The Saddle Boys of the Rockies | Page 3

that; or was he just bluffing?" said Frank, as he turned to his chum.
"He looked as if he might be in dead earnest," replied Bob; "but you know him better than I do, and ought to be able to say whether he'd have the sand to take up such a job as that."
"Oh! nobody doubts his grit, when it comes to that," Frank went on, as though trying to figure the matter out. "And he seems to want to do something everybody else lets alone. You know what I told you about Thunder Mountain, Bob; and how it has been a mystery ever since the country hereabout was settled by people from the East?"
"Yes," the Kentucky boy replied, "and somehow, what you told me seemed to shake me up as I don't ever remember being stirred before. It was like a direct challenge--just like somebody had dared me to look into this queer old mountain, and find out what it all meant."
"That's just it," said Frank, watching the face of his chum with a show of eagerness. "It struck me the same way long ago, and I can remember often thinking what a great time a few of the right kind of fellows might have if they took a notion to go nosing around that old pile of rock, to see what does make all that row every little while."
"And you tell me nobody knows what it is?" demanded Bob.
"Why, don't you understand, the cowboys all keep away from Thunder Mountain as much as they can. They're worse than the Injuns about it, because while the reds say that is the voice of Manitou talking, these fellows just up and declare the mountain is haunted. Lots of 'em couldn't be hired to spend a night on the side of that big uplift."
"But Frank, we don't believe in any such thing, do we?" pursued Bob, as if he had begun to suspect what all this talk was leading up to, and wished to draw his chum on.
"We sure don't, and that's a fact," declared Frank. "Twice, now, one of our boys has made out that he saw a ghost, but both times I managed to turn the laugh on him. All the same, if you offered a lump sum for any fellow to go and camp out half-way up the side of Thunder Mountain for a week, I don't believe he could be found, not at Circle Ranch, anyhow."
"I've seen the same kind of men myself; and the coons around our old Kentucky home always carried a foot of a graveyard rabbit, shot in the full of the moon, as a sure talisman against ghosts. I've seen many a rabbit's foot. No use talking to any of them; it's in the blood and can't be cured. But about that offering a sum for any fellow to go and camp on the side of that old fraud of a haunted mountain, if you happen to hear about such a snap you might just think of me, Frank."
The other saddle boy smiled broadly. He believed he knew Bob pretty well by this time, and could no longer doubt what the Kentucky lad was hinting at.
"Say, look here, would you take me up if I proposed something right now?" asked Frank, his face filled with sudden animation.
"If you mean that we try and beat Peg Grant at his own game, and learn what the secret of Thunder Mountain is, I say yes!" answered Bob, steadily.
"Shake on that!" he exclaimed. "I'm just primed for something that's out of the common run; and what could be finer than such a game? I saw Billy Dixon in town; and we can send back word to father that we've gone off for a big gallop; so he won't worry if we don't turn up for a few days. Is it a go, Bob?"
"Count on me," replied the other. "I don't know how it is, Frank; but it strikes me that I'd like to cut in on that boaster in this thing. If we managed to find out what makes that fearful booming in the mountain, and told about it before he got a chance to blow his horn, he'd feel cheap, wouldn't he?"
"He sure would, now," Frank said. "And when you look at it, he just the same as gave us the challenge direct, because he hinted that we didn't have the nerve to attempt such a big thing as this. Bob, we'll call it a go! Wonder what Peg will say when he runs across us out there in that lonely place? Wow! I reckon he'll be some mad."
"Let him," remarked Bob, carelessly. "He has no claim on Thunder Mountain; has he? And we want to call his bluff, if it was one. So just make up