Boy Scouts in California; or, The Flag on the Cliff

“Black bear steak!”

“Grizzly bear, black bear, or cinnamon bear?”

“This is cinnamon bear! You don’t suppose members of the Black Bear Patrol, Boy Scouts of America, would do a cannibal stunt by eating black bear, do you? That wouldn’t be right.”

Jimmie McGraw of the Wolf Patrol, City of New York, and Frank Shaw, of the Black Bear Patrol, also of New York City, were broiling bear steak over a glowing bed of embers just below the timber line on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains. It was early morning in September, and the sunshine lay like a mist of gold over the broken country.

Away to the north rose the peaks of the Matterhorn, approximately 13,000 feet above sea level. Still nearer, Twin Peaks lifted their white heads 12,000 feet in the air. To the east lay Mono lake, salt and brackish to the taste, partaking of the desert, but bright and glistening now under the rays of the early sun.

To the south Warren Peak stood guard over the head waters of the Tuolumne river. Westward the tumbling waters of Rancheria creek dropped down from crag to crag on their winding way to the Pacific, nearly three hundred miles distant. Here and there granite peaks lifted white foreheads above the green of the pines.

It was a glorious scene, and the Boy Scouts were thoroughly in harmony with it. The smoke of their campfire lifted in a straight line to the blue of the sky, and the fragrance of their steak and coffee permeated the sweet air.

The boys shivered a trifle as they gathered closer about the embers, but they knew that before many hours the chill of the night would be swept away. While the boys tended the steak and coffee, a voice came from a cave at the rear. They both turned in that direction.

“Does this hotel serve meals to guests in their rooms?” the voice asked.

“Sure we do!” Jimmie McGraw replied. “We serve grizzly bear steak on toast, and on the hoof at that; we’re aiming to send you in a whole animal in about ten minutes. We feed folks right at this hotel!”

Jack Bosworth yawned sleepily and came out of the cavern to stand by the fire, warming his hands and turning round and round in order to take full advantage of the generous heat.

“Where are Ned and Harry?” he asked in a moment.

“They’ve gone out to get another bear for breakfast,” Jimmie replied. “You see,” he went on, “we’re getting up such appetites, here in the mountains, that it takes two hunters to keep the provision chest full.”

“After I eat,” Jack said with a grin, “I’m going out and bring in a deer. I’m getting tired of bear steak.”

“Go to it!” laughed Jimmie. “You needn’t have any of this bear steak for breakfast, if you’re getting sick of it.”

Jimmie and Frank each seized a huge slice of smoking steak and made for the cave, leaving Jack to broil his own breakfast in punishment for having found fault with the menu.

The cave in which the boys found themselves in a moment was not far from twenty feet in size each way, with the ceiling at least ten feet above the smooth floor. Perhaps thousands of years before that day erosion or volcanic action had honeycombed many of the granite ridges looking to the east. These openings in the ledge lay just at the timber line, as if nature halted her vegetation there, angry at the interference of contrary forces.

As the Boy Scouts had occupied the cave for several days, it was comparatively well furnished with crudely made tables, chairs, bunks, and also with cooking utensils brought up from San Francisco. Taken altogether it was an ideal place in which to camp, being dry and sightly.

Those who have read the previous volumes of this series will not need introduction to the five boys above mentioned. Ned Nestor and Jimmie McGraw, of the Wolf Patrol, New York, and Jack Bosworth, Frank Shaw and Harry Stevens, of the Black Bear Patrol, New York, had recently reached San Francisco after an exciting experience with train robbers farther to the north. The modern automobile which they had used on that trip had been shipped from Seattle to San Francisco by boat, the boys not caring to make their way by motor down to the Golden Gate.

A few days in San Francisco sufficed, for the boys were out on their annual summer vacation, and did not care to spend their time on city pavements or in city apartments. So, leaving their automobile in storage, they had departed for the mountains in the vicinity of Twin Peaks.

It is needless to say that they had enjoyed every minute of the time since leaving San Francisco. They had hunted deer, bear and smaller game, and had fished in the clear waters of the rapid streams which have their rise in the Sierra Nevadas and finally empty the offerings of the summits into San Francisco bay.

“Now, Frank,” Jimmie observed as the two boys placed their still steaming steaks on paper plates set out on a table made of slender mountain poles, “you take a bucket and go after coffee and I’ll bring out the bread and butter and beans. We ought to have French fried potatoes with these steaks, but I guess we can get along with this feed for a few hours. Tell Jack to come on in and eat.”

Frank Shaw took a tin pail from a shelf at one side of the cave and started away toward the campfire, while Jimmie made his way to a corner of the cave which was shut off from the main room by a heavy canvas curtain. Taking a small electric flashlight from a pocket, he drew the curtain aside and turned a finger of flame upon a row of shelves arranged on the face of the rock. This was known as the “refrigerator.”

Jimmie whistled as he looked over the shelves and reached out a hand, almost automatically, for the things he needed for the table. Then his puckered lips opened in wonder and he glanced sharply about the cavern.

“Well!” he exclaimed. “Now I wonder what they did that for!”

“Did what?” demanded Frank Shaw, returning with the pail of fragrant coffee. “Who did what?” repeated the newcomer.

“I believe you did it!” insisted Jimmie with a grin.

“Anything wrong with your gearing this morning?” asked Frank.

“Well,” Jimmie went on, “some of you boys went and took the last three loaves of bread we had in the refrigerator, and all the butter there was in sight, and all that was left of the roast haunch we had such trouble with yesterday. I’ll bet you did it!”

“Aw, you did it yourself!” exclaimed Frank. “I heard you moving around in the night, and wondered then what it was you were eating.”

“Up in the night?” repeated Jimmie. “Not me!”

“Someone was out of bed in the night!” insisted Frank. “I heard someone walking around the cave and stirring up the fire. It must have been about midnight, or a little after.”

“It wasn’t me!” Jimmie declared, continuing his search in the cupboard for more eatables. “It sure wasn’t me up in the night!”

After continuing his examination of the refrigerator for a moment, he handed the search light to Frank and sat down on a corner of the table.

“Look here, Frank,” he said, “take this search light and see if you can find anything at all in that refrigerator. I left canned beans in there, and condensed milk, and a tomato can full of sugar, and about a dozen eggs! Now you just take this light and see if you can find anything like that on the shelves. I’m flabbergasted!”

Frank’s face showed only amusement as he took the flashlight and threw its rays over the rude shelves. When he saw that Jimmie had not been joking over the disappearance of the food, but had told the exact truth, he, too, sat down on a corner of the table and looked about the cavern suspiciously. When the boy’s eyes met, they grinned sheepishly.

“Go and ask Jack,” Frank finally suggested.

Leaving their cooling breakfast on the table, both boys finally dashed out of the cave and ran around a sharp corner or rock to where Jack Bosworth was broiling bear steak.

“Did you do it, Jack?” Frank shouted as they came up to him.

“You bet I did!” Jack replied, turning a very red face to his chums, and drawing his now thoroughly cooked steak from the fire. “You bet I did do it. What is it?”