tools of the
outfit, and also entailed the unloading of the pack on the back of the
remaining pack mule. Ned soon came trotting up with the shovel. He
uttered a long-drawn whistle when he saw the blocked trail.

"We never shall be able to get through that," he groaned.

"Oh, yes we shall. I'll shovel until I am tired, then you take hold and
make the dirt fly."

"I'll do that all right," returned Rector. "I am too keen for my dinner
and supper to delay matters any more than I am obliged to. We ought to
make Chunky take a hand."

"No, I wouldn't risk it. Before he had finished he would have lost the
shovel overboard. It is the only one we have. Here goes!"

Tad did make the dirt fly. He was a sturdy young man, all muscle and
grit. He shoveled for twenty minutes, working his way through the great
heap of dirt. Then he straightened up, his face flushed and perspiring.

"Go to it, Ned!"

Ned did, with a will. An hour and a half was consumed in clearing the
trail, and, when they finished, both boys were wet with perspiration.

"I think we had better walk for the present," suggested Tad. "We shall
stiffen up if we ride in our present overheated condition."

Ned nodded.

"I can't be much lamer than I am. I feel as if I had a broken hinge in
my back," he declared.

They started on, moving with extreme care that they might not meet with
another such disaster. The remaining pack mule was a much better animal
than the one they had lost. He was possessed of better sense, too, and
seemed to understand that great responsibilities rested on his
shoulders.

As for the trail, it was the same rugged, narrow path that they had been
following for hours.

"What if we should meet someone here?" wondered Walter apprehensively.

"Back up or jump over," answered Ned.

Stacy shivered.

"I don't like it at all," he muttered.

The Professor uttered a shout.

"What is it?" cried the boys all together.

"Land ho!" was the answer.

The boys craned their necks to see what the Professor had discovered,
but he was just rounding a bend beyond which they could not see. When
they had made the turn the boys shouted, too. The trail, they saw,
opened out into a broad pass. The ground there, though uneven, was
fairly level, thickly wooded with slender Alaskan cedar, its yellow,
lacy foliage drooping gracefully from the branches. Tall and straight,
the cedars shot up into the air until it seemed as if their slender tops
pierced the sk