Next instant, without a sound they were scrambling from rock to rock on their way up. Just as they reached the cluster of trees, Ballard’s foot loosened a rock that went bumping and bounding downward to make at last one wide leap and land in a narrow meadow far below.
“Oh!” On Ballard’s face was a look of consternation.
“There’s been hog stealin’,” Ballard whispered. “Uncle Mose Short has lost three. Lige Field lost two. If we catch the thief it will just naturally be something.”
For some little time after that there was silence. From time to time, ever a little louder, there came the frantic appeal of the pig.
Then, quite suddenly, a fresh sound burst upon their ears. A blue and white airplane came swooping across the ridge.
“Going to Frankfort,” Johnny suggested, “or Louisville.” To him the soaring plane was not a novel sight. To the mountain boys, it was an object of wonder. Even Johnny was surprised and a little startled when the plane, instead of streaking across the sky, circled twice then, like some lone, wild duck, came to rest on the narrow meadow far below.
“Motor trouble forced him to land, perhaps,” Johnny whispered.
“Reckon we can’t hardly be sure of that,” was Ballard’s surprising reply. “Judge Middleton rented that meadow to a stranger. When he asked him what he meant to do with it he said he wasn’t prepared to say. Mebby he’s just got it for his airplane.”
“Boy! Oh, boy!” Bex whispered excitedly. “I sure do hope so! I’ve always wanted to see one of them things right close up. I—”
“Sh!” Ballard put a hand over the small boy’s mouth. There was scarcely need for this. At that moment from very close at hand, there came the heart-rending cry of a baby pig in mortal terror. And, before one of the boys could move or breathe, along the trail, below them and all too close, there came the hugest bear they had ever seen. And closely gripped between his gleaming teeth was the hopeless porker.
“There—there’s your hog thief,” Johnny whispered low, as the bear vanished round a boulder. “What you going to do about it?”
“N—not a thing,” Ballard stammered. Whereupon the three boys, seized with a nervous desire to laugh, all but burst their sides holding in.
In the midst of this, Ballard sobered with a suddenness that was startling. With a shaky finger he pointed as he hissed: “Look! Just look down there!”