[Illustration: THE FELLOW DREW A WICKED LOOKING KNIFE] “Oh, no, you don’t!” cried Raymond, and whipping out his revolver he covered the man with it. The fellow stood, without flinching, watching them with gleaming eyes while Sidney removed the blankets and cloaks from the donkey’s back. “Now, go on,” ordered Raymond, motioning up the trail. The man sulkily took charge of his donkey, and drove the animal along without once looking back. CHAPTER XIII THEIR FIRST GAME “If we had waited for breakfast,” said Sidney, as the boys stood watching the mountaineer climb the switchback of the trail, “we should have been minus our blankets.” “Gracious! It makes me shiver just to think of hiking over those mountains without any blankets.” And Raymond gazed off at the Caucasus, whose crests shone white in the clear morning air. “And speaking of breakfast,” said Sidney, as he made his blanket and cloak into the usual roll for packing, “reminds me that I’ll be quite ready for it when we get down to the bottom.” “I wish there was a good breakfast ready for us,” said Raymond, as they started down the mountain. “I’m tired to death of that everlasting dry bread.” “Dry bread, you know, is more hygienic than fresh bread.” “It may be hygienic, but it’s not high living. I just long for something really tasty, like quail or rabbit.” “Well, there are rabbits here. I saw one this morning down in the cañon. Do you think you could hit one with that revolver?” “Of course I could hit one! What’s the matter with you?” “Then I hope we’ll see another.” The long night’s rest, after food and drink, had made the boys feel so fine that they already had little to remind them of their trying experience of the previous two days. They went down the mountain at a swinging gait, and as they approached the bottom, Raymond’s mind reverted with longing to the subject of rabbit. “Sid,” he suggested, “if you’ll hang back a little I’ll go on ahead and maybe I’ll see a rabbit as we near the cañon.” “All right,” agreed Sidney. “You’d better give me your blankets; you don’t want to be bothered with them if you’re going to shoot.” Raymond passed his blanket roll over to Sidney, who sat down on a rock to give his brother time to get ahead. The boy proceeded cautiously down the slope with his revolver held ready, but rabbits were, apparently, either very scarce or very shy, for none appeared. He stopped on the brink of the steeper descent just before the bottom, and after pausing to make an examination there, he turned and called out to Sidney in a disgusted tone,-- “No use, Sid; come on.” The boys clambered down the rocks and trudged through the sand to their camping-place, Raymond grumbling as they went. “Tough luck, I say, not to see hide or hair of a rabbit, hungry as we are.” They reached the little ravine, and there, just inside the entrance, sat a big gray rabbit!