Page:Rover Boys in the Mountains.djvu/185

Rh "Shut up and come along," growled the bully.

Feeling it would be folly to resist, the two Rovers moved off with the party. The big guide led the way and the others followed.

"You may as well earn your salt," observed Baxter. "Here, take hold and pull one of the sleds."

He placed the rope in their hands and compelled them to haul the load, which they did unwillingly enough.

Curious as it may seem, none of the Baxter party had given a thought to the sled which Sam and Tom had had with them, and this had been left under the bushes at the spot where Husty had discovered the Rovers.

At first Tom and Sam had thought to speak about the matter, but they finally decided it would be better to run the risk of losing that portion of the outfit entirely than to place it in the hands of their enemy.

The way was rough, and it was only with the greatest of difficulty that they could drag the sleds along. But less than half an hour brought them to the spot which Bill Harney had in mind—a grand and wild place, where the mountain appeared to split in two for a distance of several hundred feet. Here there was a gorge fifty or sixty feet deep, partly choked with small scrub cedars.