“But he shan’t go without that thrashing!” cried Dick, and catching up a long whip he had had Cujo cut for him he leaped upon Josiah Crabtree and brought down the lash with stinging effect across the former teacher’s face, leaving a livid mark that Crabtree was doomed to wear to the day of his death.  “There you are!  And there is another for the way you treated Stanhope, and another for what you did to Dora, and one for Tom, and another for Sam, and another —­”

“Oh! oh! let up!  The boy will kill me!” shrieked Crabtree, trying to run away.  “Don’t —­ I will be cut to pieces!  Don’t! don’t!” And as the lash came down over his head, neck, and shoulders, he danced madly around in pain.  At last he broke for cover and disappeared, not to show himself again until morning, when he called Chester to him, asked for and received, what was coming to him, and departed, vowing vengeance on the Rovers and all of the others.

“He will remember you for that, Dick,” said Sam, when the affair was over.  “He will be your enemy for life.”

“Let him be —­ I am not afraid of him,” responded the elder brother.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE JOURNEY TO THE MOUNTAIN

By noon of the day following the Rover expedition was on its way to the mountain said to be so rich in gold.  The students from Yale went with them.

“It’s like a romance, this search after your father,” said Chester to Dick.  “I hope you find him.  You can rest assured that our party will do all we can for you.  Specimen hunting is all well enough, but man hunting is far more interesting.”

“I would like to go on a regular hunt for big game some day,” said Tom.  He had already mentioned Mortimer Blaze to the Yale students.

“Yes, that’s nice —­ if you are a crack shot, like Sanders.  He can knock the spots from a playing card at a hundred yards.”

“Maybe he’s a Western boy,” laughed Sam.

“He is.  His father owns a big cattle ranch there, and Sanders learned to shoot while rounding up cattle.  He’s a tip-top fellow.”

They had passed over a small plain and were now working along a series of rough rocks overgrown with scrub brush and creeping vines full of thorns.  The thorns stuck everybody but Cujo, who knew exactly how to avoid them.

“Ise dun got scratched in ’steen thousand places,” groaned Aleck.  “Dis am worse dan a bramble bush twice ober, by golly!”

For two days the united expeditions kept on their way up the mountain side, which sloped gradually at its base, the steeper portion still being several days’ journey distant.

During these days they shot several wild animals including a beautiful antelope, while Sam caught a monkey.  But the monkey bit the boy in the shoulder, and Sam was glad enough to get rid of the mischievous creature.

On the afternoon of the second day Cujo, who was slightly in advance of the others, called a halt.