“It was a bear-scared runaway, and not a man-steal,” Larry announced confidently, when they had measured the length of the strides, “and if that guess is right, we’ll find them before long. They wouldn’t run very far. That’s one good thing about a jack; he isn’t a panicky beast, whatever else he may be.”
This comforting conclusion had its fulfilment before they had followed the burro tracks very far up the valley of which their camp gulch was an offshoot. The two burros were found quietly grazing in a little patch of short-grass, and when they were herded, it was no trouble to drive them back, though they did exhibit some signs of alarm when they were urged over the broken tree and into the small gulch.
“I guess the bear scent is still here—for them,” Dick suggested. “I shouldn’t wonder if we had to hobble them to keep them in here overnight.”
Back at the scene of the wreck, they made a fire, and little Purdick prepared to do what he could toward getting a supper out of the remnants. It turned out to be a Barmecidal feast—if that means that it lacked the chief essential of a camp meal—which is quantity. Though they were all as hungry as they had a right to be after the day of hard tramping and searching, they ate sparingly, knowing that they were likely to be hungrier still before they could hope to reach any base of supplies.
It was a pretty silent meal, taking it all around. In a single day their plans for the remainder of the summer had been knocked into a cocked hat, so to speak. As they had prefigured things, they had meant to work around to the small mining-camp of Shotgun in the southern Hophras by the latter third of July; to renew their supplies there; and to spend the remainder of the vacation in exploring the eastern hogbacks and slopes of the Little Hophras. But that was impossible now.
“Shotgun’s at least sixty miles from here,” Larry said, measuring the distance on the Government map which he had spread out on one of the slashed blankets, “and we can hardly hope to make any such hike as that on what little grub we have left.”
“No,” Dick assented promptly. “But what else can we do?”
Larry was tracing a line straight to the west from their assumed position on the map.
“It is less than thirty-five miles from here to Natrolia on the railroad—in a direct line,” he said.
“Yes; but Natrolia—and the railroad—are on the other side of the range!” Dick protested.