“I saw Falcon the Flunky,” he announced. Then he sat down, with his back against the tree, and in a notebook tried to map the country surrounding the lookout post of the hiding couple.
This they took to Squawtooth Canby, in camp below at the edge of the mountain meadow.
For many minutes the old cowman studied it, while those in camp with him stood silent and expectant.
“Just a leetle north o’ east, eh?” said Squawtooth reflectively. “And about three miles from your tree, you say? Well, I dunno. Distances at this altitude are mighty deceivin’—especially to a man used to down below. Air’s light, ye know, an’ funny that way. I’d say six mile, if you say three.”
The electrician shrugged. This was out of his line.
“They’s so many big rocks like that un croppin’ out that it don’t tell me anything. Still, we got the direction. That’s a lot. Le’s throw the saddles on ’em, boys, and see what we c’n do in this hurricane. I’d rather fight it on the move than stick around, holdin’ to limbs and bushes to keep myself from sailin’ down on the desert.”
Ten minutes afterward fifty mounted men, spread out like a skirmish line, moved through the forest toward the crow’s nest of Falcon the Flunky.
The two in their rocky rendezvous had just completed their sixth set of communications, and about all the paper had been used.
“Now for the secret messages to Mart,” said the girl.