“What d’you say to the first white men getting some wood before it’s too dark?” murmured Hike, rooting out a big log. “If you weren’t a nice young man, I’d think that was a hint,” retorted Poodle, quite cheerfully. “If I catch the idee, you b’lieve we might use a little fire-wood.” “No, that ain’t it at all. I just thought we might need some toothpicks after dinner. ’Course we’ll do the cooking in some moonlight,” explained Hike. “Nice hot moonlight.” “Well, now, I’d almost suppose you were gettin’ sarcastic,” said Poodle, “but ’course if you don’t _want_ me to help you ketchum heap plenty wood, why, I’ll have a small game of mumble-te-peg.” He opened his knife, but, as he started his game, one Hike, a person of much muscle, picked him up, carried him over to the remains of a dead fir tree, and murmured, “Want to get dropped down the arroyo?” “A hint’s always enough for little Poodle,” declared that cheerful gentleman, and got busy with twigs and branches. When dusk came, they were frying bacon stuck on sharpened twigs, and singing “Hallelujah, I’m a bum.” Coffee was singing with them, in the pot among the coals. Poodle stated that he could eat a whole grocery store, including the scales, wrapping paper, and cashier. (He didn’t have the chance to prove whether he could or not, however, for even so husky a boy as Hike doesn’t usually carry a whole grocery store at the cantle of his saddle when he goes on a riding trip.) With the bacon and flapjacks and syrup and coffee inside them, the two boys lay with their feet to the fire. They had forgotten the strain of the rescue on the cliff-side. They were just sinking off into sleep, looking so comfortably and dreamily at the cheerful fire, when Poodle started up, awakened by the sound of a coyote’s howl nearby. “Say, I thought I heard something besides a coyote,” he said. “Sounded like hammering—and there ain’t a human within twenty miles of us. Even if there was a smuggler on the coast, he’d be five miles away.” “Yes,” replied Hike, very quietly, “I’ve been listening to it for five minutes. It _is_ a man hammering—on iron—and there can’t be anybody down in those valleys—and there _is_!... Well, we’ll find out in the morning. Some mystery, some mys—some—” Hike was asleep. “Should say there _was_ a mystery,” grunted Poodle, sticking just the tip of his button of a nose from the top of his blanket. “Think you might get a little bit scared, anyway. You oughta be. It’s a mys— It sure is— I dunno—” Alas, we can never know what Poodle didn’t know, for by this time the only thing awake around that camp on the peak was a lone coyote, who came over and reflectively ate the top of one of Poodle’s shoes. And still the mysterious hammering kept up, down in the wilderness of valleys. CHAPTER II THE MYSTERY OF THE HAMMERING “Don’t stop and make too many poems about the valleys, Poodle,” commanded Hike Griffin, after breakfast.