“If we didn’t have such good forgetteries—both of us—we needn’t have been scared up so badly, Purdy,” he said. “Don’t you remember what Mr. Broadwick told us yesterday—about two men coming over here ahead of us with supplies for the Little Eagle in Dog Gulch? They are the fellows who made the fire and didn’t put it out—not Dick.”
“How can you tell?” asked the town-bred one.
“You can see for yourself,” Larry returned, pointing down at the bed of damp sand. “There were at least four burros making those tracks, and Dick has only two. See how the hoofprints overlap, again and again?”
Purdick looked and saw.
“That’s better; that means that Dick is still somewhere on ahead of us.”
“Yes, and we won’t catch up with him before morning. We can’t follow this trail in the dark. We’ll just have to camp for the night and make the best of it.”
Since this seemed to be the only sensible thing to do, they picked out a place with a big cliff-like boulder for a background. Here, after they had lopped some tree branches for a bed and built a fire which, reflected from the big rock at their backs, promised to supply the warmth of the blankets they didn’t have, they ate the two remaining bacon sandwiches.
“Not much of a supper,” Larry commented, munching his share of the short ration; “not after the tramp we’ve had. But it’s a lot better than none.”
“If it didn’t sound like trying to be funny, I’d say you said a mouthful—both ways from the middle,” said little Purdick with a grin. “I was just thinking what a beautiful fix we’ll be in if we don’t happen to find Dick and the eats in the morning.”