"Yes, I'm riding on their footprints now."
"That's all right then. Don't want to let it get away from us."
"Where do you think they are heading, Mr. Stevens?"
"For the mesas up the range further. There's plenty of grazing there and there must be water close by. What we want to do, to-day, is to locate them and find out just where they go for their water. Then, when the schooner gets down to your camp, we'll haul our outfit up in the range and build a corral to drive them into."
"Do you always make a capture?"
"Us? No. Sometimes the leaders of the band are too smart for us. They beat us proper. Why, they're sharper than a Goldfield real estate man, and those fellows would make you believe an alkali desert was a pine forest."
"Look there!" interrupted Tad, pointing.
"What is it, kiddie?" demanded the horse-hunter, pulling up sharply.
"One of the horses, I think it must be the leader, seems to have left the trail here and started off at right angles."
Stevens rode over to the other side of Tad, and gazed down, his forehead wrinkling in a frown.