"Voss iss dot aboudt mein horse?"

The group examining that noble animal turned abruptly, to find the quadruped's owner in their midst. Herr Muller still wore his famous abbreviated pajama suit, over which he had thrown a big khaki overcoat of military cut belonging to Nat. Below this his bare legs stuck out like the drum sticks of a newly plucked chicken. His yellow hair was rumpled and stood up as if it had been electrified. Not one of the boys could help laughing at the odd apparition.

"Well, pod'ner," rejoined Cal, taking up the horse's broken hitching rope and leading it back to its original resting place, "you're purty lucky ter hev a horse left at all. This yar Ding-dong Bell almost 'put him in the well' fer fair. He drilled about ten bullets more or less around the critter's noble carcass."

"But couldn't hit him with one of them," laughed Nat, to Ding-dong's intense disgust. The stuttering lad strode majestically off to the auto, and turned in, nor could they induce him to go on watch again that night.

The morning dawned as fair and bright and crisp as mornings in the Sierras generally do. The sky was cloudless and appeared to be borne aloft like a blue canopy, by the steep walls of the canyon enclosing the petrified forest. The boys, on awakening, found Cal already up and about, and the fragrance of his sage brush fire scenting the clear air.

"'Mornin' boys," sang out the ex-stage driver as the tousled heads projected from the auto and gazed sleepily about, "I tell yer this is ther kind of er day that makes life worth livin'."

"You bet," agreed Nat, heading a procession to the little spring at the foot of one of the giant petrified trees.

"It's c-c-c-c-cold," protested Ding-dong, but before he could utter further expostulations his legs were suddenly tripped from under him and he sprawled head first into the chilly, clear water. Joe Hartley was feeling good, and of course poor Ding-dong had to suffer. By the time the latter had recovered his feet and wiped some of the water out of his eyes, the others had washed and were off for the camp fire. With an inward resolve to avenge himself at some future time, Ding-dong soon joined them.

If the petrified forest had been a queer-looking place by night, viewed by daylight it was nothing short of astonishing.

"It's a vegetable cemetery," said Cal, looking about him. "Each of these stone trees is a monument, to my way of thinking."

"Ach, you are a fullosopher," applauded Herr Muller, who had just risen and was gingerly climbing out of the tonneau.

"And you're full o' prunes," grunted Cal to himself, vigorously slicing bacon, while Nat fixed the oatmeal, and Joe Hartley got some canned fruit ready.

Presently breakfast was announced, and a merry, laughing party gathered about the camp fire to despatch it.

"I'll bet we're the first boys that ever ate breakfast in a petrified forest," commented Joe.

"I reckin' you're right," agreed Cal, "it makes me feel like an ossified man."

"Dot's a feller whose headt is turned to bone?" asked Herr Muller.

"Must be Ding-dong," grinned Joe, which promptly brought on a renewal of hostilities.

"I've read that the petrification is caused by particles of iron pyrites, or lime, taking the place of the water in the wood," put in Nat.

"Maybe so," agreed Cal, "but I've seen a feller petrified by too much forty rod liquor."

"I wonder what shook so many of the stony stumps down," inquired Joe, gazing about him with interest.

"Airthquakes, I guess," suggested Cal, "they get 'em through here once in a while and when they come they're terrors."

"We have them in Santa Barbara, too," said Nat, "they're nasty things all right."

"Come f-f-f-f-from the e-e-e-earth getting a t-t-t-t-tummy ache," sagely announced Ding-dong Bell.

While the boys got the car ready and filled the circulating water tank with fresh water from the spring, Herr Muller and Cal washed the tin dishes, and presently all was ready for a start. Herr Muller decided that he would ride his horse this morning and so the move was made, with that noble steed loping along behind the auto at the best pace his bony frame was capable of producing. Luckily for him, the going was very hard among the fallen stumps of the petrified trees, and the tall, column-like, standing trunks, and the car could not do much more than crawl.

All were in jubilant spirits. The bracing air and the joyous sensation of taking the road in the early dawn invigorated them.

"I tell you," said Cal, "there's nothing like an early start in the open air. I've done it a thousand times or more I guess, but it always makes me feel good."

"Dot iss righd," put in Herr Muller, "vunce at Heidelberg I gets me oop by sunrise to fighd idt a doodle. I felt goot but bresently I gedt poked it py der nose mit mein friendt's sword. Den I nodt feel so goodt."

While the others were still laughing at the whimsical German's experience he suddenly broke into yodling:

"Ear!" burst out Joe, as the German's horse caught its foot in a gopher hole, and stumbled so violently that it almost pitched the caroler over its head.

"That's ther first song I ever heard about a Chink," commented Cal, when Herr Muller had recovered his equilibrium.

"Voss is dot Chink?" asked Herr Muller, showing his usual keen interest in any new word.

"Gee whiz, but you Germans are benighted folks. Why, a Chink's a Chinaman, of course."

"Budt," protested the German spurring his horse alongside the auto and speaking in a puzzled tone, "budt I voss not singing aboudt a Chinaman."

"Wall, I'll leave it to anyone if Hi Lee and Hi Lo ain't Chink names," exclaimed Cal.

Whatever reply Herr Muller might have found to this indisputable assertion is lost forever to the world. For at that moment Nat, who was at the wheel, looked up to see a strange figure coming toward them, making its way rapidly in and out among the column-like, petrified trunks. His exclamation called the attention of the others to it and they regarded the oncoming figure with as much astonishment as did he.

It was the form of a very tall and lanky man on a very short and fat donkey, that was approaching them. The rider's legs projected till they touched the ground on each side like long piston rods and moved almost as rapidly as he advanced. What with the burro's galloping and the man's rapid footwork, they raised quite a cloud of dust.

"Say, is that fellow moving the burro, or is the burro moving him?" inquired Joe, with perfectly natural curiosity.

Faster and faster moved the man's legs over the ground, as he came nearer to the auto.

"I should think he'd walk and let the burro ride," laughed Nat.

As he spoke the boy checked the auto and it came to a standstill. The tall rider could now be seen to be an aged man with a long, white beard, and a brown, sunburned face, framed oddly by his snowy whiskers. He glanced at the boys with a pair of keen eyes as he drew alongside, and stopped his long-eared steed with a loud:

"Whoa!"

"Howdy," said Cal.

"Howdy," rejoined the stranger, "whar you from?"

"South," said Cal.

"Whar yer goin'?"

"North," was the rejoinder.

"Say, stranger, you ain't much on the conversation, be yer?"

"Never am when I don't know who I be talking to," retorted Cal. The boys expected to see the other get angry, but instead he broke into a laugh.

"You're a Westerner all right," he said. "I thought everybody knew me. I'm Jeb Scantling, the sheep herder from Alamos. I'm looking fer some grass country."

"Bin havin' trouble with the cattlemen?" inquired Cal.

"Some," was the non-committal rejoinder.

"Wall, then you'd better not go through that way," enjoined Cal, "there's a bunch of cattle right through the forest thar."

"Thar is?" was the somewhat alarmed rejoinder, "then I reckon it's no place fer me."

"No, you'd better try back in the mountains some place," advised Cal.

"I will. So long."

The old man abruptly wheeled his burro, and working his legs in the same eccentric manner as before soon vanished the way he had come.

"That's a queer character," commented Nat, as the old man disappeared and the party, which had watched his curious actions in spellbound astonishment, started on once more.

"Yes," agreed Cal, "and he's had enough to make him queer, too. A sheepman has a tough time of it. The cattlemen don't want 'em around the hills 'cos they say the sheep eat off the feed so close thar ain't none left fer the cattle. And sometimes the sheepmen start fires to burn off the brush, and mebbe burn out a whole county. Then every once in a while a bunch of cattlemen will raid a sheep outfit and clean it out."

"Kill the sheep?" asked Joe.

"Yep, and the sheepmen, too, if they so much as open their mouths to holler. I tell you a sheepman has his troubles."

"Was this fellow just a herder, or did he own a flock?" inquired Nat.

"I've heard that he owns his bunch," rejoined Cal. "He's had lots of trouble with cattlemen. No wonder he scuttled off when I tole him thar was a bunch of punchers behind."

"I'm sorry he went so quickly," said Nat, "I wanted to ask him some questions about the petrified forest."

"Well, we're about out of it now," said Cal, looking around.

Only a few solitary specimens of the strange, gaunt stone trees now remained dotting the floor of the canyon like lonely monuments. Presently they left the last even of these behind them, and before long emerged on a rough road which climbed the mountain side at a steep elevation.

"No chance of your brake bustin' agin, is ther?" inquired Cal, rather apprehensively.

"No, it's as strong as it well can be now," Nat assured him.

"Glad of that. If it gave out on this grade we'd go backward to our funerals."

"Guess that's right," agreed Joe, gazing back out of the tonneau at the steep pitch behind them.

Despite the steepness of the grade and the rough character of the road, or rather trail, the powerful auto climbed steadily upward, the rattle of her exhausts sounding like a gatling gun in action.

Before long they reached the summit and the boys burst into a shout of admiration at the scene spread out below them. From the elevation they had attained they could see, rising and falling beneath them, like billows at sea, the slopes and summits of miles of Sierra country. Here and there were forests of dense greenery, alternated with bare, scarred mountain sides dotted with bare trunks, among which disastrous forest fires had swept. It was a grand scene, impressive in its magnitude and sense of solitary isolation. Far beyond the peaks below them could be seen snow-capped summits, marking the loftiest points of the range. Here and there deep dark wooded canyons cut among the hills reaching down to unknown depths.

"Looks like a good country for grizzlies or deer," commented Cal.

"Grizzlies!" exclaimed Joe, "are there many of them back here?"

"Looks like there might be," rejoined Cal, "this is the land of big bears, big deer, little matches, and big trees, and by the same token there's a clump of the last right ahead of us."

Sure enough not a hundred yards from where they had halted, there stood a little group of the biggest trees the lads had ever set eyes on. The loftiest towered fully two hundred feet above the ground, while a roadway could have been cut through its trunk—as is actually the case with another famous specimen of the Sequoia Gigantea.

The foliage was dark green and had a tufted appearance, while the trunks were a rich, reddish brown. The group of vegetable mammoths was as impressive a sight as the lads had ever gazed upon.

"Them is about the oldest livin' things in ther world," said Cal gazing upward, "when Noah was building his ark them trees was 'most as big as they are now."

"I tole you vot I do," suddenly announced Herr Muller, "I take it a photogrift from der top of one of dem trees aindt it?"

"How can you climb them?" asked Nat.

"Dot iss easiness," rejoined the German, "here, hold Bismark—dot iss vot I call der horse—und I gedt out mein climbing irons."

Diving into his blanket-roll he produced a pair of iron contrivances, shaped somewhat like the climbing appliances which linemen on telegraph systems use to scale the smooth poles. These were heavier, and with longer and sharper steel points on them, however. Rapidly Herr Muller, by means of stout straps, buckled them on, explaining that he had used them to take pictures from treetops within the Black Forest.

A few seconds later he selected the tallest of the trees and began rapidly to ascend it. The climbing irons and the facility they lent him in ascending the bare trunk delighted the boys, who determined to have some made for themselves at the first opportunity.

"He kin climb like a Dutch squirrel," exclaimed Cal admiringly, as with a wave of his hand the figure of the little German grew smaller, and finally vanished in the mass of dark, sombre green which clothed the summit of the great red-wood.

"He ought to get a dandy picture from way up there," said Joe.

"Yes," agreed Nat, "he——"

The boy stopped suddenly short. From the summit of the lofty tree there had come a sharp, piercing cry of terror.

"Help! help! Quvick or I fall down!"