“The boy may be right,” he remarked, with some little excitement. “It never occurred to me to remember that that smart old chap got out of
here some way; and just as like as not he couldn’t get past that little opening, which was kept closed most of the time, I reckon.”
“But he was brought in that way, an’ don’t it stand to reason the critter’d try to get out by the same route?” asked the foreman.
“I suppose he would try,” admitted the stockman; “but finding the cork in the bottle, Old Baldy might take a turn in another direction. And that makes me think of something that happened years ago, when the old fellow disappeared one bad winter, and was gone with a few cows for some months. We gave them up for dead; when early in Spring they turned up on the range, looking sleek and fat, as if they’d wintered where there was plenty of grass. See the point, boys?”
“Well, well, I wouldn’t put it past that Old Baldy to have found his way into this same fine valley, and stayed here till the winter was gone, with its Northers,” Frank declared, with exultation in his voice; for such a happening would add strength to his suggestion, strange as it had at first appeared to the others.
“And if he happened to come in here and go out through some other pass, that even the rustlers never knew a thing about, doesn’t it stand to reason that such a sharp steer would be able to find the way again, even if years had passed?” Colonel Haywood demanded.
Bart looked at Scotty, nodded his head, and observed:
“There never was such a critter as Old Baldy before, and I reckon he’d easy remember that trail. Course, though, it might be he went out through the regular way, for it might ’a been open at the time.”
“Well, let’s look at that closer,” said Frank. “When Bob and I first ran across Old Baldy he was away off a direct line between the mouth of the canyon and Circle Ranch. And, Bart, you must admit, that once he came out of that pass, he would hit a bee-line for home!”
The foreman threw up his hands.