“The puffs of smoke down below us!” interrupted Bob. “Was it someone shooting a revolver at us, Jerry?”
“Not a revolver, Bob. That wouldn’t carry as high as we were. This is a bullet from a high-powered rifle, and it’s lucky it smashed the carburetor instead of us.”
“But who in the world could have fired it?” went on Ned. “If it was the professor, firing in the air signaling for help, he surely would have seen us and been a bit more careful.”
“It wasn’t the professor,” declared Jerry. “He hasn’t a rifle, and I doubt if he would know how to fire one if he had.”
“Then you think——” began Bob.
“I think, Chunky, that we’d better look about a bit,” was Jerry’s reply. “There may be some traces here that we could pick up which would help us solve the cattle mystery.”
“Good idea!” said Ned. “Let’s look about.”
They scurried about the site of their first camp, but it was not so easy to read any signs there as they had hoped.
“But there was certainly someone here firing at us from shelter, while we were up in the air,” declared Ned. “Those puffs of smoke Bob and I saw were from a rifle, and not a campfire.”
“My idea, too,” put in Jerry. “The question is who was shooting at us, why and where is he?”