The Motor Rangers Through the Sierras

"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.