Sitting on an overhanging rock, he looked across and then below him. He smiled when he saw what a gap it really was that separated the two cliffs. And with a shudder as he glanced downward, he saw that he was sitting directly above the center of the lake. “Whew,” he said aloud, “that’s some drop if any one should ask me. Wait’ll Artie sees it from here.” Then his attention was directed elsewhere, for from the distance came that droning sound now familiar to him. Suddenly he saw an enormous eagle descending (it almost seemed to come from heaven) and heading straight for the cliff opposite. In a second another appeared joining the first one and they both disappeared as before behind the rocky cliff. “There,” said Westy half-aloud, “is their aerie and that means we are to keep away from that cliff!” CHAPTER XXI—THE MYSTERIOUS HOLLOW As he came into the open clearing by Uncle Jeb’s cabin, Westy could detect the smell of bacon frying crisp and brown. Uncle Jeb hailed him and good-naturedly asked if he had any trouble getting back. “Not so’s you could notice it,” he retorted. While they were eating supper he related to them his experience and discovery of the afternoon. Uncle Jeb listened intently and then cautioned the boys to be careful about going so far out on the cliff. “Not only thet,” he said, “but yuh can’t allus tell when them birds’ll take it into their fool heads to make a new nest on t’other side where Westy wuz.” They sat in breathless silence, as he told them many thrilling and hair-raising adventures of his boyhood days. “What do yuh boys say we turn in now?” he concluded. Indeed the boys did not need coaxing to turn in, for their eyes were already heavy with weariness and want of sleep. They tumbled into their respective berths with goodwill and soon Sleep drew her mystical curtain about them and their first night in the bosom of the Rocky Mountains. Uncle Jeb and the boys generally made a weekly visit to the Inn. As he and Ol’ Pop had much to say to one another as a rule, Artie and Westy would try to kill time by getting Ollie to talk. Between them they would hurl a veritable barrage of questions at his poor, meek-looking head, until one would imagine he would answer, if only to silence them. Nothing, however, seemed to perturb his calm in the least. He was utterly unaware that any one was speaking at all, except for an occasional flicker of interest, visible only when Ol’ Pop’s name was mentioned. On this particular early summer morning, Artie and Westy were sitting on the spacious porch reading some letters from home and many from Temple Camp, when Pop Burrows remarked he had “fetched them from town nigh onto three days ago. Could jes’ as well o’ let Ollie take ’em up to ye, but I thinks to meself that you’d be down afore long.