The Secret of Wildcat Swamp Read Online Free PDF Page B

counting on to help us find Wildcat Swamp.”
    The trio pushed on, stopping only a short time to rest their horses and eat lunch.
    As they rode through the heat of the afternoon, Cap asked the boys if they had noticed the formations that looked like giant toadstools made of clay and sandstone.
    â€œYes,” Frank answered. “I was wondering what keeps them from crumbling.”
    â€œIt’s the sandstone overhang which prevents the clay column from eroding,” Cap told him. “Back in the glacier age, they were separate deposits, and all the clay except that protected by the sandstone has eroded.”
    The cavalcade skirted the edge of a deep ravine, the trail following a bench that dipped gradually toward a stream below and ended in a narrow grassy shelf.
    Permitting the horses to drink and to graze on the scanty grass, the riders dismounted to stretch their legs.
    Suddenly Joe’s voice rang out in alarm. “Frank! Look out!”
    But his warning was too late. Before Frank could even get his arms up to defend himself, a tawny streak of fur and muscle launched itself through the air from the rocky ledge above.
    It was an enormous wildcat!

CHAPTER VI
    Deadly Danger
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    THE big cat was in midair before Frank was even aware of it. He had no time to defend himself.
    As the beast leaped at the boy, his horse instinctively reared and screamed. The action distracted the cat and gave Frank time to recoil a step, so that the animal missed its target.
    Crack!
    A sharp explosion came from behind, and the wildcat sank to the ground. Another quick report, and the snarling, spitting beast lay lifeless.
    Frank turned and saw Joe, his gun still smoking, looking coolly at the still form of the wildcat.
    Cap broke into a relieved chuckle and remarked, “I certainly knew what I was doing when I picked you boys as bodyguards!”
    After making sure his attacker was dead, Frank pushed the carcass over the cliff. Then they took up the trail again.
    â€œThis is the longest twenty-five miles I’ve ever ridden,” Joe remarked after a while. “I feel as if I’ve been in the saddle a month.”
    Cap admitted that they had made slow progress, but he felt that they had done well enough considering the difficulties of the trail. Late in the afternoon they came to a spot where he suggested they make camp. In the morning, the ride toward Wildcat Swamp was resumed with renewed zest.
    â€œThe next, and last landmark on the map,” Cap stated, “is a big needle rock with a balancing boulder on top. It’s on a ledge, halfway down from an overhanging cliff to a long, sandy slope that ends in the swamp itself. The fossil should be somewhere in that sandy slope.”
    Leaving the stream, which whirled away in a southwesterly direction while they continued west, the fossil hunters eventually came to the entrance of a long, narrow defile.
    â€œWe must be getting close!” Cap said excitedly. “The map shows this gap leads to the ledge above the needle rock.”
    He went ahead through the passageway, with Frank following and Joe trailing with the mule.
    â€œHere we are!” Cap exclaimed as he came out of the dark, shadowy defile onto a wide ledge.
    A moment later the boys joined him on the ledge. To their right was a sheer cliff wall rising to a wide plateau.
    To their left, the ledge fell away in a sloping, sandy decline, while straight ahead, at a turn in the ledge, stood the towering rocky column on which rested a huge, heavy boulder.
    â€œLook at the size of that boulder!” murmured Joe in amazement. “It’s so delicately balanced it looks as if I could push it off.”
    â€œYou might be able to at that,” Cap agreed as he studied the phenomenon.
    â€œLook at that wooded mountain beyond the swamp,” Joe said. “There’s a fire tower at the top.”
    Just then Cap raised his hand for silence.
    â€œListen!”
    From the