Harry put on the brakes. The cowboy had leaped out and was coming back toward them. “I don’t believe we’d better try to go any further along this road,” he told them. “Harry, if you will stay with the girls, Dick and I will—”
“Hark, Big Brother, what was that?” Mary held up a finger and listened intently. On their left was a deep brush-tangled arroyo. They all heard distinctly a low moan that seemed to form the word “Help.”
The boys looked at each other puzzled and wondering. Jerry’s hand slipped instinctively to his holster and, finding it empty, he held out his hand for Dick’s gun. Then he went cautiously to the rock-piled edge of the arroyo. Dora asked, “Does Jerry think it’s one of the bandits, do you suppose, who tried to get away and was hurt somehow?”
“Probably,” Dick replied. He leaped out to the road and Harry joined him. They watched Jerry’s every move, ready to go to him if he beckoned. Suddenly Mary screamed and Harry leaped back to her. They had heard the report of a gun although Jerry had not fired.
CHAPTER XXVI
IS IT A CLUE?
The shot undeniably had been fired from the brush-tangled arroyo. Jerry stepped back that he might not be a helpless target while he conferred with the other boys.
“I cain’t understand it at all,” he said. “If we missed getting one of the bandits, he wouldn’t be staying around here. By this time, he’d be miles away.”
“You’re right about that,” Dick agreed. “My theory is that the man who called for help was the one who fired the shot.”
Harry said, “Don’t you think that possibly someone is hurt and fearing that his call wasn’t heard, he fired his gun to attract our attention? He may have heard our cars climbing the grade. They made noise enough.”
Jerry, feeling convinced that this was more than likely a fact, went again to the edge of the arroyo, and, keeping hidden behind the jagged pile of rocks, he looked intently through the dark tangle to the dry creek in the arroyo bottom. As his eyes became accustomed to the dimness he saw the figure of an old man lying on his back, one leg bent under him, his arms thrown out helplessly. One hand held a gun. Undeniably he it was who had fired the shot.