The Pony Rider Boys on the Blue Ridge

"Now let the flies, the hornets, the fleas and the doodle bugs come and do their worst," declared Tad Butler, standing off to take a look at the tent he had just finished pitching.

"No doodle bugs in mine, if you please," answered Stacy Brown.

"Nor mine," added Ned Rector and Walter Perkins in chorus.

"How about you, Chops? Do you like bugs?" questioned Tad, giving the guide a mischievous glance.

"Yassir."

"You do?"

"Yassir. Nassir."

"Well, which is it?"

"Nassir."

"I thought not," nodded Tad. "Chops doesn't always know what he does want."

"Yassir."

"I reckon we'll have to give him a few lessons," suggested Chunky Brown with a grin.

"Yassir," replied Chops, regarding Chunky with large eyes.

"So long as you are willing, there seems to be nothing more to be said at the present sitting," observed Ned Rector.

"You're a cheerful idiot, aren't you, Chops?" persisted Stacy.

"Yassir."

"Isn't it fine to have a guide who agrees with everything you say?" scoffed Ned. "I'm afraid we're going to have a quiet time of it down here in the Blue Ridge with a guide who won't oppose you, not a person to fight you, not even an animal to do battle with," mourned Ned.

"I guess you will find animals enough when we get in farther," answered Tad with a laugh.

"What kind?" demanded Ned, instantly on the alert.

"Deer, bear and mountain lion."

"I-I caught a mountain lion up in the Grand Canyon," interposed Chunky.

"Yes, we know all about that."

"We certainly do, don't we, Chunky?" laughed Tad.

"I reckon if we don't, no one does," finished Chunky, directing a look of inquiry at the guide.

"Yassir," agreed Chops, grinning broadly.

"Chops," it may be well to explain, was not only colored, but he was black as a piece of ebony, which, however, did not account for his peculiar nickname. Chops's right name was Billy Veal. The boys seized upon this to call him Veal Chops, which after a few hours was changed to the short form, or "Chops." And Chops, Billy would remain as long as he traveled the Blue Ridge in the company of these fun-loving young fellows.

Chops's lips were red and his mouth looked like an angry gash, while the eyes at times appeared to be all whites.

Professor Zepplin had attached Chops to his party at Asheville. The colored man had been recommended as an excellent guide, one who knew every foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains and their various branches. Besides this, the Professor's informant said that Billy Veal was a splendid cook, a useful man about the stock, and possessing numerous other qualifications. What the informant did not say was that, while Billy may have known how to do all these things, he was loath to do anything that might be construed as work. Besides this, his appetite was greater than Stacy Brown's, which was saying a great deal for Billy. Veal's appetite was, in fact, assuming alarming proportions. The party feared that they should not be able to keep themselves supplied with food unless something were done to check the growing appetite of the guide and all-around man.

The Professor was looking on admiringly as Tad finished pitching the tents, Veal watching the work with wide, white eyes. Stacy took a piece of hardtack which he tossed to the waiting colored man, and the hardtack instantly went into Chops's mouth. For a second it puffed out his cheek, then disappeared down his throat whole, as the guide gave a convulsive gulp.

Stacy Brown regarded the fellow admiringly.

"Goodness gracious! I wish I could stow away food like that. Did you ever eat on a wager, Chops?"

"Yassir."

"What did you do?"

"I done et six pies while de clock was strikin' twelve, sah."

"Six pies?" marveled the fat boy.

"Yassir."

"Ho, ho, ho! Ha, ha, ha! You must have been a regular turn-over."

"Yassir."

"Were you full?" asked Tad.

"Nassir. I could hab done et some more."

"Chunky, you ought to take lessons from Chops. He might give you some valuable pointers," suggested Tad laughingly.

"I reckon he could at that," agreed the fat boy. "If I could eat six pies all at once, without having to send for the doctor, I'd think I was some pumpkins."

"Especially if you had been eating pumpkin pies, eh?" chuckled Tad Butler.

"Tad, I like your tent arrangement first rate," complimented Professor Zepplin surveying the little white canvas tents that were ranged in a semicircle about the campfire, all opening to the fire. "I am inclined to think, too, that you have an invention worth while in what we have named the 'Butler Lean-to.' I am sure others will recognize the value of it and that it will come into quite general use."

"Thank you. I shall be glad if others find it useful. However, we have not tried it out. We'll see how it works with us during this journey through the Blue Ridge," answered Tad.

Tad Butler's tent was an ingenious little affair. It weighed just five pounds, and when packed, it folded into a neat little package five inches thick by ten by fourteen inches. One might carry it on his back without discomfort.

To put up such a tent you cut three slender saplings of about ten feet long, slip one down the ridge of the tent and out through a hole in the back. Shove the end of this pole into the ground, cross and spread the other two poles, and tie the three together at the upper ends. Next raise the ridge-pole by sticking the other two into the ground to make a triangle. Peg down the sides, tie out the front poles at the grommets, and your tent is ready for occupancy, having taken not more than seven or eight minutes in the putting up. After finishing, the tent makes a peculiar appearance, being about two feet wide at the rear, by a full eight feet at the front. The rear of the tent is used for the storing of equipment or "duffle" as the camper calls it.

Tad arranged two beds in his tent, leaving the others to fix their own as suited their individual tastes. The beds were made by first clearing away the ground, then piling in hemlock boughs fully three feet deep. Over this was placed the sleeping bag, and no softer bed ever held a tired camper. The bed had also the merit of raising one from the ground, out of the water, provided there should be rain in the night.

The others of this party of young explorers were satisfied to dump their sleeping bags on the ground, though the Professor did make a bed for himself, which, while not so practical as Tad's, served his purpose almost equally well.

"You fellows had better get yourselves off the ground, for we are going to have a storm tonight," advised Butler. "Walter is sleeping in my tent, but the rest of you look out. Don't you think it's going to storm, Chops?"

"Yassir."

"I don't think it's going to storm, do you, Chops?" asked Stacy.

"Nassir."

"There you are," declared the fat boy. "You pay your money and you take your choice. It is going to storm, and it isn't going to storm. You'd make a fine thermometer, Chops. Why, you'd have everybody crazy with the heat and the cold all at the same time."

The camp had been pitched in the narrow Smoky Pass of the Blue Ridge through which flowed a tributary of the French Broad River. The stream was very shallow at this time of the year, there having been but few rains, and its course was marked mostly by white sand and smoothly worn rocks, with here and there along the borders of the water course little colonies of the white, pink-petaled trillium gently nodding their heads at the ends of their long, slender stems.

The pass was silent save for the soft murmur of the stream and the songs of birds farther up the rocky sides in the dense foliage. It was an ideal camping place in a dry spell, but not any too desirable in times of high water.

Billy Veal had declared that it offered a perfectly easy route through to the Black Mountain spur for which the party was heading. Billy knew the mountains very well. The boys were obliged to admit that, but the difficulty was to find out what he did know, for he was as likely to say one thing as another. They had decided that the best plan would be to tell him where they wanted to go, leaving him to do the rest. The more questions they asked the less they knew.

"Did you ever see a ghost, Chops?" asked Stacy after they had settled down for an evening's enjoyment.

"Nassir. Yassir," answered the colored man, his eyes growing large.

"I'll show you a ghost some time. Would you like to be introduced to a ghost?" persisted Stacy.

"Yassir. Nassir. Doan' want see no ghosts."

"Then why don't you say so?"

"Yassir."

"Say what you mean," ordered the fat boy sternly. "Don't beat around the bush. You'll be getting yourself into a pickle first thing you know, for-"

"Billy! We are waiting for you to get the supper," warned the Professor severely. "You should have had it well started before this."

"Yassir," answered Chops, grinning broadly.

"You forgot something, Chops," reminded Stacy.

"Yassir?"

"No, nassir," jeered the fat boy.

"Stacy, be good enough to go away from the guide. You are interfering with his duties," rebuked the Professor.

"Nassir. Yassir," mocked the fat boy with a grin almost as broad as Billy Veal's.

They sat down to supper soon after that and all hands agreed that it was an excellent meal. What appealed to their appetites most were the waffles, real old southern waffles, the kind that mother didn't make. A jug of molasses was produced as a surprise. Such a feast the boys had not had within memory. Cool, sparkling water was at hand. One had but to step to the stream and dip it up, but it was the waffles that put pretty much everything else out of mind.

"Why, Billy, I didn't know that you brought syrup," glowed the Professor, now in high good humor.

"Yassir."

"Well, well! This is indeed a surprise, my man."

"I am thankful that he is at last making an effort to earn his wages," muttered Tad Butler. "Thus far he hasn't done much in that direction."

"You must admit that he has guided us pretty well," defended Walter Perkins.

"You mean we have guided ourselves," differed Ned Rector. "Anybody could follow this hollow; in fact, one couldn't get out of it until he got to the end-that is, unless he had wings-unless he was a bird."

"That's Chops," declared Stacy.

"What do you mean?" demanded Ned, turning to the fat boy.

"I mean he is a bird. Must I explain everything to you? If you insist I will draw a picture of a bird and-"

"That will do, Stacy," rebuked Ned.

"Yassir," mimicked Stacy, whereat the boys burst out laughing. There was no resisting Stacy Brown's droll way of saying things. Stacy was a natural comedian, but whether or not he was aware of this, none but himself knew.

There were no waffles left when the boys finished their supper. The clouds had been gathering all the afternoon, and just as they sat back for a comfortable chat on full stomachs, little spatters of rain gave promise of a wet night.

"You see," reminded Tad, nodding to his companions and glancing up to the sky.

"We don't see much, but we feel. I guess you were right at that, Tad," agreed Ned Rector.

"Tad's always right when he isn't wrong," observed Stacy solemnly.

"And you are usually wrong when you are not right," retorted Butler quickly.

"Laying all levity aside, I wish to ask if you young men know where you are," interrupted the Professor.

"Yassir," answered Stacy promptly.

"I suppose we are in the Smoky Pass of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina, sir," replied Tad.

"Exactly. But there are some features about the Blue Ridge which you young gentlemen possibly are not familiar with. For your benefit I will give you a brief talk on this somewhat unfamiliar range of mountains. Ahem! The Blue Ridge is the most easterly range of the Appalachian mountain system. I presume you are unaware that it actually has its beginning at West Point on the Hudson River, whence so many fine young officers went out to fight for their country in the great World War. Am I right in thus supposing?" The Professor glared about him fiercely.

"You win," muttered Stacy.

"It is the fact. The Blue Ridge forms an almost continuous chain from that point down to the north of Alabama. The range makes its way through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia and the Carolinas. The Blue Ridge proper is that part of the range below Pennsylvania which separates the Great Valley from the Piedmont region. In south Virginia the range widens into a broad plateau which reaches its widest extent in the state where we now are."

"Yassir," murmured Stacy Brown.

The boys pretended not to have heard the interruption, but the Professor fixed a stern eye on Stacy, and then resumed his lecture.

"In this state, North Carolina," he said, "the range is intersected by numerous groups, such as the Black, the South and the like, some reaching several thousand feet in height. We shall soon be in a spur of the Black Mountains."

"I fear we shall have to find a new guide if we ever get anywhere, Professor," spoke up Tad.

"I am of the opinion that he has done very well. Did he not surprise us with waffles and syrup?" demanded Professor Zepplin.

"He did," agreed the boys.

"On the other hand," added Tad, "our grub is disappearing most mysteriously. I am sure Chunky couldn't eat so much more than the rest of us. Our flour is nearly all gone, though we haven't been out a week. It is almost unbelievable. All the biscuit we brought along have disappeared."

"And those cookies we got in Asheville," mourned Stacy. "I was figuring on having cookies all the way across the mountains. Now I'll have to eat hard-tack and biscuit."

"So long as you don't have to eat salt horse, you ought to consider yourself lucky," retorted Rector.

"As I was about to say when interrupted," continued Professor Zepplin, "the Black Mountains lie in Buncombe and Yancy counties-"

"Does Chops come from Buncombe?" interrupted Stacy.

"Again I say, they form a spur of the Blue Ridge," resumed the Professor unheeding the interruption, "and are a part of the Appalachian system. They lie between the French Broad River and its main tributary, the Nolichucky."

"Is this the Trolleychucky here at our feet, Professor?" questioned Chunky innocently.

Tad gave the fat boy a prod with the toe of his boot, whereat Stacy turned an indignant face to him.

"Mount Mitchell, Black Dome, Guyot's Peak, Sandoz Knob and Gibbe's Peak, including Smoky Bald and others, form the divide between the Tennessee and Catawba River basins. That, for the present, will be quite sufficient for the topography of the country. As you are no doubt aware, most of the rocks through this region are highly crystalline, but whether of paleozoic or azoic age, is not certain," concluded the Professor.

"Yassir," murmured the fat boy. Chops had been listening with wide open mouth and eyes, not understanding a word of what had been said, but being sure it was something of tremendous importance because he could not understand.

"Here comes the storm," cried Tad as a vivid sheet of lightning flashed up the pass, followed by a deafening peal of thunder.

Almost instantly the rain began to fall, and the boys scrambled for their tents, while Chops, wrapping himself in a blanket, crouched in front of the fire. From their tents the lads could talk to each other, the openings of the tents being close to the fire itself. They continued their conversation from the tents. By this time the rain was roaring on the canvas in a perfect torrent.

"It's going to be a good night to sleep," called Ned.

"I am not so sure of that," answered Tad Butler.

"I reckon it'll be a fine night for ducks," observed Chunky.

"Young man, that is not seemly language," rebuked the Professor.

"It's the truth. Isn't truth seemly?" demanded Stacy.

"You are evading the question."

"I beg your pardon, I'm not. I am bumping right up against it," retorted the fat boy, amid smothered laughter.

The roar of the storm soon made the boys sleepy, and a few minutes later the last of the party, except Tad, had turned in. Butler watched the storm for an hour, listening thoughtfully to the river and the rain.

"It is my opinion that we'll be having trouble before morning," he muttered as he threw himself down on his bed of boughs. He did not remove his clothes, as had the others, in which perhaps Tad Butler was wise.

Once more the Pony Rider Boys were well started on their summer's ride, led by Professor Zepplin, the tutor who had accompanied them on so many happy adventures in the saddle on their summer outings. The Professor, who, in spite of his sternness, was as much a boy as his charges, took a secret delight in their pranks and their noisy chatter.

Following their lively adventures in other fields, they had elected to explore the apparently more peaceful territory of the Blue Ridge Mountains. In fact, the Pony Rider Boys did not look forward to adventures here, but in this they were destined to be considerably surprised.

The Pony Rider party had made camp in a narrow spot in what was known as Smoky Pass, and were now facing a storm which Tad Butler believed promised to be a severe one. Nor in this belief was Tad one whit outside of the truth, for, as he listened, the storm steadily increased in fury. The present center of the rising storm appeared to be to the eastward of their camp, and already the ordinarily small stream at their feet was muttering ominously. Its waters, sparkling clear an hour before, were now muddy and swollen. Tad's observant "weather eye" also noted that the stream was full of drift and torn-off foliage.

Billy Veal, the guide, he observed, stood wide-eyed and shivering just beyond the fire, for Billy was wet, and he was afraid.

"Come in here," ordered Tad, and Billy obeyed with evident reluctance.

"Do you know of any place hereabouts where we might climb up the side of the pass?" Tad demanded.

"Yassir, nassir," chattered Veal.

"Well, which is it?" insisted Butler sharply.

"Nassir."

"Humph! Then, if we wanted to get out of this pass, and could neither go up nor downstream, what would you do, Billy?"

"Ah reckons Ah'd stay heah, sah."

"Pshaw!" grunted Tad disgustedly. Trying to wring information from Billy was far from satisfying. "Sit down in here where you can keep dry, and if the storm gets much worse let me know. I am going to turn in and get some sleep." Tad, who had risen to have a look at the weather, threw himself down again, for he was tired and sleepy.

The campground was very low, and, were the creek to rise much above its present channel, Butler knew that his party would come in for a fine wetting. However, this was not greatly disturbing to him, though he did not exactly like the idea of being shut up in that walled-in pass with no way of getting out save by following the stream either up or down. Tad quickly went to sleep and slumbered on unmindful of the roar of the storm. He was disturbed some three hours later by howls from the tent occupied by Stacy Brown.

"Oh, wow!" yelled the fat boy.

Tad Butler, like every other member of the party, was awakened by Stacy's yell. Chops sat shivering and regarding him apprehensively. He had never before heard Chunky howl, and the howl was terrifying to him.

"Go and see what is the matter with Mr. Brown," directed Tad.

Stacy's howls broke forth afresh.

"Hey! Stop that. What's the matter?" shouted Tad.

"I'm all afloat. I'm soused from head to foot," came the reply.

"Save you the trouble of taking a bath," answered Butler.

"I'll drown," wailed Stacy.

"Oh, stop it and get a boat," urged Ned Rector's voice.

"Why didn't you pile in hemlock boughs, as I told you to do, then you wouldn't have got wet," rebuked Tad. "Are you lying in the water?"

"Yes. What'll I do?"

"You'll get wetter, so far as I am able to see."

About this time Professor Zepplin in his pajamas was charging out of his tent. He was drenched in a second.

"Guide, isn't there a higher and drier place that we can get to?" demanded the Professor.

"Yassir. Nassir."

"We are in a pocket, Professor. We'll have to take our medicine," called Tad.

"I don't like my medicine so cold," wailed the fat boy.

"All hands had better dress," advised Butler. "I think we are about to experience some trouble."

"What do you think?" questioned the Professor.

"I think we are in for a ducking."

Tad put on a rubber coat, and pulling his hat well down, stepped out. By this time there was no fire. It had been drowned out, and the night was black. He could not see a thing, but the ominous roar of the creek was close at hand.

The boy went back to his tent and got a lantern. Emerging with this, a grim smile settled on the Pony Rider Boy's face as he surveyed the scene. The waters from the stream were swirling and eddying about the bases of the tents; the stream had left its former channel and pretty much all the former dry ground was covered with a thin coating of water. Professor Zepplin glanced about apprehensively.

"This looks serious," he observed.

"It does," agreed Tad.

"But what are we going to do?"

"I think we had better break camp and try to make our way out of this while we may," replied Tad. "The horses already are standing in water above their fetlocks. They'll be in it up to their bodies soon, at the present rate of rise."

"What does the guide say?" demanded Professor Zepplin.

"The guide isn't saying anything. Chops is too frightened to talk. Shall I give the orders, sir?" asked Butler.

"Yes, if you think best, Tad. Your judgment in these matters I have usually found to be sound."

"Turn out, fellows! Turn out in a hurry, too, unless you prefer to take a long swim. Saddle the ponies, Chops. Move!" urged Tad sharply.

The Pony Rider camp was instantly turned into a scene of activity. The boys knew from Tad's tone that the situation was alarming, and they lost no time in getting into their wet clothes, Chunky chattering like a magpie, Chops rolling his eyes as if he were about to go into a fit, and the faces of the other boys showing more than ordinary concern.

The situation was critical, even more so than Tad Butler thought, but which he, with the others, was soon to realize.