THE MYSTERY OF THE BLUE 



GOOSE 



BY DAN BEARD 



(Continued) 

 CHAPTER XII 



THE LARIAT BRIDGE 



^^T 3 



is I 



PPARENTLY there 

 was no possible way by 

 which we might hope 

 to cross the canyon, and 

 I threw myself prone 

 upon the top of the 

 stony brink of the 

 chasm and peered down 

 the awful abyss at the 

 silver thread, shining 

 in the gloom of the 

 shadows, which marked 



a 



the course of 

 stream. 



It matters little to me whether the object 

 of my pursuit be fame, riches or game, my 

 experience seems to be all the same, and 

 sooner or later I discover a bridgeless chasm 

 athwart my trail; but I have learned to hail 

 with pleasurable excitement the hollow 

 sound of the subterranean waters proclaim- 

 ing my near approach to this barrier in my 

 path. 



I studied the face of the opposite cliff in a 

 vain search for some hint to the solution of 

 the problem before us, looking up and down 

 from side to side as far as allowed by the 

 range of my vision. At length my attention 

 wandered to the perpendicular face of the 

 cliff, on the top of which my body was 

 sprawled; there was an upright crack in the 

 face of the stone wall, and as I examined 

 the fracture I saw that a piece of wood had 

 lodged in this crack. A piece of wood in a 

 crevice in a rock is not so unusual an occur- 

 rence as to excite remark; but when it 

 occurred to me that we were then far above 

 the timber line, my interest and curiosity 

 were at once aroused. 



The end of the stick was within a short 

 distance from my hand, and reaching down 

 I grasped the wood and brought forth not a 

 short club or stick, as I thought to be con- 

 cealed there, but a very long pole. The 

 result of my investigations was so unex- 

 pected that I came dangerously near allow- 

 ing the thing to slide through my fingers and 

 fall to the bottom of the canyon. It was a 

 neatly-smoothed, slender piece of lodge-pole 

 pine which was brought to view, and it had 

 a crooked root nicely spliced to one end and 

 bound tightly in place with rawhide thongs. 

 Big Pete was wholly absorbed in the wild 

 girl's trail, the study of which he had re- 

 sumed, and when I looked up he was down 

 on all fours, minutely studying the ground. 

 Presently he cried, "Le-Loo, tha' pesky 

 little wasp ha' been over wha' you be after 

 sompen and she tuk it back tha' again afore 

 she made her jump! If you're any good 

 you'll find what the gal was after." 



"She was after her barleycorn broom- 

 stick," I replied, proudly, "and here it is, 

 although I must confess it is a pretty long 

 one for a girl of her size, and it looks more 

 like Bo-Peep's crook than a witch's broom." 

 Big Pete eagerly snatched the pole from my 

 hands and examined it carefully. At length 

 he said, "This hyer is the end used for the 

 handle; one can see by the finger marks, 

 an' this crook is used to scrape stone with, 

 one kin see, with half an eye, by the way the 

 end is sandpapered off. Over tha' air some 

 marks on the stone which look almighty like 

 as if they'd been made by the end of this yer 

 hook slipping down the face of the rock. 



"Now, I wonder wha' cud be up tha' on 

 the top of the rock that the gal wanted?" 



