There was a tall rock just behind their camp, and this the two youths climbed, Phil saying he was too tired to stir. It was harder work than Dave and Roger had anticipated, but, once they had started, they hated to give up. Up and up and still up they went, climbing from one elevation to another by means of the rocks themselves and bits of coarse grass and brushwood.
"There, I reckon we are high enough now!" cried the senator's son, after nearly half an hour's climbing. "Anyway, I am going to stop!" And he began to pant for breath.
The two boys looked around them. The sun had sunk to rest behind the mountain in the west, and the hollows between the hills were deep in the gloom of the oncoming night. Far back on the trail they had come they saw a small fire start up.
"That must be the campfire of those three horsemen," said Dave.
"More than likely," responded his chum. "Do you see anything ahead?"
Both looked, but for a long time could see nothing. Then they caught a faint gleam from a point apparently halfway up the mountain, in the direction where the Landslide Mine was supposed to be located.
"Maybe that's Abe Blower's camp!" cried Dave, who was the first to discover the light.
"I'd like to know if Link Merwell and Job Haskers are really with him," said Roger.
"We ought to be able to catch up to them by to-morrow, so Mr. Dillon said."
"Unless Merwell and Haskers fix it so that they throw us off their trail, Roger. You know Mr. Dillon said they could branch off at Talpoll Crossing. That is where a spur of the railroad cuts in, to reach the mines on the other side of the hills—the railroad I suppose the Landslide Mine would have to use in getting out ore."