The Motor Rangers Through the Sierras

"Say Nat, I thought that this was to be a pleasure trip?"

Joe Hartley, the perspiration beading his round, good-natured countenance, pushed back his sombrero and looked up whimsically from the punctured tire over which he was laboring.

"Well, isn't half the pleasure of running an auto finding out how many things you don't know about it?" laughingly rejoined Nat Trevor, the eldest and most experienced of the young Motor Rangers, as they had come to be called.

"V-v-v-variety is the s-s-spice--" sputtered our old friend William, otherwise Ding-dong Bell.

"Oh, whistle it, Ding-dong," interjected Joe impatiently.

"Phwit!" musically chirruped the stuttering lad. "Variety is the spice of life," he concluded, his hesitating manner of speech leaving him, as usual, following the puckering of his lips and the resultant music.

"That's no reason why we should be peppered with troubles," grumbled Joe, giving the "jack" a vicious twist and raising the rear axle still higher. "Here it is, only three days since we left Santa Barbara and I'm certain that I've fixed at least four punctures already."

"Well, you'll be a model of punctuality when--" grinned Nat aggravatingly, but Joe had sprung from his crouching posture and made for him threateningly.

"Nat Trevor, if you dare to pun, I'll-I'll-bust your spark plug."

"Meaning my head, I suppose," taunted Nat from a safe distance, namely, a rock at the side of the dusty road. "'Lay on, Macduff.'"

"Oh, I've more important things to go," concluded Joe, with as much dignity as he could muster, turning once more to his tools.

While he is struggling with the puncture let us look about a little and see where the Motor Rangers, whom we left in Lower California, are now located. As readers of "The Motor Rangers' Lost Mine" know, the three bright lads with a companion, oddly named Sandrock Smith, had visited the sun-smitten peninsula to investigate some mysterious thefts of lumber from a dye-wood property belonging to Mr. Pomery, "The Lumber King," Nat's employer. While in that country, which they only reached after a series of exciting and sometimes dangerous incidents, they stumbled across a gold mine in which Nat's father had, years before, been heavily interested.

Readers of that volume will also recall that Hale Bradford, the Eastern millionaire, and his unscrupulous associates had made a lot of trouble for Nat and his companions after the discovery. The exciting escape of Nat in a motor boat across the waters of the Gulf of California will also be called to mind, as well as the story of how matters were finally adjusted and Nat became, if not a millionaire, at least a very well-to-do young man. The gift of the auto in which they were now touring was likewise explained. The splendid vehicle, with its numerous contrivances for comfortable touring, had been the present of Mr. Pomery to the lads, as a token of his esteem and gratitude for the conclusion to which they had brought the dishonest dealings of Diego Velasco, a Mexican employed by Mr. Pomery.

On their return to California proper, the lads had spent a brief time with their parents, and Nat had seen his mother ensconced in a pretty house on the outskirts of Santa Barbara. It had been a great delight to the lady to leave the tiny cottage in which straitened circumstances following the death of Nat's father, had compelled them to live. Joe Hartley, we know, was the son of a department store keeper of Santa Barbara, and Ding-dong Bell was the only child of a well-to-do widow. So much for our introductions.

Inactivity had soon palled on the active minds of the Motor Rangers, and they had, with the consent of their parents, planned another trip. This time, however, it was to be for pleasure. As Nat had said, "We had enough adventures in Lower California to last us a lifetime." But of what lay ahead of them not one of the boys dreamed, when, three days before, they had started from Santa Barbara for a tour of the Sierras. Nat was desirous of showing that it was feasible to hunt and fish and tour the mountains in an automobile just as well as on horseback. The car, therefore, carried rifles and shot guns as well as fishing rods and paraphernalia for camping. We shall not give an inventory of it now. Suffice it to say that it was completely outfitted, and as the details of the car itself have been told in the previous volume we shall content ourselves with introducing each as occasion arises.

The particular puncture which Joe was repairing when this volume opens, occurred just as the lads were bowling over a rather rough road into Antelope Valley, a narrow, wind-swept canyon between two steep ranges of mountains. The valley is in the heart of the Sierras, and though too insignificant to be noted on any but the largest maps, forms a portion of the range well known to mountaineers. It is a few miles from the Tehachapi Pass, at which, geographers are agreed, the true Sierra Nevadas begin.

"Say, fellows," exclaimed Nat suddenly, looking about him at the sky which from being slightly overcast had now become black and threatening, "we're going to have a storm of some sort. If you're ready there, Joe, we'll be jogging along. We ought to be under shelter when it hits."

"Yes," agreed Joe, wiping his brow with the back of his hand, "it will go whooping through this narrow valley like the mischief."

As he spoke he lowered the "jack," and put the finishing touches on his repair. The auto carried plenty of extra tires, but naturally the boys wished to be sparing of their new ones while the others offered an opportunity for a patch.

As the first heavy rain drops fell, sending up little spurts of dust from the dry road and the dusty chaparral bordering it, Nat started the motor, and the car was soon whizzing forward at a good speed. Thanks to its finely-tempered springs and the shock absorbers with which it was equipped, the roughness of the road had little effect on the comfort of the riders.

"This is going to be a hummer," shouted Joe suddenly, "we'd better get up the shelter hood."

Nat agreed, and soon the contrivance referred to, which was like a low "top" of waterproof khaki, was stretched on its collapsible frames. It fitted all round the auto, enclosing it like a snug waterproof tent. In front was a window of mica through which the driver could see the road. The erection of the shelter took but a few seconds and presently the car was once more chugging forward.

But as the storm increased in violence, the wind rose, till it fairly screamed through the narrow funnel of the rocky-walled valley. Through his window Nat could see trees being bent as if they were buggy whips.

"If this gets much worse we'll have to find cover," he thought, "or else lose our shelter hood."

He glanced apprehensively at the steel supports of the shelter, which were bending and bowing under the stress put upon them. As Nat had remarked to himself, they would not stand much more pressure.

"Say, the rain is coming in here," began Joe suddenly, as a tiny trickle began to pour into the tonneau. It came through a crack in the khaki top which had been wrenched apart by the violence of the wind.

"It's g-g-g-gone d-d-d-own the bab-b-b-back of my n-n-n-neck," sputtered Ding-dong Bell protestingly.

"Never mind, Ding-dong," comforted Joe, "maybe it will wash your parts of speech out straight."

"I'm going to head for that cave yonder," exclaimed Nat, after running a few more minutes.

He had spied a dark opening in the rocks to his right, while the others had been talking, and had guessed that it was the mouth of a cave of some sort. And so it proved.

The auto was turned off the road, or rather track, and after bumping over rocks and brush rolled into the shelter of the cavern. It seemed quite an abrupt change from the warring of the elements outside to the darkness and quiet of the chamber in the rocks, and the Motor Rangers lost no time in lowering the hood and looking about to find out in what sort of a place they had landed.

So far as they could see, after they had all climbed out of the car, the cave was a large one. It ran back and its limits were lost in darkness. The mouth, however, was quite a big opening, being more than twenty feet across at the base. It narrowed into a sharp-topped arch at the summit, from which greenery hung down.

"Let's see where we are," remarked Nat, taking off his heavy driving gloves and throwing them upon the driver's seat.

"You'd have to be a cat to do that," laughed Joe Hartley, gazing back into the dense blackness of the cavern.

"That's soon fixed," added Nat, and removing one of the lights of the car from its socket he pressed a little button. A sharp click resulted, and a flood of brilliant white radiance poured from the lamp. It was an improved carbide contrivance, the illuminant which made the gas being carried in its socket.

The boy turned its rays backward into the cave, flooding the rough, rocky walls, stained here and there with patches of dampness and moss, with a blaze of light.

"Say," cried Joe suddenly, as the rays fell far back into the cave but still did not seem to reach its terminus, "what is that back there?"

As he spoke he seized Nat's sleeve in a nervous, alarmed way.

"What?" demanded Nat, holding the light high above his head in his effort to pierce the uttermost shadows.

"Why that-don't you see it?" cried Joe.

"I do now," exclaimed Nat in a startled voice, "it's--"

"T-t-t-two g-g-glaring eyes!" fizzed Ding-dong Bell.

As he spoke, from behind the boys, came a low, menacing growl. They faced about abruptly to see what this new source of alarm might be.

As they all turned in the direction from which the growl had proceeded-namely the mouth of the cave-a cry of dismay was forced from the lips of the three lads. Stealthily approaching them, with cat-like caution, was a low, long-bodied animal of a tawny color. Its black-tipped tail was lashing the ground angrily, and its two immense eyes were glaring with a green light, in the gloom of the cave.

"A mountain lion!" cried Nat, recognizing their treacherous foe in an instant.

"And its mate's back there in the cave," called Joe, still more alarmedly.

"G-g-g-g-get the g-g-g-guns!" sputtered Ding-dong.

This was far more easy to recommend than to accomplish, however. The lads, never dreaming that they would want their weapons, had left them in the automobile. The car, as will be recalled, had been left near the mouth of the cave. The mountain lion advancing toward them had already passed the auto and was now between them and the place in which their weapons were reposing.

The mountain lion, or cougar, ordinarily not dangerous unless it gets its foe at an absolute disadvantage, becomes, during the mating season, a vindictive, savage brute, if separated from its mate. That this was now the case was evident. There was no room to doubt that the two green eyes glaring from the remote blackness of the cave were the optics of another "lion."

The young Motor Rangers were fairly trapped. Without weapons or any means of protecting themselves but their bare hands, they were in imminent peril of a nasty conclusion to their sudden encounter.

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