Returning three hours later with the old ex-deputy sheriff,—it was a spot not to be mistaken,—Ace gazed in complete stupefaction at the gulch where the Mexicans had been encamped. For there was now nothing there but slide-rock!
The dust that still grayed the atmosphere spoke clearly of the catastrophe. And there would not have been one chance in a million of their escaping. That they had not done so, their non-appearance anywhere in the neighborhood bore abundant testimony.
The Mexicans had been captured by those same natural forces they had tampered with when they set the forest fires. The little camping party was free to return as soon as their time was up.
GLOSSARY
Archeopteryx
, a fossil bird that had teeth and whose spinal column extended into the tail.
Archeozoic