Ronnie had a little talking box like the one in the truck where he could talk to other humans without them being there. He sometimes wore the little one on his belt or even in his pocket. One day the little box made a sound and Ronnie started talking on it in a way that made him seem worried. He put the box on his belt and told me to come with him in the truck. He made the truck go pretty fast to a place deep in the woods where the road stopped. We met a lady human there and she started talking to Ronnie saying words really fast.
She said her son and his friend had left home early that morning to hike to Lost Lake and catch fish. They said they would be back before now and she was worried about them. She tried to talk to them on a little box like Ronnie’s and they didn’t talk to her. There was a little truck there on the road and she said it was theirs. Ronnie told her the trail to Lost Lake had been closed because of rock slides but we would go up there and try to find them.
Ronnie told the scared human lady to stay there, that he had called some other helper humans to come stay with her and they would be there soon. Back at the truck talking on the little box, he told the other helper humans that the boys should not have tried to go to the lake when the trail was closed and that they could be lost or hurt. He said he had me with him and we would go up and see what we could find. I saw that it would be getting dark soon which could be a real bother for lost humans in the mountains.
At the beginning of the trail Ronnie told me to “find sock” and we started out, Ronnie a little behind me. I picked up a human smell and knew some humans were up there. The trail had lots of animal smells, deer, rabbits, coyote and others. None of the animal smells surprised or bothered me. Then we came to a rock slide. The human smells got harder to follow and it smelled like they were trying to go around the slide. I was able to follow their trail up to a place near the top of the slide with big rock walls. There was no trail there and I wondered what they were doing.
About this time, I smelled a big cat. It was a strong, bad smell. Ronnie had said those big cats were called mountain lions during one of his presentations. He had told the people they were a problem for any big animal or human they found if they were hungry. And they were almost always hungry. From what he said, I didn’t think dogs or humans were their favorite foods, but if they were hungry enough they would eat you. I stopped at this smell to warn Ronnie but I didn’t think he understood. I kept looking back at him to be sure the lion wasn’t creeping up behind him. That’s what Ronnie had said they do or they jump on you from a tree or rock.
I kept on the trail of the human pups even though I knew the lion was there because it would be better if we found them before the lion did. Ronnie was following me pretty close now. The lion smell and the human smell were not in the same dirt, but I could tell the lion was staying close to them. Then the lion went off to the side of the humans and up on the rocks. The human pups had not been on a real trail for a long time now, they were just walking through the woods going from side to side like they didn’t know where they were. And there was some afraid smells in their tracks. They would stop sometimes and then start going again in another direction or in circles. Humans do this when they don’t stay on the trail and go off trying to find their own way. Dogs can do this without getting lost; I don’ think humans can.
The human tracks went up a steep place and I could tell one of them had slipped and fell because I smelled blood on some of the rocks. I was thinking this was really bad because if I could smell it so could the lion. When animals who kill other animals smell blood, they get even more hungry. Besides the lion, I could smell that a pack of coyotes had been on the slope not too long before. I was feeling like this was not a good place for human pups to be. I wasn’t even sure about me and Ronnie.
A little past where I first smelled the blood, they circled back trying to go down the steep slope. Sometimes going down a slope is harder than going up. They stopped about halfway down, turned and headed down a strange little dry trail where water used to be but wasn’t anymore. I have heard Ronnie call these dry creeks. They were really smelling lost now. The blood smell was still there but not as strong.
I could still smell the lion. He had been following us for a long time now. We had not seen him but I was sure he had been watching us.
I was going as fast as I could because it was beginning to get dark. The human pups were moving slower and stopping a lot. As we came into an open place with some big rocks, I saw them sitting on one and barked. They started yelling and we ran over to them. I got to them first. They were really scared. One of them had a hurt arm and that’s where the blood I smelled was coming from. Ronnie looked at the hurt arm and did something to it with some things he pulled out of a little sack he was carrying on his back. One of the pups told Ronnie they were sorry they had tried to go down a trail that was closed and that they were lost and couldn’t find their way out of the woods. I wanted Ronnie to tell them that me and him knew this and that the rock they were sitting on was smarter than them. But he just shook his head and told them we needed to get down off the mountain as soon as we could.
Then he did some things with his little talking box, pushing on it with his paws. He told the pups he had GPS and it would show us the shortest way back to the trail. I figured his little box had a pretty good nose if it could do that. It was really getting dark now and Ronnie pulled out a light from his sack and put it on his head. He kept looking at his little talking box and we were all walking pretty close together. I think the little box was telling him which way to go. We had to go slow because we were not on a trail.
I was still smelling the lion but he was not as close as he was before. I didn’t think he would try to eat us because there were so many of us now. They don’t like a fair fight. But you never know. If an animal is hungry enough he will do almost anything to get food. I wonder if humans are the same way.
We finally got back to the rock slide and I picked up the trail again and got in front of Ronnie. About this time there was a big light in the sky that helped us see and we were able to go pretty fast.
When we got back to the truck there were lots of humans there and another truck just like Ronnie’s. The lady we had met at the trail that day ran over and put her paws around the boy with the hurt arm. Then some other people did something to his arm, a lot like what Ronnie did only more. He told the lady human he was sorry for getting lost. She said she was glad we found him but that he would be on the ground for a month. He didn’t seem happy about that. I don’t know or care how long a month is but I figured having to live on the ground for a while would help him remember to not be so stupid. I wished I could have told him how close he was to being eaten by a lion.
The other pup went over to two other humans who had come to the trail and told them he was sorry for getting lost too. I guessed they were his mother and daddy because they put their paws around him and kept telling Ronnie thank you thank you. The pup was pretty happy until the daddy told him he would be living on the ground for a while too.
I laid down while Ronnie talked to another Ranger. Ronnie told the other Ranger I had tracked the pups through some rough places. He said his GPS worked really well getting us back and that it was a good tool for the Rangers to have. They talked about people going on trails that were closed and how they could stop it. Ronnie said people who don’t do what the signs say in the mountains usually end up getting bitten. Then we got in the truck and went back to the cabin.
We were tired and went to sleep pretty fast. Before I went to sleep I thought about the human pups and wondered why they picked such a bad trail and got lost. They didn’t smell like bad puppies, just pups who thought they were bigger than they really were. And what would have happened if Ronnie and me hadn’t found them. From what I saw and smelled, the lion was stalking them and would have had them for dinner. It felt good to be a helper dog.