CHAPTER XIX

BOWLING IN NATURE'S ALLEY

Contrary to expectations the Overland Riders slept soundly all through the night, but the moment they crawled from under their blankets in the morning, they began to shiver.

"Come on! Take a run with me," urged Tom.

"Please go away and let me die," moaned Emma.

"We must have exercise to start our blood circulating," reminded Hippy.

"I don't want exercise. I want something to warm me up on the inside," protested Stacy.

Grace and Elfreda, holding hands, were already dancing about in grotesque fashion, taking long draughts of air into their lungs, the color rising to their faces as the circulation of their blood responded to their lively movements.

"Never mind, folks," comforted Hippy. "If you will all take a lively sprint, then a snow-wash, I will give you something that will please you and fix you up in great shape."

"I shall be past all human help long before that," answered Emma.

"Why don't you transmigrate yourself to a warmer clime for an hour or so?" suggested Stacy.

Tom Gray nodded to Hippy, whereupon Lieutenant Wingate took from his pack a tiny alcohol stove, which he filled from a small bottle and lighted. Over the stove he placed a coffee pot full of white snow dug from underneath the crust where it was not tainted with what Stacy had been pleased to characterize as a "turpentine taste." As the snow melted in the coffee pot, more snow was added until there was sufficient for their use. The Overlanders, quickly discovering that something unusual was going on, ran to the coffee-maker.

"Wha--at's this?" demanded Elfreda.

"An alcohol stove--a hot cup of coffee for each in a few moments," chuckled Lieutenant Wingate.

"Hippy Wingate, did you have that last night?" demanded Emma.

"Yes."

"And you let us suffer with cold and eat a coffeeless supper?" rebuked Nora Wingate.

"You lived through it. Why kick, now that you are about to have a warm drink?"

"We ought to throw you off the mountain," declared Grace.

"Don't do it till he gets the coffee ready," urged Stacy.

"The reason that I did not use the alcohol kit last night was that I had only enough alcohol to burn the stove for one meal," explained Hippy. "I knew that you would be in more urgent need of coffee in the morning than you were last night."

"I withdraw my suggestion that we throw you over," laughed Grace.

"Are you ready?" called Lieutenant Wingate. "The coffee is."

"Are we ready? Just watch us," cried Emma Dean.

Each had an individual cup, and Hippy passed lumps of sugar to them from his own kit. They had no milk, but there was no complaint, for the Overlanders were glad enough to get the coffee black. This, with some biscuit and cold venison, comprised the meal, but they declared unanimously that they had never had a more appetizing breakfast.

"I have decided," announced Stacy finally, "not to be a party to the plan to throw Uncle Hip overboard--at least not to-day. Good-morning, Sun! Welcome to our happy home," he added, bowing to the rising sun.

Tom called attention to two birds circling over them, which he said were jays looking for crumbs, whereupon the girls broke up pieces of hard tack and sprinkled them over the ground a few yards from the camp. The jays swooped down on the crumbs, chattering and scolding. Grace then suggested that, having reached the "top of the world," they resume their journey and explore the lower ridges, taking the whole day for their return to camp. The first quarter of a mile down was a slide rather than a walk, but the Overlanders made merry over their frequent mishaps, finally reaching a long granite slope on the south side of the mountain where there was little snow. There, the sun's rays blazed down all day long, and there many sparkling streams had their origin.

About them the ground was strewn with boulders from the size of a man's head up to great spheres of flint-like stone, many as round and glistening as though they had been turned and polished by man.

"Oh, look at the beautiful lake!" cried Nora enthusiastically, pointing to a body of water in the valley far below them. "What is it?"

"It doesn't appear on my map. I don't know what it is," answered Tom.

"Perhaps it is the Aerial Lake that we have been warned against," suggested Grace.

"I was thinking of that myself," nodded Tom. "There are trees growing in the lake, but what are those glistening objects farther out?"

"Rocks," replied Grace, after focusing her binoculars on the shining marks.

"I wonder if I can hit one of them," said Stacy, picking up a round stone which he sent rolling down the smooth granite slope. The stone shot over a broad, shelving rock, leaped far out into the air, then, after what seemed an interminable time, splashed into the lake. The Overlanders saw a tiny spurt of water as the stone struck the surface of the lake.

"Folks, I've got an idea. Greatest thing you ever heard of, too," cried Hippy.

"Throw it over the cliff," suggested Emma. "The very best possible use to which you can put your ideas."

"That is exactly what I am going to do, my dear Emma. Just watch my smoke."

The Overland Riders were puzzled to know what Hippy had in mind. First, he cut several tough lodge poles, then selecting a boulder half as high as himself, Hippy easily pried it from its resting place with a pole and started it down the slope. The boulder soon began to roll, gaining momentum with the seconds, striking fire as now and then it came into contact with sharp projections of rock.

The boulder finally hit the shelving slabs of granite at the edge of the cliff with a mighty crash and leaped out into the air. The party watched its projectile-like flight with fascinated gaze.

Then came the splash into the lake. The Overlanders did not hear the splash but they saw the water spurt up into the air like a miniature geyser, and fall in a silver shower over a wide area.

"Hurrah!" shouted Stacy, tossing his hat into the air.

Tom Gray was excited, and so were his companions. Stacy Brown was already prying at a boulder with a pole, while Hippy had run to another one and was digging an opening into which to insert his lever, using a flat stone for a fulcrum. Many of the boulders lay resting on the slope and thus were easily thrown out of balance.

"Wait!" cried Elfreda. "We will have a game of bowling."

"Yes, and the highest one that was ever played," exclaimed Grace.

"And I'll be Rip Van Winkle. Show me a soft place to lie down and sleep," cried Stacy.

"Where are the ninepins?" demanded Emma. "One cannot bowl without having something to bowl at."

"Use the trees down yonder in the lake," suggested Hippy. "The one who makes the first score will be free of camp duties for the next twenty-four hours."

"I won't play," declared Chunky. "I know you want to work some sharp game on me."

"And the one who makes no score at all must do the work for all those who do make scores," added Elfreda laughingly.

The fat boy sat down stubbornly.

"Go on with your game," he said.

"What's the matter? Don't you want to play, Honey?" asked Nora.

"No. I'm going to be the umpire," answered Stacy.

"As you please," laughed Hippy. "You will have to do the chores anyway. Folks, I am going to try to hit the third tree to the left of that group of rocks near the middle of the lake. Now watch me."

Hippy started a rock, which he had selected with great care. It boomed over the ledge, observed in breathless silence by the spectators, then hurtled far out over the lake, finally smashing into the blue waters, throwing spray high in the air.

"A miss!" shouted the Overlanders.

"He missed it by half a mile," jeered the umpire. "Why don't you change your sights? You are shooting over the mark."

Tom took the next try. He balanced his rock, after having pried it loose, and made it ready for the fall, and sent it crashing along on its way. As nearly as the eye could measure, Tom's boulder fell some twenty rods to the right of the tree aimed at. Tom then made ready a boulder for Grace. She failed to hit the lake, and derisive howls greeted her effort. Elfreda and Nora did a little better than that. Both hit the lake, but nowhere near the mark they had aimed at.

Stacy got up slowly and yawned.

"You folks make me tired. You ought to go to night school and learn how to roll stones. Why, even our little transmigrating Emma could beat you sharps at throwing stones. Emma, will you roll if I fix a boulder for you?" questioned Stacy.

"Yes, if you promise not to play tricks on me."

Stacy winked at Emma and nodded sideways to the others, as indicating that the trick was to be played on them, then snatching up his pole he ran to a boulder that he had some time since selected for his own.

After prying the rock into proper position, squinting and sighting and surveying the rock from all sides, he nodded to Emma and offered the pole to her.

"Take it easy. If you can't move the rock I'll lend you a hand," whispered Stacy.

"Ladies and gentlemen, you are now about to witness one of Emma Dean's most notable transmigration feats. Keep your eyes on the performer and you will see that she has nothing up her sleeve--nor under her hat," announced Hippy Wingate.

"Tip it over!" commanded Stacy, throwing his weight on the pole with Emma. "Watch the two twin-trees down there, but look sharply or you won't see them when they disappear from the face of the earth," he warned, strolling back towards his companions.

Emma's boulder, not being quite round, moved very slowly at first, and once it threatened to stop altogether and go no further, but finally, gaining new impetus, it started savagely on its way to the ledge, where it did a clumsy hop into the air, then dived for the lake.

"It is going to hit the lake!" cried Grace.

"What did you think we were trying to hit?" demanded Stacy. "If it is a hit--if little Emma makes a killing, I did it. If she misses, she did it."

"It's a hit!" yelled Lieutenant Wingate.

"You don't say?" wondered Stacy, turning quickly, the most amazed member of the Overland party.

Cheers greeted the achievement as two trees standing side by side in the lake disappeared as if by magic. Stacy threw out his chest and paraded back and forth with folded arms, an expression of dignified superiority on his face.

"I don't have to work for a whole week," observed Stacy.

"Oh, yes you do," answered Elfreda. "You know you weren't in the game--you are only the umpire. Further, Emma won the roll, and will have a vacation until to-morrow afternoon."

"There goes my Hippy's roll!" cried Nora, and for the moment attention was centered on Lieutenant Wingate's rolling boulder. It made a clean hit, knocking down a tree close to the water.

"The racket must be terrific down there," said Grace. "Hippy, you surely raised a disturbance with that last shot."

Tom tried once more and sent a boulder into the lake. The Overlanders plainly heard the impact, and could see a shower of broken rock being distributed over the surface of the lake.

Suddenly a new sound smote the ears of the Overland Riders, a familiar sound that they had heard many times in France and on their journeys in their own land.

"What's that?" demanded Stacy.

"That?" answered Hippy. "Why, that is a butterfly lullaby. You surely ought to know that sound by this time."

"_Woo, woo, woo!_" was the sound that smote their ears again.

"Down, all of you! We're under fire!" shouted Tom Gray.