“What would you take from that?” demanded Bob.
“Perhaps they hid the gold!” suggested Mr. Riley.
“Looks that way; though for the life of me I can’t understand why they’ve been a-hangin’ around here all this time, takin’ chances,” Sim Garrison said.
“Then what ought we do?” remarked the former superintendent, turning to Frank. “Keep right along after the two thieves; or turn back on this new trail, and try to find where they hid the stuff?”
Frank had to think fast just then. A mistake was apt to prove costly.
“We can always come back to this point, and take up the back trail,” he said; “but the thieves will be getting farther and farther away all the while. So I say, let’s start after them.”
“I cover that way,” remarked Sim. “Seems like no fellers’d ever come up into this country without mounts; and I just reckon that these two are headin’ for where the hosses are hid.”
“Then the sooner we start, the better chance we will have to get sight of them,” Frank remarked.
Sim took the hint. Bending down he hastened along. So accustomed were his eyes to picking out signs invisible to a greenhorn like Bob, that he was able to run pretty much all the time; and the horses had to keep up a little canter to hold their own.
“I wonder whether we will really get a glimpse of them before night sets in?” Bob remarked, as he rode along close to his chum.