"Not a sign, though someone has been here lately in a wagon with thin tires, and that isn't the kind the construction men used. I shouldn't wonder but what those fellows you saw have been here."
"But where did they go?" asked Billy.
"I don't know. They must have moved off back there, though it's hard going for a wagon," and he waved his hand toward the region where the river had its rise, a stretch of scrub trees and low foothills.
"Did they do anything?" Frank wanted to know.
"No, nothing seems to have been disturbed. I guess it was a false alarm. We'll get back home. It looks as if it might rain. I suppose I ought to have a watchman here, but nothing short of dynamite could harm the dam now, and I don't believe they'd venture on that," concluded the ranchman.
He showed his nephew and the Racer boys how he proposed to use the water when it was imprisoned by the dam, and after a tour of the place, and a look at Golden Peak from a distance, the party started back.
"We'll have to go at that hill soon," said Andy, in a low voice to his brother, as they rode back across the prairie.
"That's what," agreed Frank.
But for two weeks after that they were so occupied with having a good time that they hardly thought of their plan to see of what the "treasure" might consist.
Their chief business was in learning to ride as Billy did—making himself almost a part of his horse. This took time, but the Racer boys were apt pupils. Then came lessons in throwing the lasso, and, though it took longer to acquire this knack, they managed to become fairly adept at it.