“Only that we must have passed by the place where the trail turned aside,” Frank answered, quickly.
“Then we’ll have to go back again, and find it; is that so, Frank?”
“Just what we’ll do,” answered the other, adding: “There, Scotty is talking it over with dad and Bart. He’s telling them no stock have ever come up as high in the valley as this, and that we must go back to find where they broke out. But we’re bound to find it, you know, Bob.”
They did, and without any great trouble. Scotty, knowing that the secret passage must be just a little below, was on the watch every foot of the way. And in the end he discovered another
crevice in the side of the mountain, through which undoubtedly the stock had been driven.
“Say, but there must have been considerable excitement around here, when all those steers, cows and half-grown calves were hustled along this trail,” Frank whispered, as in imagination he could see Mendoza’s Mexican rustlers heading the drove off, and compelling the frightened animals to enter the second opening.
“I take off my hat to such drivers of cattle as those fellows,” remarked Bob, who did not understand how the thing could have been done.
This time they were only a short while in the narrow cut. All they had to do was to follow straight ahead, and keep in single file. Every man was also warned not to try to make haste, for they did not wish to betray their presence by any unlucky stumble.
Scotty, in the van, was on the lookout for signs of a trap. He knew that Mendoza had long ago earned the name of the “Mexican rat” because of his cunning; not only in hoodwinking those who tried to camp on his trail, but on account of his skill in laying snares for the feet of pursuers. More than one party had come to grief in times past just when they expected they had the rustler chief in a hole.
Bob became suddenly aware of the fact that the creeping line had stopped. On his arm he felt the