival of the horsemen on the trail put a stop to further
conversation right then. There were two of them, both, so far as the
boys could see, big, heavy men, mounted on active little ponies. Their
long tapaderos, or leather stirrup coverings, almost touched the ground
as they rode.

"Hello, Al," exclaimed one of them, as the black mustached man came
forward to meet them.

"Hello, boys," was the rejoinder in an easy tone as if the speaker had
no fear of being overheard, "well, you pulled it off I see."

"Yes, and we'd have got more than the express box too if it hadn't been
for the allfiredest noise you ever heard at the top of the trail all of
a sudden. It came just as we was about ter go through ther pockets of
the passengers. Sounded like a boiler factory or suthin'. I tell you we
lit out in a hurry."

The speaker was one of the pony riders. As he spoke Nat gave Joe a
nudge and the other replied with a look of understanding. The men who
stood talking not a score of paces from them had taken part in the
stage-robbery.

The man on foot seemed immensely amused at the mention of the "terrible
noise" his companions said they had been alarmed by.

"Why, that was an automobubble," he laughed.

"A bubble!" exclaimed one of the others, "what in the name of the
snow-covered e-tarnal hills is one of them coal oil buckboards doin' in
this neck of ther woods?"

"Why, three kids are running it on a pleasure trip. The Motor Rangers,
or some such fool name, they call theirselves. They hitched the bubble
on ter ther stage and towed her inter town as nice as you please."

"Did you say they called theirselves the Motor Rangers?" asked the
other mounted man who up to this time had not spoken.

"That's right, why?"

"One of 'em a fat, foolish lookin' kid what can't talk straight?" asked
the other instead of replying.

Nat nudged Ding-dong and chuckled, in imminent danger of exposing their
hiding place. It tickled him immensely to hear that youth described in
such an unflattering manner.

"Why yep. There is a sort of chumpish kid with 'em. For the matter of
that all three of 'em are stuck up, psalm singin' sort of kids. Don't
drink nor smoke nor nuthin'."

"True for you. We're not so foolish," breathed Nat to Joe.

"Why are you so anxious about 'em, Dayton?" asked the other rider who
had remained silent while his comrade was making the recorded inquiries.

"Cos I know 'em and I've got some old scores to even up with them,"
was the rejoinder. "Do you remember what I told you about some kids
fooling us all down in Lower California?"

"Yep. What of it?"

"Well, this is the same bunch. I'm sure of it."

"The dickens you say. Do they travel with much money about them?"

It was the black-mustached man who was interested now.

"I don't know about that. But their bubble is worth about $5,000 and
one of them has a gold mine in Lower Cal. Then, too, they always carry
a fine stock of rifles and other truck."

"They'd be worth plucking then?"

"I guess so. At any rate I'd like to get even with them even if we
didn't get a thing out of it. Ed. Dayton doesn't forgive or forget in a
hurry."

Small wonder that the boys leaned forward with their ears fairly aching
to catch every word. Nat knew now why the outline of one of the riders
had seemed familiar to him. The man was evidently none other than Ed.
Dayton, the rascal who had acted as the millionaire Hale Bradford's
lieutenant in Lower California.

Nat, it will be recalled, was captured on the peninsula and an attempt
made to force him to give up papers showing his right to the mine,
which the gang Hale Bradford had gathered about him was working. I can
tell you, Nat was mighty glad that he and his companions happened to be
there in the shadow; for, thought he to himself:--

"Forewarned is forearmed, Mr. Ed. Dayton."

But the men were resuming their talk.

"Tell you what you fellows do," said the black-mustached man. "Just lie
off here in the brush for an hour or so and I'll go back to the hotel
and look around. Then I'll come back and tell you if the coast's clear.
They've got their auto out in some sort of a shed and if we could run
it we could swipe the whole thing. Can you run an auto, Ed.? Seems to
me I've heard you talk about them."

"Can a dog bark?" inquired the other, who if the memory of my readers
goes back that far, they will recall had at one time been a chauffeur
for Mr. Pomery.

"Very well then, that's settled. At all events it might be a good thing
to smash up the car if we can't do anything else with it."

"That's right Al.," agreed Ed. Dayton's companion, "we don't want any
nosy kids around in the mountains. They might discover too much."

"That's so, too. Well, you leave it to me, Al. Jeffries, and I'll
bet you that after to-night they'll all be glad to go home to their
mammies."

But right here something happened which might, but for good fortune,
have caused a different ending to this story.

Ding-dong Bell, among other peculiarities, possessed a pair of very
delicate nostrils, and the slightest irritation thereof caused him to
sneeze violently. Now at the time of the year of which we are writing
the California mountains are covered with a growth, called in some
localities tar weed. This plant gives off an irritating dust when it
is shaken or otherwise disturbed, and the hoofs of the two riders'
ponies had kicked up a lot of this pungent powder. Just as the rascals
concluded their plans a vagrant puff of wind carried some of it in
Ding-dong's direction.

Realizing what serious consequences it might have, the lad struggled
with all his might against his immediate inclination to sneeze, but try
as he would he could not keep the ultimate explosion back.

"A-ch-oo-oo-oo-oo!"

It sounded as loud as the report of a cannon, in the silent canyon, and
quite as startling.

"What in thunder was that?" exclaimed Ed. Dayton wheeling his pony
round.

He, of course, saw nothing, and regarded his companions in a puzzled
way.

Al. Jeffries was tugging his black mustache and looking about him
likewise for some explanation. But he could not find it. In the
meantime, the boys, in an agony of apprehension, scarcely dared to
breathe. They crouched like rabbits behind their shelter awaiting what
seemed inevitable discovery.

"Must have been a bird," grunted Ed. Dayton's companion.

"Funny sort of bird," was the rejoinder.

"That's right. I am a funny sort of bird," thought Ding-dong with an
inward chuckle.

"Sounded to me more like somebody sneezin'," commented Ed. Dayton who
was still suspicious.

"It'll be a bad day for them if there was," supplemented Al. Jeffries
grimly.

"Tell you what we do, boys," came a sudden suggestion from Ed.'s
companion, which sent a chill to the hearts of the boys; "let's scatter
about here and look around a bit."

"That's a good idea," was the alarming rejoinder.

Nat was just revolving in his mind whether it would be the better
expedient to run, and trust to hiding in the rocks and chaparral, or to
leap up and try to scare the others' ponies, and then escape. But just
then Al. Jeffries spoke:

"No use wastin' time on that now, boys," he said, "it's gettin' late.
You do as I say, and then in a while we'll all take a little spin in
that grown up taxi cab of the Motor Rangers."

To the intense relief of the boys the others agreed. Soon after this
the trio of rascals separated. Ed. Dayton and his companions rode back
up the trail while Al. Jeffries started off for the hotel.

As soon as their footsteps grew faint Nat galvanized into action.

"We've got a lot to do in a very short time," he announced excitedly.
"Come on, Joe! Shake a foot! We've got to beat Mr. Al. back to the
hotel."

"How?" inquired Joe amazedly, but not doubting in his own mind that Nat
had already thought the matter out thoroughly.

"We'll skirt along the mountain-side above him. If we are careful he
won't hear us."

"That is, if Ding-dong can muffle that nasal gatling gun of his,"
grunted Joe. "Say, young fellow, the next time you want to sneeze when
we're in such a tight place, just oblige us by rolling over the edge of
the canyon, will you?"

"I c-c-c-o-o-ouldn't help it," sputtered Ding-dong sorrowfully.

"Couldn't," exclaimed the indignant Joe, "you didn't even try."

"I did too. But I couldn't remember whether the book said that you
could stop sneezing by pulling the lobe of your ear or rubbing the
bridge of your nose."

"So you did both?"

"Y-y-y-yes; why?"

"Well, they were both wrong. You should have wiggled your right big toe
while you balanced a blade of grass on your chin."

CHAPTER VI.

SOME RASCALS GET A SCARE.

Everybody in the hotel at Lariat had long retired to bed, when three
youthful forms stole toward the stable which had been turned into a
temporary garage for the Motor Rangers' big car. From their bed-room
window, the boys had, a few moments before, watched Al. Jeffries stride
off down the trail to meet his cronies for the second time and inform
them that the time was ripe to put up their attempted trick on the lads.

The doughty Al., on his return to the hotel after the conference at
which the lads were eavesdroppers, had found nothing to excite his
suspicion. The boys were all seated on the porch and apparently had not
moved since he had last seen them. Al. had even sat around with them a
while, trying to pump them, but of course, after what they knew of him,
they did not give him much information. Nat had formed an idea that
the man was a sort of agent for the gang of the famous Morello. That
is, he hung about towns and picked up any information he could about
shipments of specie from the mines, or of wealthy travellers who might
be going through. In this surmise we may say that Nat was correct.

But to return to the three lads whom we left at the beginning of the
chapter stealthily slipping across the moonlit space between the hotel
and the stable. All three had changed their boots for soft moccasins,
in which they made next to no noise at all as they moved. Each lad,
moreover, carried under his arm a small bundle. Their clothing
consisted of trousers and shirts. Their broad-brimmed sombreros had
been doffed with their coats. The Motor Rangers were, so to speak,
stripped for action. And it was to be action of a lively kind as the
event was to show.

On their arrival at the stable the boys slipped into an empty stall
alongside their car, and undoing their bundles, hastily donned what was
in them. Then Nat uncorked a bottle, while a strong odor filled the
air. It was a pungent sort of reek, and from the bottle could be seen a
faint greenish light glowing.

Their preparations completed, the Motor Rangers crouched behind the
wooden wall of the stall, awaiting the next move on the program.

"And for heaven's sake sit on that sneeze!" Joe admonished Ding-dong.

Before very long the boys could hear cautious footsteps approaching the
barn, and the sound of low whispering.

"The auto's right in here," they caught, in Jeffries' voice. "Say, what
a laugh we'll have on those kids in the morning."

"They laugh best who laugh last," thought Nat to himself, clutching
more tightly a small gleaming thing he had in his hand.

"This is pie to me," they could hear Dayton whispering, in a cautious
undertone, "I told those kids I'd get even on them for driving me out
of Lower California, and here's where I do it."

Nat gritted his teeth as he listened.

"You're going to get something that you don't expect," he muttered
softly to himself.

The next instant the barn door framed three figures. Behind them were
two ponies. The feet of the little animals were swathed in sacks so
that they made no noise at all.

"Pretty foxy," whispered Joe, "they've padded the ponies' hoofs."

"Hush!" ordered Nat, "don't say a word or make a move till I give the
signal."

"There's the car," whispered Jeffries, as they drew closer and the
shadow of the place enclosed them, blotting out their outlines.

"Seems a shame to run it over a cliff, don't it?" put in Dayton's
fellow pony rider.

"That's the only thing to do with it," said Dayton abruptly, "I want to
give those kids a lesson they won't forget."

"So, you rascals," thought Nat, "you were going to run the car over a
cliff were you? Oh, how I'd like to get my hands on you for just five
minutes."

"Go on, Dayton. Climb into the thing and start her up," said Jeffries.

"Hope them kids don't wake up," put in Dayton's companion.

"They're off as sound as tops," Al. assured him, "I listened at their
door after I came out, and they were snoring away like so many buck
saws."

With the ease born of familiarity with motor vehicles, Dayton climbed
into the driver's seat and bent over the steering wheel.

Presently there came a sharp click!

"Now!" whispered Nat.

As he gave the word, from behind the wooden partition upreared three
terrifying objects. Their faces glared greenly and their white forms
seemed to be shrouded in graveyard clothes.

In unison they uttered a dismal cry.

"Be-ware! Oh be-ware of the car of the Motor Ranger boys!"

"Wow!" yelled Dayton's companion.

As he gave the alarmed cry he fairly reeled back against the opposite
stall and fell with a crash. At the same instant, an old claybank mule
tethered in there awoke, and resenting the man's sudden intrusion, let
fly with his hind hoofs. This shot the ruffian's form full tilt into
that of Al. Jeffries, who was making at top speed for the door, and the
two fell, in a rolling, cursing, struggling, clawing heap on the stable
floor.

"Lemme up!" yelled Al. Jeffries, in mortal terror of the grim sheeted
forms behind him.

"Lemme go!" shouted Dayton's companion, roaring half in fear and half
in pain at the reminiscences of the mule's hoofs he carried.

But the startling apparitions, while at their first appearance they had
made Dayton recoil, only fooled him for an instant. Springing erect
from his first shock of amazement and alarm he gave an angry shout.

"Get up there you fools."

"Oh the ghosts! The ghosts with the green faces," bawled Al. Jeffries.

"Ghosts!" roared Dayton angrily, "they're no ghosts. Get up and knock
their heads off."

Suiting the action to the word he leaped from the car and charged
furiously at Nat. The boy's fist shot out and landed with a crash on
the point of his jaw, but although Dayton reeled under the force of the
blow he recovered instantly and charged furiously again on the sheeted
form.

In the meantime, Al. Jeffries and the other man had rolled apart and
perceived the state of affairs. The noise of the impact of Nat's fist
showed conclusively that it was no ghostly hand that had struck the
blow, and the fact rallied their fleeting courage. As furiously as had
Dayton, they charged upon the boys. The rip and tear of sheets, and the
sound of blows given and received, mingled with the angry exclamations
of the men and the quick, panting breath of the boys.

Suddenly, Nat levelled the little bright glinting thing he had clutched
in his hand as they crouched behind the wooden partition. He pressed a
trigger on its underside and a hissing sound followed.

"Sfiz-z-z-z-z-z!"

At the same instant the air became surcharged with a pungent odor. It
seemed to fill the atmosphere and made nostrils and eyes smart.

"Ammonia!" shouted Al. Jeffries, staggering backward and dabbing
desperately at his face where the full force of Nat's charge had
expended itself. As upon the other occasion, when the ammonia pistols
had been used, the rout of the enemy was complete. With muffled
imprecations and exclamations of pain, the three reeled, half blinded,
out of the barn.

At the same instant the boys heard windows thrown up and the sharp
report of a revolver.

"Fire! Thieves! Murder!" came from one window, in the landlord's voice,
following the discharge of the pistol.

"Get to the ponies," roared Dayton, "we'll have the whole hornets' nest
about our ears in a minute."

The others needed no urging. Grabbing Al. Jeffries by the arm, Dayton's
companion, who was only partially blinded, made for his little steed.
But Dayton, who had hardly received any of the aromatic discharge,
suddenly whipped about and snatched a revolver from his side. Before
the boys could dodge the man fired at them.

Nat felt the bullets fan the air by his ear, but fortunately, the man
fired so quickly and the excitement and confusion was such, that in the
moonlight he missed his aim.

"I'll make you smart for this some day!" he yelled, as fearful of
lingering any longer he swung himself into his saddle. He drove home
the spurs and with a squeal and a bound the little animal carried him
out of the region of the hotel.

As for Dayton's companion he was already a good distance off with Al.
Jeffries clinging behind him on his saddle.

Joe had made for the auto and seized a rifle from the rack in the
tonneau as Dayton galloped off, but Nat sharply told him to put it down.

"We have scared the rascals off, and that's enough," he said.

In a few minutes the Motor Rangers were surrounded by everybody in the
hotel, including Cal and the postmaster. They were warmly congratulated
on their success by all hands, and much laughter greeted their
account of the amusing panic into which the rascals had been thrown
by the sudden appearance of the glowing-faced ghosts, followed by the
discharge of the "mule battery."

"How did yer git the green glowing paint?" asked Cal interestedly.

"Why, we took the liberty of soaking two or three bundles of California
matches in the tooth glass," explained Nat, "and then we had a fine
article of phosphorus paint."

"Wall if you ain't the beatingest," was the landlord's admiring
contribution.

In the midst of the explanations, congratulations and angry
denunciation of Al. Jeffries and his companions, a sudden piping voice
was heard.

"Yust von moment blease. Vait! Nod a mofe!--Ah goot, I haf you!"

It was the little German, whom, the boys had discovered, was named
Hans Von Schiller Muller. He had sprung out of bed in the midst of the
excitement and instantly decided it would make a good subject for his
camera. He presented a queer figure as he stood there, in pajamas
several sizes too small for him and striped with vivid pink and green.
The shrinkage had been the work of a Chinese laundryman in the San
Joaquin Valley.

"Say," exclaimed Joe, "you don't expect to get a picture out of that do
you?"

"Chess. Sure. Vy nodt?"

"Well, because in the first place you had no light," said Joe.

"Ach! Donnerblitzen, miserable vot I am. I shouldn't have got id a
flash-light, aind't it. Hold on! Vait a minute. I get him."

"Better defer it till to-morrow," said Nat, who like the rest, was
beginning to shiver in the keen air of the mountains, "it's too cold to
wait for all your preparations."

And so, when Herr Muller returned to the fatherland there was one
picture he did not have, and that was a portrait of the Motor Rangers
as they appeared immediately after routing three notorious members of
Col. Morello's band of outlaws.

CHAPTER VII.

A PHOTOGRAPHER IN TROUBLE.

The boys were not up as early the next morning as they had anticipated.
In the first place, it was somewhat dull and overcast, and in the
second they were naturally tired after their exciting adventures of the
preceding day and night. The first person to hail them as they left
the dining room where they had partaken of a hearty breakfast was Cal
Gifford. The stage driver drew them aside and informed them in an irate
voice that on account of the stage having been held up the day before,
he had been notified by telegraph early that morning that his services
would be no longer required by the Lariat Stage Company.

"What are you going to do?" asked Nat, after he had extended his
sympathies to the indignant Cal.

"Wall, I've got a little mine up north of here that I think I'll go and
take a look at," said Cal.

"How far north?" asked Nat interestedly.

"Oh, 'bout two hundred miles. I'm all packed ready ter go, but I cain't
git a horse."

He indicated a battered roll of blankets and a canteen lying on the
porch. Surmounting this pile of his possessions was an old rifle--that
is, in pattern and design, but its woodwork gleamed, its barrel was
scrupulously polished, and its mechanism well oiled. Like most good
woodsmen and mountaineers, Cal kept good care of his weapons, knowing
that sometimes a man's life may depend on his rifle or revolver.

"Can't get a horse?" echoed Nat. "Why, I should think there would be no
trouble about that."

"Wall, thar wouldn't hev bin, but thet little Dutchman bought a nag
this mornin' and started off ter take picters on his lonesome."

"I guess you mean he hired one, don't you?" asked Joe.

"No siree. That Teutonic sport paid hard cash fer ther plug. He tole
the landlord that he means ter make a trip all through the Sierras
hereabout, making a fine collection of pictures."

"He must be crazy, starting off alone in an unknown country," exclaimed
Nat.

"Thet's jes' what they all tole him, but there ain't no use arguin'
with er mule or a Dutchman when their mind's set. He started off about
an hour ago with a roll of blankets, a frying pan and his picture box."

"He stands a chance of getting captured by Col. Morello's band,"
exclaimed Joe.

"It's likely," agreed Cal, "but what I was a goin' ter tell yer wuz
that ther plug he bought was ther last one they had here. An' so now
I'm stuck I guess, till they git some more up from ther valley."

"Tell you what you do," said Nat after a brief consultation with his
chums, "why not take a ride with us as far as your way lies, and then
proceed any way you like?"

"What, ride with you kids in thet gasolene tug boat?"

"Yes, we'd be glad to have you. You know the roads and the people up
through here, and could help us a whole lot."

"Say, that's mighty white of yer," said Cal, a broad smile spreading
over his face, "if I wouldn't be in ther way now----"

"We'll be very glad to have you," Nat assured him, while Joe and
Ding-dong nodded their heads in affirmation, "are you ready to start?"

Cal nodded sidewise at his pile of baggage.

"Thar's my outfit," he said.

"All right. Then I'll pay our bill and we'll start right away."

And so it was arranged. Ten minutes later the Motor Rangers in their
big touring car rolled majestically out of the town of Lariat, while
Cal in the tonneau waved his sombrero to admiring friends.

"This is ther first time I ever rode a benzine broncho," he declared as
the car gathered way and was soon lost to the view of the citizens of
Lariat in a cloud of dust.

The road lay through the same canyon in which they had so fortunately
overheard the conversation of Al. Jeffries and his cronies the night
before. It was a sparkling morning, with every object standing out
clear and intense in the brilliant light of the high Sierras. A crisp
chill lay in the air which made the blood tingle and the eyes shine.
As they rolled on with the engine singing its cheering song Cal, too,
burst into music:

      "Riding along on my gasolene bronc;
    Instead of a whinny it goes 'Honk! Honk!'
      If we don't bust up we'll be in luck,
    You'd be blowed sky-high by a benzine buck!"

About noon they emerged from the narrow canyon into a wide valley, the
broad, level floor of which was covered with green bunch grass. Through
its centre flowed a clear stream, fed by the snow summits they could
see in the distance. Cattle could be seen feeding at the far end of
it and it was evidently used as a pasture by some mountain rancher.
As they drew closer to a clump of large redwood trees at one end of
the valley Nat gave a sudden exclamation of surprise, and stood up in
the tonneau. Joe, who was at the wheel, sighted the scene which had
attracted the others' attention at the same instant.

A group of cattlemen could be seen under one of the larger trees, with
a figure in their midst. They were clustered about the central object,
and appeared to be handling him pretty roughly.

Nat snatched up the glasses from their pocket in the tonneau and
levelled them on the scene. He put them down again with an exclamation
of excitement.

"They're going to lynch that fellow," he announced.

"What!" roared Cal, "lend me them peep glass things, young chap."

Joe stopped the car, while Cal took a long look. He confirmed Nat's
opinion.

"They've got the rope over a limb of that tree already," he said.

"How are we to help him?" cried Nat, whose first and natural thought
had been to go to the unfortunate's assistance.

"What do you want ter help him fer," grunted Cal, "like as not he's
some sort of a horse thief or suthin'. You bet those fellers wouldn't
be going ter string him up onless he had bin doin' suthin' he hadn't
orter."

Nat was not so sure about this. From what he knew of the West its
impulsive citizens occasionally executed a man first and inquired into
the justice of it afterward.

"Steer for those trees, Joe," he ordered sharply.

Joe, without a word, obeyed, while Cal shrugged his shoulders.

"May be runnin' inter trouble," he grunted.

"If you're scared you can get out," said Nat more sharply than was his
wont.

Cal looked angry for a moment, but then his expression changed.

"Yer all right, boy," he said heartily, "and if ther's trouble I'm with
you every time."

"Thanks," rejoined Nat simply, "that's the opinion I'd formed of you,
Cal."

The car had now left the road and was rolling over the pasture which
was by no means as smooth as it had appeared from the mountain road.
However, they made good progress and as their shouts and cries had
attracted the attention of the group of punchers under the trees, they
at least had achieved the delay of the execution. They could now see
every detail of the scene, without the aid of the field glasses. But
the visage of the intended victim was hidden from them by the circle
of wild-looking figures about him. As the Motor Rangers drew closer a
big, raw-boned cattle puncher, with a pair of hairy "chaps" on his legs
and an immense revolver in his hand, rode toward them. As his figure
separated itself from the group Cal gave a low growl.

"Here comes trouble," he grumbled, closing his hand over the well-worn
butt of his pistol.

"Howdy, strangers," drawled the newcomer, as he drew within earshot.

"Howdy," nodded the boys, not however, checking the auto.

"Hold on thar," cried the cowpuncher raising a big, gauntleted hand,
"don't come no further, strangers. Thar's ther road back yonder."

He backed up his hint by exhibiting his revolver rather ostentatiously.
But Nat's eyelids never quivered as he looked the other full in the
face and asked in a tone that sounded like one of mild, tenderfoot
inquiry:--

"What are you doing there, mister--branding calves?"

"No we ain't, young feller," rejoined the cowpuncher, "Now if
you're wise you'll take that fer an answer and get out of here
pronto--quick--savee!"

"I don't see any reason why we can't drive through here," said Nat,
cunningly stringing out the talk so that the car could creep quite
close to the group of would-be lynchers.

"You don't see no reason?"

"No."

"Wall, stranger--thar's six reasons here and they all come out at once."

As he spoke the cowpuncher tapped the shiny barrel of his revolver with
a meaning gesture. Nat saw that he could not go much further with
safety.

"Now you git!" snarled the cowboy. "You've had fair warning. Vamoose!"

As he spoke the group about the tree parted for a minute as the
cowpunchers composing it gazed curiously at the auto, which was nearing
them. As they separated, the figure of the victim became visible. The
boys greeted the sight with a shout of amazement which was echoed by
Cal.

"Boys, it's Herr Muller!" shouted Nat.

"Wall ther blamed Dutchman!" gasped Cal, "has he bin stealin' horses?"

"Yep," rejoined the puncher briefly, "he hev. An' we're goin' ter
string him up. Now you git out."

"All right," spoke Nat suddenly, with a flashing light of excitement
blazing in his eyes.

"We'll get, but it will be--THIS WAY!"

As he spoke he leaped into the driver's seat, pushing Joe to one side.

The next instant the car was leaping forward with a roar and a bound,
headed full at the band of amazed and thunderstruck cowpunchers.

CHAPTER VIII.

LOST IN A PETRIFIED FOREST.

Before the lynching party regained its senses Nat had rushed the car
up alongside Herr Muller. Before that blonde pompadoured son of the
fatherland knew what had occurred, Joe's strong arms, aided by Cal's
biceps, jerked him off his feet and into the tonneau. But the long
lariat which was already about his neck trailed behind, and the first
of the punchers that realized what was happening darted forward and
seized it as the car sped forward.

"P-ouf-o-o-o-f!" choked the unfortunate German, as the noose tightened.
The cowpuncher who had hold of the other end of the rope dug his heels
into the ground and braced himself. Herr Muller would have been jerked
clean out of the tonneau by his unlucky neck had it not been for
Ding-dong Bell, who, with a swift sweep downward of his knife blade
severed the rope.

As the strain was abruptly relieved the cowpuncher who had hold of the
other end went toppling backward in a heap. But at the same instant the
rest came to their senses, and headed by the man who had threatened
Nat, they clambered on their ponies and swept forward, uttering wild
yells.

If this had been all, the occupants of the auto could have afforded
to disregard them, but, apparently realizing the hopelessness of
attempting to overtake the fleeing car they unlimbered their revolvers
and began a fusillade.

Bullets whistled all about the Motor Rangers and their companions, but
luckily nobody was hit. Nat's chief fear though, and his apprehension
was shared by the rest, was that one of the bullets might puncture a
tire.

"If it ever does--good night!" thought Nat as the angry, vengeful yells
of the cheated punchers came to his ears.

But to his joy they now sounded more faintly. The pursuit was dropping
behind. Right ahead was the feeding herd. In a few minutes the car
would be safe from further attack,--when suddenly there came an ominous
sound.

"Pop!"

At the same moment the car gave a lurch.

"Just what I thought," commented Nat, in a despairing voice, "they've
winged a tire."

"Shall we have to stop?" asked Cal rather apprehensively, although a
grim look about the corners of his mouth betokened the fact that he was
ready to fight.

"Den maype I gedt idt a pigdure, aind idt?" asked Herr Muller, with
what was almost the first free breath he had drawn since Master Bell
slashed the rope.

"Good Lord!" groaned Cal in comical despair, "my little man, if those
fellows ever get us you'll be able to take a picture of your own
funeral."

"How would dot be bossible?" inquired Herr Muller innocently, "if I
voss a deader I couldn't take my own pigdure, aind't idt?"

But before any of them could make a reply, indignant or otherwise, a
sudden occurrence ahead of them caused their attention to be diverted
into a fresh channel. The cattle, terrified at the oncoming auto, had
stopped grazing and were regarding it curiously. Suddenly, one of them
gave an alarmed bellow. It appeared to be a signal for flight, for like
one animal, the herd turned, and with terrified bellowings, rushed
madly off into the pine forests on the eastern side of the valley.

This was a fortunate happening for the boys, for the cowpunchers were
now compelled finally to give up their chase of the automobile and head
off after the stampeded cattle.

"I reckon we'd better not come this way again; it wouldn't be
healthy-like," grinned Cal, hearing their shouts and yells grow faint
in the distance as they charged off among the trees.

"There's one thing," said Nat as he brought the crippled auto to a halt
a short distance off, "they won't worry us for some time."

"No. Among them pine stumps it'll take 'em a week to round up their
stock."

And now all hands turned to Herr Muller and eagerly demanded his
story. It was soon told. He had arrived in the valley a short time
before they had, and, charmed by its picturesque wildness, had begun
enthusiastically taking pictures. In doing so, he had dismounted, and
wandered some distance from his horse. When he turned his attention to
it again, it had disappeared. However, although at first he thought
he had lost the animal he soon found it grazing off among a clump
of willows by the creek. He had mounted it and was riding off when
suddenly the cowpunchers appeared, and as soon as their eyes fell on
the horse accused the German of stealing it.

"I dell dem dot dey is mistakes making, but der use voss iss?" he went
on. "Dey say dot dey pinch me anyhow."

"Lynch you, you mean, don't you?" inquired Nat.

"Vell dey pinch me too, dond dey?" asked Herr Muller indignantly.
"Howefer, I egsplain by dem dot dey make misdage and den a leedle bull
boy----"

"Cowboy," corrected Cal with a grin.

"Ach, how I can tell idt you my story if you are interrupt all der
time," protested the German. "Well as I voss saying, der bull-boy tells
me, 'loafer vot you iss you dake idt my bony vile I voss go hunting
John rabbits. Yust for dot vee hang you py der neck.'"

"What did you say?" asked Nat, who began to think that the
absent-minded German might actually have taken a wrong horse by
accident.

"I say, 'Dot is my horse. I know him lige I know it mein brudder.' But
dey say dot I iss horse bustler----"

"Rustler," muttered Cal.

"And dot I most be strunged oop. So I dake idt der picdures und gif dem
my address in Chermany und den I prepare for der endt."

"Weren't you scared?" demanded Cal incredulously, for the German had
related this startling narrative without turning a hair; in fact,
he spoke about it as he might have talked about a tea party he had
attended.

"Ach himmel, ches I voss scaredt all right. Pudt der voss no use in
saying noddings, voss dere?"

"No I guess if you put it that way there wasn't," laughed Nat, "but you
saved your camera I see."

He looked at the black box hanging round the German's neck by a strap.

"Yah," grinned Herr Muller, "I say I von't pee hanged if dey don'dt led
itdt be mit der camera my neck py."

"No wonder they say, 'Heaven help the Irish, the Dutch can look after
themselves,'" muttered Cal to himself as the entire party got out of
the machine and a new tire was unbuckled from the spare tire rack.

The operation of replacing it was a troublesome one, and occupied some
time.

So long did it take, in fact, that it was almost sundown by the time
the shoe had been finally bolted above the inner tube, and they were
ready to start once more. Just as they were about to be off Cal gave an
exclamation and pointed ahead. Looking up in the direction he indicated
the others saw coming toward them a saddled horse. But no rider
bestrode it, and the reins were entangled in its forefeet. It whinnied
as it saw them and came up close to the auto.

"Great Scott!" exclaimed Cal, as he saw it, "those cowpunchers had you
right after all, Mr. Dutchman; this here is the plug you bought."

"Yah! yah! I know him now!" exclaimed Herr Muller enthusiastically.
"See dere is my plankets diedt on py der saddle."

"So they are," exclaimed Nat, "at least I suppose they're yours. Then
you actually were a horse thief and didn't know it. I suppose that when
your horse wandered off that cowpuncher came along on his pony and left
it while he went hunting jack rabbits. Then you, all absorbed in your
picture taking, mistook his horse for yours."

"I guess dots der vay idt voss, chust a mistage," agreed Herr Muller
with great equanimity.

"Say, pod'ner," said Cal, who had just led up the beast and restored it
to its rightful owner, "you're glad you're livin', ain't you?"

The German's blue eyes opened widely as he stared at his questioner.

"Sure I iss gladt I'm lifing. Vot for--vy you ask me?"

"Wall, don't make any more mistakes like that," admonished Cal with
grave emphasis, "folks out here is touchy about them."

As Herr Muller was going in the same direction as themselves he
accepted a seat in the tonneau and his angular steed was hitched on
behind as over the rough ground the car could not go any faster than
a horse could trot. For some time they bumped along the floor of the
valley and at last emerged at its upper end into a rocky-walled canyon,
not unlike the one through which they had gained the depression in the
hills. But to their uneasiness they could discover no road, or even a
trail. However, the bottom of the canyon was fairly smooth and so Nat
decided, after a consultation with Cal, to keep going north. A glance
at the compass had shown them that the canyon ultimately cut through
the range in that direction.

"We'll strike a trail or a hut or suthin' afore long," Cal assured
them.

"I hope we strike some place to make camp," grumbled Joe, "I'm hungry."

This speech made them remember that in their excitement they had
neglected to eat any lunch.

"Never mind, Joe," said Nat, "we'll soon come across a spring or a
place that isn't all strewn with rocks, and we'll camp there even if
there isn't a road."

"No, there's no use going ahead in the dark," agreed Cal, looking about
him.

It was now quite dark, and the depth of the canyon they were traversing
made the blackness appear doubly dense. But Nat, by gazing upward at
the sky, managed to keep the auto on a fairly straight course, although
every now and then a terrific bump announced that they had struck a big
boulder.

"Wish that moon would hurry up and rise; then we could see something,"
remarked Cal, as they crept along. The others agreed with him, but they
would not have the welcome illumination till some time later. They were
still in the canyon, however, when a dim, silvery lustre began to
creep over the eastern sky. Gradually the light fell upon the western
wall of the gorge and soon the surroundings were flooded with radiance.

But it was a weird and startling scene that the light fell upon. Each
occupant of the car uttered an involuntary cry of amazement as he
gazed about him. On every side were towering trunks of what, at first
glance, seemed trees, but which, presently, were seen to be as barren
of vegetation as marble columns. Stumps of these naked, leafless forms
littered the ground in every direction. In the darkness seemingly, they
had penetrated quite a distance into this labyrinth, for all about them
now were the bare, black trunks. Some of them reached to an immense
height, and others were short and stumpy. All shared the peculiarity of
possessing no branches or leaves, however.

"Where on earth are we?" asked Joe, gazing about him at the desolate
scene.

"I can't make out," rejoined Nat in a troubled tone, "it's sort of
uncanny isn't it?"

The others agreed.

"Ugh; it remindts me of a grafeyardt," shivered the German, as he
looked about him at the bare stumps rising black and ghostlike in the
pale moonlight.

Suddenly Cal, who had been gazing about him, shouted an explanation of
the mystery.

"Boys, we're in a petrified forest!" he exclaimed.

CHAPTER IX.

THE MIDNIGHT ALARM.

The boys would have been glad to explore the petrified forest that
night had it been practicable. They had read of the mysterious stone
relics of ancient woods, which exist in the remote Sierras, but they
had never dreamed they would stumble upon one so opportunely. However,
even had they been less tired, it would have been out of the question
to examine the strange place more thoroughly that night.

As there did not seem to be any limit to the place so far as they could
see, the boys decided to camp where they were for the night. The auto
was stopped and the horse unhitched and turned loose at the end of a
lariat to graze, his rope being made fast round one of the more slender
stone trunks.

"Feels like hitching him to the pillar of the City Hall at home,"
laughed Joe, as he formed a double half hitch and left the horse to
his own devices, first, however, having watered the animal at a small
spring which flowed from the foot of a large rock at one side of the
mysterious stone valley.

In the meantime, Cal had built a fire of sage brush roots, for there
was no wood about, every bit of it having turned to stone long ages
before. The pile, on being ignited, blazed up cheerfully, illuminating
the sterile, lonely spot with a merry red blaze. The spider was taken
out of the utensil locker, and soon bacon was hissing in it and canned
tomatoes and corn bubbling in adjacent saucepans. A big pot of coffee
also sent up a savory aroma. Altogether, with canned fruit for dessert,
the Motor Rangers and their friends made a meal which quite atoned for
the loss of their lunch. Even Ding-dong admitted that he was satisfied
by the time Cal drew out a short and exceedingly black pipe. The
former stage driver rammed this full of tobacco and then leisurely
proceeded to light it. After a few puffs he looked up at the group
around him. They were lolling about on waterproof blankets spread out
on the rock-strewn ground, a portion of which they had cleared. In
the background stood the dark outlines of the auto, and beyond, the
mysterious shadows of the petrified forest, the bequest to the present
of the long departed stone age.

"I've bin a thinkin'," began Cal, as if he were delivering his mind of
something he had been inwardly cogitating for some time, "I've bin a
thinkin' that while we are in this part of the country we ought to keep
a good look out at night."

"You think that Morello's band may give us more trouble?" asked Nat.

"I don't jes' think so," rejoined Cal earnestly, "I'm purty jes' nat'ly
sure of it. They ain't the sort of fellers ter fergit or furgive."

"I guess you're right," agreed Nat, "that man Dayton alone is capable
of making lots of trouble for us. We'll do as you say and set a watch
to-night."

"I vind und set my votch every night," declared Herr Muller, proudly
drawing out of his pocket an immense timepiece resembling a bulbous
silver vegetable.

"This is a different kind of watch that we're talking about," laughed
Nat.

It was ultimately arranged, after some more discussion, that Joe and
Nat should watch for the first part of the night and Ding-dong and Cal
Gifford should come on duty at one o'clock in the morning. It seemed
to young Bell that he hadn't been asleep more than five minutes when
he was roughly shaken by Nat and told to tumble out of the tonneau as
it was time to go on watch. Already Cal, who like an old mountaineer
preferred to sleep by the fire, was up and stirring. It took a long
time, though, to rout Ding-dong out of his snug bed. The air at that
altitude is keen and sharp, and being turned out of his warm nest was
anything but pleasant to the lad.

"L-l-l-let the D-d-d-d-dutchman do it," he begged, snuggling down in
his blankets.

"No," said Nat firmly, "it's your turn on duty. Come on now, roll out
or we'll pull you out."

Finally, with grumbling protestations, the stuttering youth was hauled
forth, and, while Nat and Joe turned in, he and Cal went on duty, or
"sentry go," as they say in the army.

"Now then," said Cal crisply, as the shivering Ding-dong lingered by
the fire with his rifle in his chilled hands, "you go off there to the
right and patrol a hundred feet or more. I'll do the same to the left.
We'll meet at the fire every few minutes and get warm."

"A-a-all r-r-r-right," agreed Ding-dong, who stood in some awe of the
stage driver. Consequently, without further demur, he strode off on
his post. Having reached the end of it he marched back to the fire and
warmed himself a second. Then he paced off again. This kept up for
about an hour when suddenly Cal, who was at the turning point of his
beat, heard a startling sound off to the right among the tomb-like
forms of the stone trees.

Bang!

It was followed by two other shots.

Bang! Bang!

The reports rang sharply, amid the silence of the desolate place, and
sent an alarmed chill even to Cal's stout heart. He bounded back toward
the fire just in time to meet Ding-dong, who came rushing in with a
scared white face, from the opposite direction. At the same time Nat
and Joe awakened, and hastily slipping on some clothes, seized their
rifles and prepared for trouble.

"What's the matter?" demanded Cal, in sharp, crisp tones, of the
frightened sentinel.

"Indians!" was the gasped-out reply, "the p-p-p-place is f-f-f-full of
them."

"Indians!" exclaimed Cal, hastily kicking out the bright fire and
leaving it a dull heap of scattered embers, "are you sure?"

"S-s-s-sure. I s-s-s-saw their f-f-f-fif-feathers."

"That's queer," exclaimed Cal, "I never heard of any Indians being in
this section before. But come on, boys, it's clear the lad here has
seen something and we'd better get ready for trouble."

An improvised fort was instantly formed, by the boys crouching in
various points of vantage in the automobile with their rifles
menacingly pointed outward. Herr Muller snored on serenely, and they
allowed him to slumber.

They must have remained in tense poses without moving a muscle for half
an hour or more before any one dared to speak. Then Nat whispered,

"Queer we don't see or hear anything."

"They may be creeping up stealthily," rejoined Cal, "don't take your
eye off your surroundings a minute."

For some time more the lads watched with increasing vigilance. At
length even Cal grew impatient.

"There's something funny about this," he declared, and then turning on
Ding-dong he demanded:

"Are you sure you saw something?"

"D-d-d-didn't I s-s-s-s-shoot at it?" indignantly responded the boy.

"I know, but you actually saw something move?" persisted Nat.

"Of c-c-c-course I did. You didn't think I was go-go-going to
s-s-s-shoot at a put-put-petrified tree, did you?"

"We'll wait a while longer and then if nothing shows up I'm going to
investigate," declared Cal.

"I'm with you," agreed Nat.

As nothing occurred for a long time the Motor Rangers finally climbed
out of the car, and with their rifles held ready for instant action,
crept off in the direction from which Ding-dong's fusillade had
proceeded. Every now and then they paused to listen, hardly breathing
for fear of interrupting the silence. But not a sound could they
hear. However, Ding-dong stuck stoutly to his story that he had seen
something move and had fired at it, whereupon it had vanished.

"Maybe it was Morello's gang trying to give us a scare," suggested Nat.

"Ef they'd ever got as close to us as this they'd hev given us worse
than a scare," confidently declared Cal.

By this time they had proceeded quite some distance, and Cal stopped
Ding-dong with a question.

"Whereabouts were you when you fired?"

"I-I do-do-do-do-don't know," stuttered the lad.

"You don't know?" indignantly echoed Nat, "you're a fine woodsman."

"Y-y-y-y-yes I do t-t-t-too," Ding-dong hastened to amend, "I was
here--right here."

He ascended a small knoll covered with grass, at the foot of one of the
stone trees.

"Which direction did you fire in?" was Nat's next question.

"Off t-t-t-that w-w-w-w-w-way," spoke Ding-dong. "Wow, there he is now!"

The boy gave a yell and started to run, and the others were
considerably startled.

From the little eminence on which they stood they could see, projecting
from behind one of the pillars, something that certainly did look like
two feathers sticking in an Indian's head dress. As they gazed the
feathers moved.

"Shoot quick!" cried Joe, jerking his rifle up to his shoulder, but Cal
yanked it down with a quick pull.

"Hold on, youngster. Not so fast," he exclaimed, "let's look into this
thing first."

Holding his rifle all ready to fire at the least alarm, the former
stage driver crept cautiously forward. Close at his elbow came Nat,
with his weapon held in similar readiness.

"There is something there--see!" exclaimed Nat in an awed tone.

"Yes," almost shouted the guide, "and it's that Dutchman's old plug!"

The next instant his words were verified. The midnight marauder at whom
Ding-dong had fired was nothing more dangerous than the horse of Herr
Muller. It had broken loose in the night and was browsing about when
the amateur sentry had come upon it. In the moonlight, and when seen
projecting from behind a pillar, its ears, which were unusually long,
did look something like the head dress of an Indian.

"Wow!" yelled Nat, "this is one on you, Ding-dong!"

"Yes, here's your Indian!" shouted Joe, doubling up with laughter.

"Whoa, Indian," soothed Cal, walking up to the peaceful animal, "let's
see if he hit you."

But the merriment of the lads was increased when an examination of the
horse failed to show a scratch or mark upon it.

"That's another on you, Ding-dong," laughed Nat, "you're a fine
sentinel. Why, you can't even hit a horse."

"Well, let the Dutchman try and see if he can do any better," rejoined
Ding-dong with wounded dignity.

CHAPTER X.

ALONG THE TRAIL.

"Voss iss dot aboudt mein horse?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"It's c-c-c-c-cold," protested Ding-dong, but before he could utter
further expostulations his legs were suddenly tripped from under him
and he sprawled head first into the chilly, clear water. Joe Hartley
was feeling good, and of course poor Ding-dong had to suffer. By the
time the latter had recovered his feet and wiped some of the water out
of his eyes, the others had washed and were off for the camp fire. With
an inward resolve to avenge himself at some future time, Ding-dong soon
joined them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I reckin' you're right," agreed Cal, "it makes me feel like an
ossified 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 renewal
of hostilities.

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

"Maybe so," agreed Cal, "but I've seen a feller petrified by too much
forty 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 once
in a while and when they come they're terrors."

"We have them in Santa Barbara, too," said Nat, "they're nasty things
all 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 tank
with fresh water from the spring, Herr Muller and Cal washed the tin
dishes, and presently all was ready for a start. Herr Muller decided
that 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 his
bony frame was capable of producing. Luckily for him, the going was
very hard among the fallen stumps of the petrified trees, and the tall,
column-like, standing trunks, and the car could not do much more than
crawl.

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

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

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

While the others were still laughing at the whimsical German's
experience 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 gopher
hole, and stumbled so violently that it almost pitched the caroler over
its 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 interest
in any new word.

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

"Budt," protested the German spurring his horse alongside the auto and
speaking 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 indisputable
assertion is lost forever to the world. For at that moment Nat, who was
at the wheel, looked up to see a strange figure coming toward them,
making its way rapidly in and out among the column-like, petrified
trunks. His exclamation called the attention of the others to it and
they 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 fat
donkey, that was approaching them. The rider's legs projected till they
touched the ground on each side like long piston rods and moved almost
as rapidly as he advanced. What with the burro's galloping and the
man'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 came
nearer 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. The
tall rider could now be seen to be an aged man with a long, white
beard, 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. The
boys expected to see the other get angry, but instead he broke into a
laugh.

"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 some
grass 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 no
place fer me."

"No, you'd better try back in the mountains some place," advised Cal.

"I will. So long."

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

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

"Yes," agreed Cal, "and he's had enough to make him queer, too. A
sheepman has a tough time of it. The cattlemen don't want 'em around
the hills 'cos they say the sheep eat off the feed so close thar ain't
none left fer the cattle. And sometimes the sheepmen start fires to
burn off the brush, and mebbe burn out a whole county. Then every once
in a while a bunch of cattlemen will raid a sheep outfit and clean it
out."

"Kill the sheep?" asked Joe.

"Yep, and the sheepmen, too, if they so much as open their mouths to
holler. 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 of
trouble with cattlemen. No wonder he scuttled off when I tole him thar
was a bunch of punchers behind."

"I'm sorry he went so quickly," said Nat, "I wanted to ask him some
questions 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 now
remained dotting the floor of the canyon like lonely monuments.
Presently they left the last even of these behind them, and before long
emerged on a rough road which climbed the mountain side at a steep
elevation.

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

"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 our
funerals."

"Guess that's right," agreed Joe, gazing back out of the tonneau at the
steep 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 rattle
of her exhausts sounding like a gatling gun in action.

Before long they reached the summit and the boys burst into a shout
of admiration at the scene spread out below them. From the elevation
they had attained they could see, rising and falling beneath them, like
billows at sea, the slopes and summits of miles of Sierra country. Here
and there were forests of dense greenery, alternated with bare, scarred
mountain sides dotted with bare trunks, among which disastrous forest
fires had swept. It was a grand scene, impressive in its magnitude and
sense of solitary isolation. Far beyond the peaks below them could be
seen snow-capped summits, marking the loftiest points of the range.
Here and there deep dark wooded canyons cut among the hills reaching
down 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 big
bears, big deer, little matches, and big trees, and by the same token
there's a clump of the last right ahead of us."

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

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

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

"I tole you vot I do," suddenly announced Herr Muller, "I take it a
photogrift 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 iss
vot 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 telegraph
systems use to scale the smooth poles. These were heavier, and with
longer and sharper steel points on them, however. Rapidly Herr Muller,
by means of stout straps, buckled them on, explaining that he had used
them to take pictures from treetops within the Black Forest.

A few seconds later he selected the tallest of the trees and began
rapidly to ascend it. The climbing irons and the facility they lent him
in ascending the bare trunk delighted the boys, who determined to have
some made for themselves at the first opportunity.

"He kin climb like a Dutch squirrel," exclaimed Cal admiringly, as with
a wave of his hand the figure of the little German grew smaller, and
finally vanished in the mass of dark, sombre green which clothed the
summit 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 there
had come a sharp, piercing cry of terror.

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

CHAPTER XI.

TREED!--TWO HUNDRED FEET UP.

Mingling with the alarming yells of the German came a strange spitting,
snarling sound.

Filled with apprehensions, the boys and Cal rushed for the foot of the
immense tree and gazed upward into the lofty gloom of its leafy summit.
They uttered a cry of alarm as they did so. In fact the spectacle their
eyes encountered was calculated to cause the heart of the most hardened
woodsman to beat faster.

Astride of a branch, with his shoe soles dangling two hundred feet
above the ground, was Herr Muller, while between him and the trunk of
the tree was crouched a snarling, spitting wild cat of unusual size. It
seemed about to spring at the human enemy who had unwittingly surprised
it in its aerial retreat.

The boys were stricken speechless with alarm as they gazed, but Cal
shouted encouragingly upward.

"Hold on there, Dutchy. We'll help you out."

"I know. Dot iss all right," came back the reply in a tremulous tone,
"but I dink me dis branch is rodden und ef der tom cat drives me much
furder out I down come."

"Don't dare think of such a thing," called up Cal, "just you grip tight
and don't move."

"All right, I try," quavered the photographer, about whose neck still
dangled the tool of his craft.

Cal's long legs covered the space between the tree and the auto in
about two leaps, or so it seemed to the boys. In a flash he was back
with his well worn rifle and was aiming it upward into the tree.

But as he brought the weapon to his shoulder and his finger pressed
the trigger the formidable creature crouching along the limb, sprang
full at the luckless Herr Muller. With a yell that stopped the breath
of every one of the alarmed party below, the German was seen to lose
his hold and drop, crashing through the foliage like a rock. As he
fell a shower of small branches and twigs were snapped off and floated
downward into space.

But Herr Muller was not doomed, as the boys feared was inevitable,
to be dashed to pieces on the ground. Instead, just as it appeared
impossible that he could save himself from a terrible death, the German
succeeded in seizing a projecting limb and hanging on. The branch bent
ominously, but it held, and there he hung suspended helplessly with
nothing under him but barren space. Truly his position now did not
appear to be materially bettered from its critical condition of a few
minutes before.

But the boys did not know, nor Cal either, that the Germans are great
fellows for athletics and gymnastics, and almost every German student
has at one time or another belonged to a Turn Verein. This was the case
with Herr Muller and his training stood him in good stead now. With a
desperate summoning of his strength, he slowly drew himself up upon the
bending limb, and began tortuously to make his way in toward the trunk.

As he did so, the wild cat perceiving that it was once more at close
quarters with its enemy, advanced down the trunk, but it was not
destined this time to reach the German. Cal took careful aim and fired.

Before the echo of the sharp report had died away a tawny body came
clawing and yowling downward, out of the tree, tumbling over and over
as it shot downward. The boys could not repress a shudder as they
thought how close Herr Muller had come to sharing the same fate.

The creature was, of course, instantly killed as it struck the ground,
and was found to be an unusually large specimen of its kind. Its fur
was a fine piece of peltry and Cal's skillful knife soon had it off
the brute's carcass. A preparation of arsenic which the boys carried
for such purposes, was then rubbed on it to preserve it till it could
be properly cured and mounted. This done, it was placed away with the
mountain lion skin in a big tin case in the tonneau.

While all this was going on, Herr Muller recovered the possession of
his faculties, which had almost deserted him in the terrible moment
when he hung between life and death. Presently he began to descend the
tree. Near the bottom of the trunk, however, his irons slipped and he
came down with a run and a rush that scraped all the skin off the palms
of his hands, and coated his clothes with the red stain of the bark.

He was much too glad to be back on earth, however, to mind any such
little inconveniences as that.

"Boys, I tole you ven I hung dere I dink by myselfs if ever I drop, I
drop like Lucifer----"

"L-l-lucy who?" inquired Ding-dong curiously.

"Lucifer--der devil you know, nefer to rise no more yet already."

"I see you have studied Milton," laughed Nat, "but I can tell you, all
joking aside, you gave us a terrible scare. I want you to promise to do
all your photographing from safe places hereafter."

"I vould suffer more dan dot for mein art," declared Herr Muller
proudly, "Ach, vot a terrible fright dot Robert cat give me."

"Yep, those bob cats,--as we call them for short,--are ugly customers
at close quarters," put in Cal, with a grin.

"Say," said Nat, suddenly pointing below them, "that little stream down
there looks as if it ought to have some trout in it. What do you say if
we try and get some for dinner?"

"All right," agreed Cal, "you fellers go fishin' and the perfusser here
and I will stand by the camp."

"Chess. I dinks me I dondt feel much like valking aroundt," remarked
Herr Muller, whose face was still pale from the alarming ordeal he had
undergone.

So the boys selected each a rod and set out at a rapid pace for the
little brook Nat had indicated. The watercourse boiled brownly along
over a rough bed of rocks, forming here and there little waterfalls and
cascades, and then racing on again under flowering shrubs and beneath
high, rocky ramparts. It was ideal trout water, and the boys, who were
enthusiastic fishermen, welcomed the prospect of "wetting a line" in it.

The brook was about a quarter of a mile from the camp under the big
trees, and the approach to it was across a park-like grassy slope.
Beyond it, however, another range shot up forbiddingly, rearing its
rough, rugged face to the sky like an impassable rampart. Gaunt pines
clothed its rocky slope, intermingled with clumps of chaparral and the
glossy-leaved madrone bushes. They grew almost down to the edge of the
stream in which the boys intended to fish.

The sport, as Nat had anticipated, was excellent. So absorbed in it did
he become in fact, that he wandered down the streamlet's course farther
than he had intended. Killing trout, however, is fascinating sport, and
the time passed without the boy really noticing at all how far he had
become separated from his companions.

At last, with a dozen fine speckled beauties, not one of which would
weigh less than three-quarters of a pound, the boy found time to look
about him. There was not a sign of Joe or Ding-dong Bell and he
concluded that they must be farther up the stream. With the intention
of locating them he started to retrace his footsteps.

"Odd how far a fellow can come without knowing it, when he's fishing,"
mused Nat. I wonder how many other boys have thought the same thing!

As he went along he looked about him. On his right hand towered the
rocky slopes of the range, with the dark shadows lying under the gaunt
pine trees. On his other hand, separated from him, however, by some
clumps of madrone and manzinita, was the grove of big trees under which
the auto was parked, and where Cal and Herr Muller were doubtlessly
impatiently awaiting his arrival and that of his companions.

"Got to hurry," thought Nat, mending his pace once more, but to his
dismay, as he stepped forward, his foot slipped on a sharp-edged rock,
and with a wrench of sharp pain he realized that he had twisted his
ankle. The sprain, judging by the pain it gave him, seemed to be a
severe one, too.

"Wow!" thought Nat, sinking back upon another rock and nursing his
foot, "that was a twister and no mistake. Wonder if I can get back on
foot. Guess I'll rest a minute and see if it gets any better."

The boy had sat thus for perhaps five minutes when there came a
sudden rustling in the brush before him. At first he did not pay much
attention to it, thinking that a rabbit, or even a deer might be going
through. Suddenly the noise ceased abruptly. Then it came again. This
time it was louder and it sounded as if some heavy body was approaching.

"Great Scott!" was the sudden thought that flashed across the boy's
mind, "what if it's a bear!"

He had good cause for alarm in such a case, for he had nothing more
formidable with which to face it but his fishing rod. But the next
moment the boy was destined to receive even a greater shock than the
sudden appearance of a grizzly would have given him.

The shrubs before him suddenly parted and the figure of a man in
sombrero, rough shirt and trousers, with big boots reaching to his
knees, stepped out.

"Ed. Dayton!" gasped Nat looking up at the apparition.

"Yep, Ed. Dayton," was the reply, "and this time, Master Nat, I've got
you where I want you. Boys!"

He raised his voice as he uttered the last word.

In response, from the brush-wood there stepped two others whom Nat had
no difficulty in recognizing as the redoubtable Al. Jeffries and the
man with whom he had struggled on the stable floor the memorable night
of the attempted raid on the auto.

CHAPTER XII.

NAT'S LUCKY ESCAPE.

If a round black bomb had come rolling down the mountain side and
exploded at Nat's feet he could not have been more thunderstruck than
he was at the sudden appearance of his old enemy. True, he should have
had such a possibility in mind, but so intent had he been on his trout
fishing, and the pain of his injury on the top of that, that he had not
given a thought to the possibility of any of their foes being about.

"Don't make a racket," warned Al. Jeffries ominously, as he flourished
a revolver about, "I'm dreadful nervous, and if you make a noise I
might pull the trigger by accident."

Nat saw at once that this was one way of saying that he would be shot
if he made any outcry, and he decided that there was nothing for him
to do but to refrain from giving any shout of alarm. Had his ankle not
been wrenched and giving him so much pain the boy would have tried to
run for it. But as it was, he was powerless to do anything but wait.

"Ain't quite so gabby now as you was in Lower California," snarled
Dayton vindictively, as the boy sat staring at his captors.

"If you mean by that that I am not doing any talking, you're right,"
rejoined Nat.

"That's a purty nice watch you've got there," remarked Al., gazing at
Nat's gold timepiece which had been jerked out of his breast pocket
when he fell over the rock.

"Yes," agreed Nat, determined not to show them that he was alarmed by
his predicament, "my dead father gave me that."

"Well, just hand it over."

"What?"

Nat's face flushed angrily. His temper began to rise too.

"Come on, hand it over and don't be all night about it," ordered Al.

Nat jumped to his feet.

His fists were clenched ready for action. It seemed clear that if they
were going to take the watch from him while he had strength to protect
himself that they had a tough job in front of them. But an unexpected
interruption occurred. It came from Ed. Dayton.

"See here, Al.," he growled, "don't get too previous. I reckon the
colonel can dispose of the watch as he sees fit. All such goes to him
first you know, so as to avoid disputes."

"Don't see where you come in to run this thing," muttered Al., but
nevertheless he subsided into silence.

All this time Nat's mind had been working feverishly. But cast about as
he would he could not hit on a plan of escape.

"I guess the only thing to do is to let them make the first move, and
then lie low and watch for a chance to get away," he thought to himself.

"Wonder what they mean to do with me anyhow?"

He was not left long in doubt.

"Get the horses," Dayton ordered, turning to Al. Jeffries.

The other, still grumbling, turned obediently away however. There
seemed to be no doubt that Ed. Dayton was a man of some power in the
band. Nat saw this with a sinking heart. He knew the vengeful character
of the man too well for it not to cause him the gravest apprehension
of what his fate might be. Not by so much as a flicker of an eyelash,
however, did he let the ruffians see that he was alarmed. He would not
for worlds have given them the satisfaction of seeing him weaken.

Pretty soon Al. returned with three ponies. The animals must have been
hidden in the brush on the opposite, or mountain side of the stream,
for this was the direction in which Al. had gone to get them. They were
a trio of wiry little steeds. On the back of each was a high-horned and
cantled Mexican saddle, with a rifle holster and a canteen slung from
it. The bridle of Dayton's pony was decorated with silver ornaments in
the Western fashion.

"Come on. Get up kid," said Dayton gruffly, seizing Nat by the
shoulder, "we've got a long way to go with you."

A long way to go!

The words sounded ominous, and Nat, hurt as he was, decided on taking
a desperate chance. Springing suddenly to his feet he lowered his head
and ran full tilt at Dayton, driving his head into the pit of the
ruffian's stomach with the force of a battering ram.

"Wo-o-o-f!"

With the above exclamation the rascal doubled up and pitched over.
Before the others could recover their presence of mind Nat, despite the
pain in his ankle, had managed to dash in among the brush where it was
impossible to aim at him with any hope of bringing him down.

Nevertheless, Dayton's companions started firing into the close-growing
vegetation.

"Fire away," thought Nat, painfully struggling through the thick
growth, "the more bullets you waste the fewer you'll have for your
rascally work."

But Dayton had, by this time, scrambled to his feet, and the boy could
hear him shouting angry commands. At the same instant came shouts from
another direction.

With a quick flash of joy, Nat recognized the new voices. The shouts
were in the welcome and familiar tones of Cal Gifford and the Motor
Rangers.

"Mount, boys, and get out of here quick!"

The warning shout came from behind the fleeing boy, and was in the
voice of Dayton. The rascal evidently had heard, and interpreted
aright, the exclamations and shouts from the meadow side of the brook.
The next instant a clattering of hoofs announced the fact that the
members of Col. Morello's band of outlaws were putting all the distance
between themselves and the Motor Rangers' camp that they could.

"Good riddance," muttered Nat, thinking how nearly he had come to being
borne off with them.

But the tension of the excitement over, the pain in his ankle almost
overcame him. He sank limply down on a rock and sent out a cry for aid.

"Cal! Cal! this way!"

"Yip yee!" he heard the welcome answering shout, and before many
seconds had passed Herr Muller's horse, with the Westerner astride
of its bony back, came plunging into the brush. Behind came Joe and
Ding-dong, wide-eyed with excitement. They had missed their comrade
and had been searching for him when the sound of the shots came. Cal,
who had also become anxious, and had ridden down from the camp to the
stream side, was with them at the moment. Together the rescue party had
hastened forward, too late however, to find Dayton and his companions.
They naturally heard Nat's story with deep interest and attention.

"Good thing them varmints didn't know that you two weren't armed," said
Cal, turning to Joe and Ding-dong, "or they might hev stayed. In which
case the whole bunch of us might have been cleaned out."

"I think it will be a pretty good rule never to leave camp in future
without a revolver or a rifle," said Nat, painfully rising to his feet
and steadying himself by gripping Bismark's mane.

"Right you are, my boy. We ought to have done thet in the first place.
Howsomever, the thing to do now is to get you back ter camp. Come on,
I'll give you a leg up."