"Are you thinking that perhaps we'd better get out with our nags, while we have the chance, and leave them, while we keep up the game on foot?" asked Bob, suspecting that his chum might be considering such a move.
"Well," remarked the other, "it stands to reason that our horses aren't going to be of much use in the mountains. If we shook 'em now, we'd be able to climb almost anywhere, and peek into places we'd never be able to find as long as we stuck to our mounts. So, if you're of the same mind, Bob, we'll try and find a place where we might rope 'em out, an' take the chances of finding 'em again when we're done poking around."
"I hope then, none of the rustlers will run across them while we're away," said Bob, as he looked across a deep little pool that lay just at the foot of a very high slope; and then fastened his gaze on a peculiarly twisted cedar that seemed to cling to the bank, half way up.
"Leave that to me, my boy," returned his chum, confidently. "I'll make sure they leave no trail behind to catch the eye of a horseman riding past. Besides, we're not dead sure, you know, that the rustlers have really got a camp around these diggings. P'raps now, they just push through the canyon to get to some other point across the divide. Or it may be a favorite trail for them to carry off the cattle they rustle. In some hidden valley, you see, they can change the brands; and then openly drive the steers to a shipping station on the railroad."
"All right, then," agreed his companion, who was ready to put the utmost faith in any plan proposed by his saddle chum. "We'll keep our eyes peeled for a chance to get the horses out of this place. Here's a slope they might climb, as you say; but it looks as if they'd have to swim that pool first."
"No use trying it," remarked Frank, casting a rapid glance upward to where, at a distance of possibly a hundred feet, he could see little bushes growing on the edge of the top of the rise, which slope formed an angle of something like forty-five degrees; "sure to be better places further on, where the holding is firmer."
"And yet," remarked Bob, suddenly, "horses have made this climb only a short time ago, Frank!"
"What makes you say that?" asked the other, interested at once.
"Why, there are tracks going up slantingly, you see; and even if I am next door to a greenhorn I can tell that the marks look fresh," Bob declared, pointing.
"Say, I take a back seat, Bob," Frank remarked, laughingly. "That's the time you saw my lead, and went me one better. Sure there have been horses climbing that slope—one, two, three of 'em. And Lopez, he had only two; so it can hardly be him. I wonder now if that measly tenderfoot, Peg——"