The Boy Ranchers of Puget Sound

"That's the place," he said. "Not much to look at, but it's good land. You can see the maples yonder – that's always a favorable sign – and somebody with money has lately bought quite a piece of it to start a fruit ranch on. The Chows have taken the contract for clearing it, and if any dope has been landed in the neighborhood they're probably mixed up with the thing."

Frank glanced toward the opening, and sitting, as he was, in dim shadow, the open space he looked out upon seemed flooded with dazzling brightness. In the background, and some distance away, little, blue-clad figures were toiling with axes that flashed as they swung amidst a confusion of branches and fallen logs, the staccato chunk of the blades ripping through the heavy stillness. Nothing else, however, seemed to move, and the air was filled with a languorous, resinous smell. Rows of stumps stretched out from the spot on which the Chinamen were working, breaking off before a cluster of bark and split-board shacks that stood beneath the edge of the forest. A man dressed in loose, blue garments was seated motionless outside one of the shacks, before two logs, from between which a little smoke curled straight up into the air. Presently the man stood up, and just then Harry seized Frank's shoulder.

"Look round a little – to the left," he whispered.

Frank did so and was astonished to see another man slip quietly out of the forest and approach the shack. His face was not discernible, but there was something peculiar in the way he walked, and his dress made it evident that he was a white man.

"Have you seen him before?" Harry asked softly.

"I can't locate him, but I've an idea that he's not quite a stranger," said Frank.

"Well," said Harry, "I'm open to make a guess at him. Just as the schooner went about that night I had a look at her helmsman. He had his back to me, but it was moonlight, and I could see that one shoulder hunched up in a kind of curious manner."

Frank looked again and it seemed to him that there was something unusual in the way the man held his shoulder. It was somewhat higher than the other, though it hardly amounted to a deformity.

"Slip in behind that tree," whispered Harry, pointing toward the bush. "We'll creep up through the shadow if he goes into the shack."

They spent some minutes moving forward in and out among the trees, and in the meanwhile Frank saw the stranger enter the shack and the Chinaman follow him. Then he and Harry walked out of the bush scarcely a score of yards from the rude building, and headed straight for it. As they approached, the Chinaman became visible in the doorway, where he stood waiting for them. He appeared to be an old man, for his face was lined and seamed, but it was absolutely expressionless, an impassive yellow mask, and Frank felt baffled and repelled by it. As soon as it was evident that the boys intended to enter his dwelling, he moved aside, and when they stood in the little, shadowy room Frank was astonished to see that there was nobody else in it. This seemed incomprehensible, for there was only one door in the place. In the meanwhile the Chinaman was looking at them quietly.

"It's quite hot," observed Harry.

"Velly hot," assented the other, who did not seem in any way disturbed by the fact that they had so unceremoniously marched in.

Harry appeared embarrassed after this, as though he did not know what to say next, until he was evidently seized by an inspiration.

"Got any chow, John?" he asked.

"Velly good chow," answered the Chinaman. "Lice, blue glouse, smokee fishee."

"Blue grouse!" said Harry disgustedly aside to Frank. "It's the nesting season, but I guess that wouldn't count for much with them." He turned to his host. "I'm not a heathen. Savvy cook American? Got any flour you can make biscuits or flapjacks of?"

"You leavee chow to me," said the other. "Cookee all same big hotel Seattle, Tacoma, San F'lisco."

"It's quite likely," said Harry, looking round at Frank. "You can trust a Chinaman to turn out a decent meal. I'll walk round a bit in the meanwhile; you can sit here and rest."

Frank did not particularly wish to rest, but he fancied that his companion had given him a hint, and while the Chinaman busied himself with his pots and pans he sat down outside the shack. He had been up early that morning, and after the steady, arduous work at the ranch it was pleasant to sit still in the strip of shadow and let his eyes wander idly about the clearing. Among other things, he noticed that a little trickle of water flowed across it, and that the soil was quaggy in the neighborhood. He concluded that the stranger, who had so mysteriously disappeared, must have crossed the wet place.

It was some little time before Harry came back and the Chinaman then set out their dinner. Frank had no idea what some of it consisted of and his companion was unable to enlighten him, but it was excellent. When they had finished, the man turned to Harry.

"One dolla," he said gravely.

Harry handed it over readily and smiled at Frank when they strolled back into the bush.

"It wasn't what I'd figured on when I first walked in, but I had to make some excuse," he said. "Just now I'd very much like to know how far it went with him." He paused and looked thoughtful. "I guess it wasn't a very long way. The image is ahead of us by a dollar."

Frank laughed. "You had some reason for going for that walk?"

"Oh, yes," replied Harry. "I wanted to make sure of things, and the ground was soft. There were some footprints in it – going from the shack – and they'd been made quite lately by a white man's boot. John sticks to his slipper things in a general way. Anyhow, it was the man we saw who left those tracks."

"How do you know that?"

"There were a lot of others about, but they'd been made earlier. The water had got into them, but there was very little in those I was interested in."

Frank was conscious that this was a point which would probably have escaped his notice, but he had not lived in the bush and learned to use his eyes.

"It's very curious how the fellow got out of the shack without our seeing him," he said.

"It looks curious until you begin to think. Now, though I tried to keep my eye on it all the while, the trees kept getting between me and the shack as we made for it, and what I couldn't see you couldn't see either. You were close behind me, which, in one way, was where we were wrong. If we had crept in well apart, the same tree wouldn't have bothered both of us, though if we'd done that it would have doubled the chances of our being seen."

"A tree isn't such a very big thing," Frank objected.

"No," said Harry. "The point is that it will shut an object a good deal bigger than itself out of your sight." He stopped a moment and pointed toward a neighboring cedar. "We'll say that one's three feet in diameter, but, as you're standing, it will shut off a good deal more than a track three feet wide through the bush. You want to run a line from your eye to both edges of the trunk and then carry them out behind it. The farther you run them, the farther they get apart, and as you can't see round a corner, everything in the wedge they enclose is shut out from view. Got that into you? It will come in useful when you're trailing a deer."

It was quite clear to Frank now that it had been explained, but his companion went on.

"Well," he added, "it wouldn't have taken that fellow more than a few seconds to slip out of the shack and in behind it. Then if he kept it between him and us he'd be hidden until he reached the bush."

"Yes," said Frank. "It must mean that he saw us, and didn't want us to see him."

"You're getting quite smart," said Harry with a grin. "I don't know if you noticed it, but you trod on a rotten branch that smashed. He didn't want us to know him again, but I'd pick that fellow anywhere by his back and walk. Now why was he so anxious that we shouldn't see him talking to the Chinaman?"

It was a suggestive question, but Frank could not answer it, and Harry said nothing further. Reaching the canoe they paddled down the creek until they came abreast of the sloop and saw the provisions lying upon the shingle some little distance from the water, for the tide had ebbed since their arrival. When they had run the canoe in Frank assisted Harry in getting the flour bag on his back, but gave a sudden cry of dismay as a white cloud flew all over him.

"Hold on!" he cried. "Put it down. It's running out!"

Harry dropped the bag and drew down his brows as he gazed at the little pile of flour which lay at his feet. Then he suddenly stooped down.

"The bag seemed a sound one," Frank suggested.

"Oh, yes," said Harry shortly. "There's only one thing the matter with it. See here," and he laid his finger on a long slit. "Somebody has stuck a knife into it."

"A mean trick!" Frank broke out wrathfully.

Harry stood up with a flash in his eyes. "It's rather more than that. It's a hint. Anyway, if you'll get hold of the other end we'll pack the bag down with the cut uppermost."

In spite of this precaution they spilled a good deal of the flour before they got it on board the sloop, but Harry said no more about the matter, and hoisting sail they slid out of the inlet with a faint breeze abeam of them. They found it fair and the breeze only a little stronger when they had left the woods behind, and Frank sat at the tiller while the sloop glided rapidly through the smooth blue water with no more than a drowsy gurgle beneath her bows. The tide was running down with them now and it was only when he glanced toward the beach that he realized how fast they were going.

A pleasant salt odor of drying weed was mingled with the scent of the firs. In front of them a wonderful vista of white snow mountains emerged from fleecy cloud, and far beneath the silvery vapor appeared the faint and shadowy blurs of distant hillsides clothed with mighty forest. Overhead the big white sail swayed languidly to and fro, cutting sharply into the blue, and Frank felt that he would like to sail on like this for hours, lounging at the helm, and listening to the water as it slipped along the sides. With a light fair wind he could guide the boat wherever he wished by the slightest touch of the tiller, and it was pleasant to see how steadily he could keep her bowsprit pointing to a low rocky head that rose, a patch of soft blue shadow, against the evening light.