His path took him by the spot on which the night before he had killed the bear. The animal, charred and blackened to a crisp, still lay there. As he neared the place, however, a heavy flapping of wings as several hideous “turkey buzzards” arose heavily, apprised him that the carrion birds had already gathered to the feast. The lad noted that, before rising, the glutted creatures had to run several yards with outspread wings before they could gain an upward impetus.
The crisp beauty of the morning, the smiling greenery of the trees, and the thousand odors and sounds about him all combined to make Jack wander rather further than he had intended. Then, too, a boy with a rifle always does go a longer distance than he means to. That’s boy nature.
All at once he found himself emerging from the brush at a point rather higher up the canyon side than their camp in the abyss. So gentle had been the rise, however, that he had not noticed it. Before him lay a sort of roughly piled rampart of rocks. The boy was advancing toward these to peer over their summits into the valley below, when something suddenly arrested his footsteps as abruptly as if a precipice had yawned before him.
The sharp, acrid odor of tobacco had reached his nostrils. At the same instant, too, he became aware of the low hum of voices. The sounds came from immediately in front of him, and seemingly just below the rock rampart. With a beating heart, and as silently as possible, the lad crept forward to ascertain what other intruders besides themselves had come into the primeval fastnesses of the Sonora country.
A few stealthy footsteps served to bring him to the edge of the natural rampart, and then, removing his sombrero, he peered over. What he saw a few feet below him caused him to exercise all his self-control to avoid uttering a sharp exclamation. Around a smoldering fire, above which hung an iron pot that emitted a savory odor, lay several men. Swarthy Mexicans they were, with villainous countenances for the most part, although, to Jack’s astonishment, one of the party had a fair Saxon skin and reddish hair, which, with his blue eyes, made him seem oddly out of place in the midst of the dark-skinned, black-orbed group.