hes in a tight lidded tin, and even a
short length of rustic ladder made for the occasion.

Norris shouldered part of it as by previous agreement.

Radcliffe explained the diagram he tore from his note-book, marking a
black cross at the point where he had left the boys.

"I dunno," said the old prospector, "but what we might as well go in one
way as another. I reckon we can folly this yere map backwards as well as
forrud, and we'll just hike down and go in the way you kem out."

"That's a go," agreed Norris, striding after him.

"Oh," yelled the Ranger after them. "Come back! I'll deputize you both.
Here, Norris," and he gave the younger man his revolver and cartridge
belt, with his official pronouncement.

"I swan!" said Long Lester. "Here I were a-thinkin' so much about them
boys I clean forgot the Mexicans," and he slung his rifle atop his pack.

CHAPTER VIII

THE SNOW-SLIDE

"I'm glad they got in a few hours' sleep this noon," solicitized Rosa,
placing homemade bread and coffee before the Ranger, then dipping up a
bowl of soup. She looked fagged to death herself, and Radcliffe made her
promise to roll up in a blanket on a browse bed.

"Oh, if only it would rain!" she sighed, "and put out the fire!"

"Sure wish it would!" he agreed. "Haven't had such a big one in years."

"The DeHaviland was back with more supplies," one of the men reported.

"It sure takes tons of grub to keep these firemen stoked," sighed Rosa
drowsily from her blankets. "But they work like lumbermen, and I'd give
every last man here a medal if I could."

Norris and Long Lester skirted the South slope its whole length without
finding the cave mouth from which Norris had exited. But by now it was
dark, and the task doubly difficult. "If it wasn't for them boys being
most likely just plumb panicky from being lost," said the old man, "I'd
call it sense to camp for the night. Once it's sun-up, we'll find the
place easy enough."

But Norris was too uneasy to leave any stone unturned. What might not
have happened in the hours since he had last seen his charges! His
imagination, given free rein, pictured everything from murder to raving
mania.

As they neared the head of the gulch, they could see, on the side of the
main ridge that towered above them, patches of snow that gleamed white in
the star-light. The canyon here headed sharply to the left.

The side they were on, the short side of the turn, was becoming
impassable with