Hike and the aeroplane

Two boys were riding on horseback along a little trail that overhung Canyon Diablo. They were exploring the lonely country miles below Monterey, on the California coast. Above them rose the mountains; a thousand feet below them was the Diablo River. The boys were dressed in khaki, with puttees, and with broad-brimmed felt hats that looked as though they had slept in them and used them for dippers and footballs.

The strong United States cavalry horses which they rode seemed to be ready for anything, and the boys themselves did not act as though they were much afraid of a drop from this narrow shelf of rock.

Hike Griffin, who rode ahead, was a boy of sixteen, with straight shoulders that were going to become very broad. He had a shock of the blackest hair that ever grew, and quiet, gray eyes that never seemed to worry. His mouth was strong, yet with little laughter-wrinkles at the side, as though he saw life as an interesting joke.

He rode so easily that he almost slouched in his saddle, like a cowpuncher. But when the horse reared at a rabbit that started up from the chaparral, he straightened up like a cavalry officer leading a squadron on parade, and coaxed her into behaving, laughing at her and patting her neck.

That was just the way Hike Griffin had handled the Freshman football team at Santa Benicia Military Academy, all the fall before. “Hike” wasn’t his only name. His father, Major James Griffin, of the army Signal Corps, had named him Gerald. Hike had feared that the fellows at Santa Benicia would call him “Geerawld.”

They started to, but when he took his hazing like a man, and captured the hearts of all his classmates, he was christened “Jerry.” Then he became right half and captain of the Freshman football team. With a splendid sixty-yard run or “hike” as westerners call it, he made the touch-down which won the Freshmen’s great annual game with San Dinero Prep.

While he was dashing down the field with the ball under his arm, the Santa Benicia rooters went mad, yelling “Hike, Jerry, hike! Griffin, hike, hike!” After that, he was known as “Hike.” The same meaning, said Poodle Darby, “to go with speed, like a whale-fish!”

In the spring, he had done some more hiking, when he won the half-mile and cross-country races, running along easily, as though he were a little chilly, and wanted to get warm. There was no more danger that he would be insulted by “Geerawld.”

So he was quite happy when he went home to the Monterey Presidio for summer vacation, and took with him his classmate and roommate, Torrington Darby.

You must not think that Torrington Darby was called that! You would have known he couldn’t have been, if you had seen him—round, sleek as a dove, always grinning all over his happy face, and usually drawling songs he made up himself; very lazy and very cheerful. Just the same he always got his lessons. In fact, he was much quicker at the books than was Hike.

He made life so interesting to all his friends that they decided he must have a better handle than “Torrington.” So they sat upon him, one evening; one on his face and another on his chest, while a third tied up his legs. This was so that he could not interfere with their important decision. Darby looked very patient and folded his hands and whined like a small dog, after kicking Left Eared Dongan vigorously; so they named him “Poodle,” and made him beg for small sticks, out in the Yard.

It was Poodle Darby who was riding behind Hike Griffin, along the canyon trail, making the day hideous by singing that good California chant, “Hallelujah, I’m a bum.”

They had been out on the trip for four days, and the excellent Poodle had sung that thing ninety thousand, seven hundred and steen times, Hike figured.

“Come on, Poodle; we’ll have to hustle if we’re going to reach the top of the trail for camp to-night,” Hike shouted.

So Poodle carelessly bawled back, and ground his heel into the side of his horse, kicking it into a canter.

The horse started. A rock slipped on the hillside above and rattled down, striking her flank. She flung up her head. Poodle vainly pulled on the rein, as she pranced skittishly.

Her back feet slipped. Over the side of the trail she slid. She pawed furiously with her front hoofs, but could not get hold of the slippery rock. She was surely sinking—close to the drop of a thousand feet.

For a moment her rear hoofs stuck, safe, on a tiny ledge.

Poodle cried “Hike!” once. Then he was silent, trying to keep from thinking of the awful drop below him.

Hike looked around. He did not make a sound. He spurred his horse, reached a broader spot in the trail, turned, and came loping back.

Quietly he said to Poodle, “Jump.”

“Can’t—make her lose footing,” stammered Poodle.

Hike dropped from his horse and ventured down the side of the cliff. His calmness gave courage to the trembling Poodle. He held out his hand and commanded, “Put foot on that. Jump.”

Poodle obeyed. Hike clutched an old mesquite root with his left hand, to hold himself in place, and almost threw Poodle up to safety. The horse was not dislodged from the position to which she desperately clung.

Taking her bridle, Hike coaxed. She shivered, but would not move. As quietly as though he were petting her in the stable, Hike rubbed her nose and urged her. Still she would not move.

“Got to hoist her up.” Hike bit off his words as though he were running a team-play. “Here, Pood’, fasten bridle to my saddle-horn. Hustle. I’ll make my horse drag her up. Say, if both horses get pulled off trail, I’ll jump. Try catch me.”

“Oh, don’t try it!” Poodle’s round face was very serious.

“Fasten that BRIDLE, I said!” ordered Hike. His voice sounded like his father’s, on the parade ground.

Poodle jumped to obey. Hike got on his own mount, still soothing the horse that was in danger. Resolutely turning his back, Hike touched the rowel to his nag.

With the bridle tugging sharply at her, Poodle’s horse started, scrambled frantically at the edge of the cliff, climbed, wavered, then bolted up, with heaving back, safe on the trail.

Poodle sat down, looking very pale, now that the danger was over. He grinned at Hike, who had dismounted and was patting the shivering, excited horses. It was a very sick young grin, but Poodle worked over it for a while, and it got much better. He drawled:

“Say, Hike, that was fine scenery from that ledge.”

“Um,” said Hike, after thinking it over.

“You’re dead right,” agreed Poodle. “That’s what I was thinking. Don’t look so blooming serious about it, though.”

“Well, you’d look serious if you had to spend all your time when you weren’t sleeping rescuing Poodles from death,” remarked Hike.

“I do!” stated Poodle. “Say, I thought I was going to be an aeroplane there, for a second. No, I thought my horse was goin’ to be! But gee! I was wondering how I could deflect her front—”

“Nice word, deflect.”

“—control when we struck the canyon down there.... Maybe the joke’d have been kinda flat, like me, if it hadn’t been for you, Hike. Much obliged for rescuing me. I oughtn’t to get killed to-day, ’cause I promised to write Mother about the scenery down the coast.”

“So thoughtful of you,” said Hike. “You’re a good young un, Pood’. I got twice as scared as you.”

“Sure. That was why my teeth was chattering so. I was so scared you’d get scareder. Le’s hike.”

“Right,” remarked Hike, and they mounted and rode on. They were pretty quiet for a mile, and there were no races. At the end of it, Poodle called:

“Hike.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Say—I was awful scared.”

“So was I,” Hike grinned back, and they both laughed.

Before dusk, they reached the peak at the head of the canyon, and looked down on the other side of the San Francisquito range of mountains. A hundred little valleys stretched in all directions. There were no signs of human life. Many of these valleys had never been visited by any white man except some wandering prospector looking for gold mines. One of the ravines led to a valley at least a mile wide, flat and grassy, with a comfortable brook flowing through it.

“Gee, that’s a great country down there,” observed Poodle. “We’ll explore it. Jiminy, this is great—feels like we were the first white men in America.” Tethering his horse, he stood on the edge of an arroyo leading down from the peak.

“What d’you say to the first white men getting some wood before it’s too dark?” murmured Hike, rooting out a big log.

“If you weren’t a nice young man, I’d think that was a hint,” retorted Poodle, quite cheerfully. “If I catch the idee, you b’lieve we might use a little fire-wood.”

“No, that ain’t it at all. I just thought we might need some toothpicks after dinner. ’Course we’ll do the cooking in some moonlight,” explained Hike. “Nice hot moonlight.”

“Well, now, I’d almost suppose you were gettin’ sarcastic,” said Poodle, “but ’course if you don’t want me to help you ketchum heap plenty wood, why, I’ll have a small game of mumble-te-peg.” He opened his knife, but, as he started his game, one Hike, a person of much muscle, picked him up, carried him over to the remains of a dead fir tree, and murmured, “Want to get dropped down the arroyo?”

“A hint’s always enough for little Poodle,” declared that cheerful gentleman, and got busy with twigs and branches.

When dusk came, they were frying bacon stuck on sharpened twigs, and singing “Hallelujah, I’m a bum.” Coffee was singing with them, in the pot among the coals. Poodle stated that he could eat a whole grocery store, including the scales, wrapping paper, and cashier. (He didn’t have the chance to prove whether he could or not, however, for even so husky a boy as Hike doesn’t usually carry a whole grocery store at the cantle of his saddle when he goes on a riding trip.)

With the bacon and flapjacks and syrup and coffee inside them, the two boys lay with their feet to the fire. They had forgotten the strain of the rescue on the cliff-side. They were just sinking off into sleep, looking so comfortably and dreamily at the cheerful fire, when Poodle started up, awakened by the sound of a coyote’s howl nearby.

“Say, I thought I heard something besides a coyote,” he said. “Sounded like hammering—and there ain’t a human within twenty miles of us. Even if there was a smuggler on the coast, he’d be five miles away.”

“Yes,” replied Hike, very quietly, “I’ve been listening to it for five minutes. It is a man hammering—on iron—and there can’t be anybody down in those valleys—and there is!... Well, we’ll find out in the morning. Some mystery, some mys—some—” Hike was asleep.

“Should say there was a mystery,” grunted Poodle, sticking just the tip of his button of a nose from the top of his blanket. “Think you might get a little bit scared, anyway. You oughta be. It’s a mys— It sure is— I dunno—”

Alas, we can never know what Poodle didn’t know, for by this time the only thing awake around that camp on the peak was a lone coyote, who came over and reflectively ate the top of one of Poodle’s shoes. And still the mysterious hammering kept up, down in the wilderness of valleys.