Ted strode toward the cattle, which seemed to become uneasy at seeing a man on foot, which range cattle will not tolerate.
"Don't go any closer, Ted," said Stella. "Wait until Bud goes back after the horses."
"I just want to get a glimpse of the brand. By Jove, here's our lost Circle S brand, I believe. But look at it. It has been altered."
"How?"
"See those two perpendicular lines drawn through the S, making the brand Circle Dollar-mark. That's a most ingenious thing. It has been done with a running iron. The fellow who stole our cattle has just changed it by running a curved hot iron through the S."
"Yer shore right," said Bud. "That Circle Dollar brand hez been registered somewhere. It's up to us ter find out who registered it, an' we've got ther thief. I'll skip out fer ther hosses an' ther boys. I reckon we kin git in here by ridin' across ther backbone o' ther hills."
"All right, get back as soon as you can, and we'll wait for you in the cave."
Bud and the boys were back within half an hour, having found a pass into the valley through the hills which inclosed it.
"It's as plain as the face of the sun to me," said Ted, when they were mounted and were riding toward the cattle. "Shan Rhue would have had those cattle over the border in a day or two, had he not been so unwise as to have abducted Stella. It's up to us now to get that bunch back to the herd."
It did not take the boys long to get the bunch together, and Ted and Stella rode out to the front of it to point it down the valley, while the other boys started back to the rear to drive up.