But, for all that, the plainsmen delighted to watch the boys sail aloft. Few of them would venture very near the craft, however, for fear, as one of them said, “she might turn around and chase us.” But the airship gained for the boys a certain respect and awe that had been lacking before. Hinkee Dee only remained hostile, but he was less open in his antagonism now.
A day or two later the three boys were on their way to the baffling gulch, or defile. Jerry, Bob and Ned rode their ponies easily along the undulating grassy plains, Jerry having made sure this time that he had his own horse. The wild one had wandered off the day of the accident and had not come back to the ranch. Mr. Watson had told the men not to make a search for him, as he was “too ornery for anyone to own.”
Professor Snodgrass had been invited to accompany the boys, but he said he was on the track of some new kind of moth, and its feeding ground was in the opposite direction from the gulch.
“Well, see what you can find,” suggested Ned to Jerry, as the trio reached the place where all traces of the stolen cattle had been lost. “Bob and I have ridden all over the place, and we can’t find a crack big enough to let a sheep through, let alone a steer.”
“We’ll see,” said Jerry. “Mind, I don’t say there is anything here, but I just want to satisfy myself.”
They looked carefully in the vicinity of the entrance to the gulch, or defile. It was at the top of a long low slope that extended along the western boundary of Square Z ranch.
This ridge was really the last of a line of hills which lay at the foot of the mountain slope. The ravine was a sort of V-shaped break in the mountain wall. At one time it might have been a pass through the mountains, but an upheaval of nature had closed it until now it was but a wedge-shaped cut, or gash, into the stony side of the mountain. Stony were the steep walls and also the floor, which was covered with shale and flat rocks.
“There’ve been cattle along here,” declared Jerry, pausing at the entrance to the gulch.
“Yes, everybody admits that,” conceded Ned. “And there’ve been cattle in the gulch, too. You can see traces of ’em. But the mystery is: how do they get out?”