Chapter XI. Through the Mountains and the Night - Page 2

screaming like a fiend, leaped down from a tree, and confronted them for an instant with hideously-gleaming yellow eyes.

"Cuss-an'-burn the nasty varmint!" said Fortner angrily, snatching up a pine knot from his feet and flinging it at the beast, which vanished into the darkness with another curdling scream.

"Don't that man know what fear is?" wondered Harry, ignorant that the true mountaineer feels toward these vociferous felidae about the same contempt with which a plainsman regards a coyote.

At length Fortner slackened his pace, and began to move with caution.

"Are we coming upon the enemy again?" asked Harry, in a loud whisper, which had yet a perceptible quaver in it.

"No," answered Fortner, "but we're a-comin' ter what is every bit an' grain ez dangersome. Heah's whar the path winds round Blacksnake Clift, an' ye'll hev ter be ez keeful o' your footin' ez ef ye war treadin' the slippery ways o' sin. The path's no wider 'n a hoss's back, an' no better ter walk on. On the right hand side hit's several rods down ter whar the creek's tearin' 'long like a mad dog. Heah hit now, can't ye?"

For some time the roar of the torrent sweeping the gorge had filled Harry's ears.

"Ye want ter walk slow," continued Fortner, "an' feel keefully with yer foot every time afore ye sot hit squar'ly down. Keep yer left hand a-feelin' the rocks above yer, so's ter make shore all the time thet ye're close ter 'em. 'Bout half way, thar's a big break in the path. Hit's jess a long step acrost hit. Take one step arter I say thet I'm acrost; the feel keerfully with yer left foot fur the aidge o' the break, an' then step out ez long ez ye kin with yer right. That'll bring ye over. Be shore o' yer feet, an ye'll be all right."

Harry trembled more than at any time before. They were already on the path around the steep cliff. The darkness was inky. The roar of the waters below rose loudly--angrily. The wails of the wildcats behind, overhead and in front of them, made it seem as if the sighing pines and cedars were inhabited with lost spirits shrieking warnings of impending disaster.

Harry's foot came down upon a boulder which turned under his weight. He regained his balance with a start, but the stone toppled over. He listened. There were scores of heart-beats before it splashed in the water below.

"Not so much as a twig between here and eternity," he said to himself, with a shudder. Then aloud: "Can't we stay here, some place, and not go along there to-night?"

The roar of the water drowned his voice before it reached Fortner's ears, and Harry, obeying the instinct to accept leadership, followed the mountaineer tremblingly.

In a little while he felt--more than saw--Fortner stop, adjust his feet, and make a long stride forward with one of them. Glen