Larry Donovan was the one who knew what was to be done, and he was already doing part of it. Quickly throwing a handful of twigs upon the fire to make a better light, he began to roll his blankets and to gather up the scattered contents of his pack.
“Get busy, fellows,” he said quietly. “If you’ve got it straight, Purdy, we may have all the time we need to get out of here—or we may not have.”
“Gee!” gasped Dick, falling upon his own preparations with a rush; “you mean that we’ve got to tackle the Mule-Ear trail in the dark?”
“It’s that, or a stand-up fight with these plug-uglies,” Larry returned coolly. “Knowing what we do, I suppose we’d be justified in ambushing the gang as they come up the canyon, but I’m sure none of us want to start this summer job of ours by shooting down a bunch of mine-robbers, much as they deserve it. The other thing to do is to light out before they get to us. And we don’t have to do it in the dark either; see there?” and he pointed to a thin crescent of a moon in its last quarter which was just beginning to show itself above the high eastern mountain. Then to Purdick, “Purdy, you go and corral those guns, while I make up your pack.”
Going over it afterward, all three of the boys thought they were well within the truth in claiming that no camp was ever broken with less loss of time, even by trained burro-freighters, than theirs was that night. In a very few minutes the jack-loads were made up and cinched on the pack saddles, each man’s shoulder-pack was slung, and they were ready for the trail.
Larry, dropping into place as leader in the flight, gave his final directions after Dick had brought a hatful of water from the stream with which to extinguish the camp-fire.
“I was studying the Survey map as we came up on the train, and if I’ve got the right idea of where we are now, we have a pretty long, hard pull ahead of us to reach the top of the pass. We must make the best time we can while the going is good, because we can’t rush much after we hit the old snow. We’ll let old Fishbait”—they had already named the two burros—“show us the way. He can find the trail better than we can. All set? Here we go, then.”
Happily, the up-canyon trail was easy at the start. Beyond the little park in which their camp had been pitched there were a few narrow places where the footing at the stream side was somewhat hazardous, with only the thin moonlight to show them where it was; but very shortly the gorge widened out into a valley with precipitous, wooded mountain slopes on either side. Here the trail was broad enough to enable them to break the Indian-file order of march; and Dick and Larry made Purdick repeat his overhearings at the camp of the desperadoes.
“Wait a minute,” Dick interrupted; “let’s see if I’m getting it straight. Were they meaning to leave the horses behind when they came up to raid us?”