"There it goes again," exclaimed Ned.
All at once they caught sight of a man half way down the side of the gulch. A gun was standing against a tree near by, while the man was scraping the ground with a stick.
"What is he doing?" whispered Ned as the boys, crouching down, eyed him inquiringly.
"I don't know."
After a little the man, whom they now recognized as their old enemy, Jay Stillman, took up his gun, reloaded it, and then began walking about the place as if selecting a particular spot for further operations.
To the amazement of the boys Stillman thrust the muzzle of the gun down to within two feet of the ground, then fired the charge into the earth.
A second barrel was fired in a similar manner.
"For goodness' sake, what is he trying to do?" whispered Ned.
"I don't know, unless he has gone crazy," answered Tad. "Shooting charges into the ground is new business to me. I'll warrant he is up to some monkeyshine, though."
"Maybe he thinks he can hit a heathen on the other side of the world," suggested Ned.