“Now what under the sun does all that mean?” Dick queried. Then: “Oh, I know part of it. ‘Tang.’ means ‘tangent.’ But what would you make out of ‘W.3-S.’?”
Larry made a quick guess.
“Maybe it is a compass bearing; ‘west, three degrees south.’ How would that fit?”
Dick laid his pocket compass on top of the stake, and after the swinging needle had come to rest, took a back sight in the direction of the nearest up-canyon station.
“That’s just about the ticket,” he announced. “Allowing for the compass variation, it’s a little south of west. The next is ‘P.I.’—that means that it marks the intersection of a curve. Now for the ‘N.13-W.’ Say! that’s another compass bearing. Hooray! Got you now, Mr. Right-of-way thief. Right here’s where you’re going to cross the——”
He was looking over at the opposite gulch as he spoke, and his jaw dropped.
“Gee, Larry!” he exclaimed; “they can’t get a railroad in through that place over there. That’s nothing but a pocket gulch. You can see the far end of it from here!”
Once more Larry Donovan sat down and propped his chin in his hands. This time he was trying to recall all he had ever known or heard of the geography of the region lying to the north.
“Anywhere along about here would do,” he decided at length; adding: “For a place for them to break in, I mean. Burnt Canyon ought to be between twenty-five and thirty miles straight north of us, and the O. C. has a branch already built to the copper mines in Burnt Canyon. That gulch over across the creek is about where you’d look for them to come out if they’re building south from the copper mines.”
“But they can’t come out there!” Dick protested. “Can’t you see that there isn’t any back door to that pocket?”