began cautiously inching her way along the bent tree trunk.

“Just a little nearer and I can reach you,” encouraged Jo Ann. She called over to Florence. “Grab hold of me and steady me while I pull Peg.”

Years—ages passed, it seemed to Jo Ann, as she leaned forward with outstretched hands. The instant Peggy’s feet barely touched the rocky ledge she reached down and pulled her safely over the edge.

With tears rolling down her cheeks, Florence threw her arms about Peggy. “Oh, Peg, you might’ve been killed! And it was all my fault!”

“Well—I—wasn’t—killed.” Peggy took a step backward and leaned against the bank for support. “I—feel—shaky, though.”

“No wonder,” agreed Jo Ann. “I’m wobbly-kneed, too.”

“What—in the world—got into you girls—to push that way?”

“I saw a snake—a huge snake, right across our path, and I almost stepped on it,” answered Florence. She cupped her hands to make a circle. “He was that big around. He was so long I couldn’t see either his head or his tail.”

Peggy uttered a little gasp of surprise.

“You’re imagining things, Florence,” put in the practical Jo Ann. “You know perfectly well there’re no snakes that big—except boa constrictors in the jungles.”

“But he was huge. I wouldn’t have been so frightened by a smaller one. I’ve never seen one this large here before. He must be at least eight or ten feet long.”

A little twinkle entered Peggy’s eyes. “You girls ought to be even now. Jo insists a Mexican boy has blue eyes, and you insist you saw a huge boa constrictor right in sight of the house.”

“If that snake’s still there—and I imagine it is—I’ll prove to you that I’m right.”

Both Peggy and Jo Ann drew back slightly, and Peggy spoke up. “I, for one, am not going back up this trail with any kind of snake—big or little—waiting for me.”

“How’re we ever going to get to the house, then?” asked Jo Ann. “Will we have to go back down to the cart road and walk all the way around the mountain? Why, that’s miles, and in this hot sun!”

“I think I know a place where we can manage to climb up the cliff,” Florence told them. “How about it? Want to try it?”

“Sure,” replied Jo Ann. “’Most anything’d be better than walking miles out of the way when the house is only a few hundred yards from here.”

Florence led the way back down the trail a short distance, then began climbing the sheer surface of the cliff. By sticking their toes in the crevices of the rock and catching hold of the scraggly shrubs growing in the cracks, all three finally reached the top of the cliff.

After they had walked along the ledge for a short distance, Florence remarked, “I think we ought to be able to see the snake from here—if it’s still there.”

Cautiously she pulled the bushes aside and peered down on the path.

“Ugh! There he is—right in the same place!”

Peggy and Jo Ann leaned over to look.

“See that big black thing that looks like a log?”

Jo Ann gasped, “Gosh! What a snake!”

“That’s the biggest one I ever saw, except in a zoo,” declared Peggy, wide-eyed.

Florence pointed to the snake. “See those bumps in him. He’s probably had some squirrels or rabbits for his dinner and is lying there in the sun digesting them.”

“I didn’t dream there were such snakes around here,” Jo Ann added.

Before they started for the house, all three girls picked up stones and pitched them down at the snake. When one of the stones struck him, the huge reptile slowly disappeared over the edge of the path.

“It’s a good thing you saw it in time,” said Jo Ann. “I’d hate to have that terrible thing get after me in a place like that, where I couldn’t run.”

As they hastened across the mesa to the house, Florence remarked, “Maybe we’d better not tell Mother how big that snake was—she’ll worry every time we’re out of sight, if we do.”

“All right,” Jo Ann and Peggy agreed.

CHAPTER V
FOOTPRINTS

When the girls neared the house they were surprised to hear several people talking in Spanish. Perhaps the family from the cave have come up the mountain by the cart road, Jo Ann thought, and have stopped to talk to Mrs. Blackwell. But a moment later a shadow of disappointment crossed her face as she recognized the woman and children from the goat ranch.

“For a moment I thought it was those people from the cave with the blue-eyed boy,” Jo Ann said in a low voice to Peggy.

Peggy shook her auburn head. “Forget it, Jo. There’s no such luck.”

The girls exchanged greetings in Spanish with the visitors, then dropped down on the floor beside the two little girls. Jo Ann, in her poor Spanish, attempted to carry on a conversation with the children, while Peggy looked on, amused.

She was interrupted a few minutes later by Mrs. Blackwell. “Girls, María says a bear carried off one of their pigs last night. Isn’t that too bad? They had them in an enclosure against the cliff just back of the house here.”

Jo Ann jumped quickly to her feet. “I bet that’s what got our things at the spring. A bear! Why didn’t we think of that before?”

“We’ve never been bothered with one before,” put in Florence.

“María’s husband, Juan, said the continued drouth up in the mountains has caused the wild animals to come down into the valley in search of food,” Mrs. Blackwell continued. “The bear had evidently followed the river, because they found tracks up the ravine.”

María, who had been watching the expression on their faces intently, now began to shake her head and to talk rapidly in Spanish.

“She says that bears like much the pork,” translated Florence for the girls’ benefit. “She’s afraid he’ll come back for the rest of the pigs, and she doesn’t know what to do to keep him away.”

“What to do!” exclaimed Jo Ann. “Why, shoot him, of course.”

Mrs. Blackwell smiled. “I doubt if Juan has ever owned a gun. About the only weapon the peon ever uses is a stiletto, and it would not be an easy matter to kill a bear with a stiletto—or even with a machete.”

Peggy shivered as if she were cold. “I should say it wouldn’t. I’d hate to get that close to one, especially a real wild bear! It gives me the creeps to think about it.”

“I’ve got a grand idea,” burst out Jo Ann. “Why can’t we go on a bear hunt? We have a gun, and I can shoot.”

“I can shoot pretty good, too,” added Peggy. “Daddy taught me when we lived in the country. I killed a possum once when he got in our henhouse.”

Jo Ann smiled. “He probably just played possum when he heard the report of your gun, and you thought he was dead. They’ll do that sometimes.”

“No, I killed him—sure enough.”

“Well, that’s not like killing a bear—a real, live, wild, grizzly bear.”

“They don’t have grizzly bears down here, silly.”

“How do you know they don’t?” retorted Jo Ann. “Grizzlies are found in the mountains of North America, and this is North America, isn’t it? Besides, you haven’t seen his tracks.”

As the argument continued, Florence explained to María and the children what it was about. The two little girls stared wide eyed at Jo Ann and Peggy. They had never in all their lives heard of a