They rode away in rather moody silence, followed by the searching gaze of the two men on guard. Then the big man on the horse galloped back through the opening in the dam to join his companions, leaving the fellow with the gun near the rock.
"Is there any way we could get around and come to Golden Peak from the back?" asked Andy.
"Yes, it could be done, but it's a long ride," said Billy. "Maybe we'll take it, if these fellows stay here. But we'll see what my uncle says."
Much disappointed at the failure of their trip, the boys guided their horses out of the valley to the higher part of the prairie. They talked over what had happened, and Andy said he wished he had brought his gun along.
"If we'd been armed," he said, "they wouldn't have been so ready to order us off."
Billy shook his head.
"Firearms are bad business," he said. "This will be settled without powder, I guess. But it sure is mean to have every thing held up, when you know those fellows are in the wrong."
They rode on for several miles, and, when within a comparatively short distance of the ranch, Frank, looking up, asked:
"What sort of a cloud is that over there, Billy?"
The Western lad turned in his saddle, and at the first glimpse of the slate-colored mass, he cried: