"Here we are, right in the Pass, captain! Now can you find that point where we turn off the road to get into the rock corral?"
"Take the lines, Jim; I'll jump out and prospect. I used to know it well enough."
Down the road the captain went stumbling afoot. Everything was rock, bowlder and darkness now. The early morning wind was sighing through the pines up the mountain side at the south. All else was silence.
Presently they heard him hail:
"Come on! Here we are!"
Jim touched up his wearied team and soon, under the captain's guidance, was bumping up a little side trail. A hundred yards off the road they halted and Gwynne called back into the darkness:
"How's Manuelito getting on, Pike?"
No answer.
The captain stepped back a few yards and listened. Not a sound of hoof or wheel.
"Pike!" he called. "Where are you?"