“I asked every one on the ranch,” Bob went on, gloomily; “and they all had the same story to tell—never saw the thing. I hate to have anything like that happen. Seems as if I feel every little while that it’s on the tip of my tongue to say what I did with that knife. Then I get all mixed up again, and for the life of me I can’t remember where and when I had it last.”
The two boys, while talking in this manner, were galloping over the level plain at a fair clip. Bob was riding Domino, a big black horse he had brought with him from the blue grass region of Kentucky. Frank rode a yellow pony of great endurance, and wise beyond the average of his class. Buckskin he was called, true to his color; and Frank had taught him many of the tricks known to the favorite mounts of cowboys.
Frank and Bob were seen riding over the country so much, that, far and wide, they had become known as the “Saddle Boys.” Some months before the time when they are introduced to the
reader in the present volume they had investigated a mysterious noise that seemed to come from a spur of the great Rocky Mountains within twenty miles of Circle Ranch.
This queer rumbling had awed the Indians for a century or more, and they really believed it to be the voice of Manitou. What the two lads saw, and the adventures that befell them on that occasion, have been related in the first story in this series, entitled: “The Saddle Boys in the Rockies; Or, Lost on Thunder Mountain.”
Later on, a sudden call came for them to go to the wonderful region where the great Colorado River runs for some hundreds of miles through the most astonishing canyon in all the world; and here they not only saw strange sights, but had some lively times. These are narrated in the story called: “The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon; Or, The Hermit of Echo Cave.”
Colonel Haywood was laid up with a broken leg when a summons came that required his presence at Cherry Blossom mine, so he was compelled to ask the two boys to go in his stead. This mine was a most valuable property; and the disaster that hung over it like a cloud gave the two lads considerable work before they could feel that they had won out. The remarkable things that happened when on this gallop over plain and desert, and through mountain trails are told of in the
third book of this series, entitled: “The Saddle Boys on the Plains; Or, After a Treasure of Gold.”
After passing through these troubles of magnitude, here was Bob bemoaning the loss of a knife, as though such a little thing distressed him beyond measure.
“It was a present, you see, Frank,” he said, for perhaps the tenth time, as they rode along side by side.