Tad scrambled to his feet, but ere he could carry out his purpose of starting for camp, an unexpected and startling thing happened.
There was a whir, as of some object being hurled through the air. The boy experienced a stinging sensation on his right cheek, as the missile grazed it, and a stone the size of a man's hand clattered to the rocks several feet ahead of him, rolling over and over, finally toppling from a small cliff.
Some one had thrown the stone at him. Had it hit the boy's head fairly it almost surely would have killed him. Tad Butler needed no other evidence than that afforded by his own senses to tell him the missile was intended for him.
He whirled sharply. But not a person was in sight. All at once, however, the keen-eyed boy discovered a slight movement in the sage brush, a few rods to the rear of where he had been sitting.
Like a flash he whipped a blunt arrow from the quiver.
The bow twanged viciously, and the arrow sped straight into the sage brush. A yell of rage and a floundering about in the bush as if someone were running, told the boy that his shot had reached a human mark.
Pacing the sage, Tad had become conscious of the fact that before him lay a large black hole in the rocks, and he dimly realized that he had come upon a cave. But he gave the matter no further attention at that moment, his first thought being that he must get back to camp as quickly as possible.
Stringing his bow, Tad hurled another arrow into the brush, then bounded away, wondering vaguely who his mysterious enemy might be.