"It aint like as if they were in a city in the East," went on the old miner. "Here some men are mighty free with their shootin'-irons. And they could take a shot at ye from a long distance, with a good rifle."
Thus talking the entire party walked back to their camp and sat down to discuss the situation in detail.
"Perhaps we had better not advance until dark," said Dick. "If we advance now we will simply be making targets of ourselves," and he shivered in spite of himself.
"We won't advance at all," put in Jack Wumble briefly. "We would be wuss nor fools if we did—with them human wildcats a—watchin' of us," and he began to puff vigorously at his short stump of a briarroot pipe.
"But you said—" began Tom, when the old miner waved him to silence.
"Let me think it out, lads, and then I'll tell ye my plan. We'll trick 'em—that's best," and he began to smoke again.
Satisfied that Jack Wumble knew the ground to be covered better than they did, the boys decided to let him have his own way, so long as the object of the expedition should be advanced. They sat down in the shade to rest, and thus several hours passed, and the old miner smoked up half 'a dozen pipefuls of his favorite plug mixture.
"I've got it," he cried at last. "If we kin work the deal we'll keep 'em guessing." And he laughed softly to himself.
His plan was a simple one. Several miles back on the trail there was a fork, the second trail running to the northward. His plan was to ride back to the fork, and then in the darkness of the night to take to the second trail.
"That don't lead to Larkspur Creek," he said. "But it leads to Go Lightly Gulch, and from there I know an old Indian trail which leads to the Larkspur by way of Bender Mountain. It's dangerous trail to ride, but it's safe, too, so far as our enemies are concerned, for they can't cover it from any other part of the mountains. They would either have to be right in front of us or right behind, and in that case we'd have as much of a show at them as they would have at us."