Dinner over and Nat feeling his ankle almost as well as ever, it was decided to start on at once. For one thing, the outlaws might have marked the camping place and it was not a good enough strategic position to withstand an attack if one should be made.
"We want to be in a snugger place than this if that outfit starts in on us," said Cal decisively.
"Do you think they'll make us more trouble then?" inquired Joe.
"I think that what they did to-day shows that they are keeping pretty close watch on us, my boy. It's up to us to keep our eyes open by day and sleep with one optic unclosed at night."
Herr Muller and Ding-dong Bell, who had undertaken the dishwashing, soon concluded the task and the Motor Rangers once more set out. They felt some regret at leaving the beautiful camping spot behind them, but still, as Cal had pointed out, it was a bad location from which to repulse an enemy, supposing they should be attacked.
"Vell, I'm gladt I didndt drop from dot tree," remarked Herr Muller, gazing back at the lofty summit of the imposing Big Tree, in which he had had such a narrow escape.
"You take your pictures on terra firma after this," advised Joe.
"Or if you do any more such stunts leave the camera with us," suggested Cal, who was leading the Teuton's steed.
"Then we could get a g-g-g-g-good pup-p-p-picture of what England d-d-dreads," stuttered Ding-dong.
"The G-g-g-g-g-german p-p-p-peril," chuckled the stuttering youth.
Soon after leaving the pleasant plateau of the big trees the scenery became rough and wild in the extreme. The Sierras are noted for their deep, narrow valleys, and after about an hour's progress over very rough trails the Motor Rangers found themselves entering one of these gloomy defiles. After the bright sunlight of the open country its dim grandeur struck a feeling of apprehension into their minds. It seemed chilly and oppressive somehow.
"Say, perfusser," suggested Cal presently, "just sing us that Chinese song to cheer us up, will you?"
The "perfusser," as Cal insisted on calling him, had obligingly begun when from ahead of them and high up, as it seemed, came a peculiar sound.
It was a crackling of brush and small bushes apparently. Instinctively Nat stopped the car and it was well that he did so, for the next instant a giant boulder came crashing down the steep mountainside above them.