"He doesn't seem to be on exhibition, and that's a fact," Ned replied.
"Perhaps," Jimmie grinned, "we'd better look up this Thomas Q.
Collins! I guess, he could lead us to him."
"No doubt of that," Ned admitted.
Having securely hidden the tinned food, the boys still lingered in the vicinity of the Nelson. The machine lay shining in the sunlight, seeming to look reproachfully up at the boys, accusing them of getting her into a very bad predicament.
"Good old girl!" Jimmie cried, stroking the motors. "We'll get you out of this mix-up, all right!"
"If we do," Ned replied, studying the ground about the machine,
"we'll have to get cover somewhere and watch her night and day."
He pointed to footprints close up to the motors as he spoke, and
Jimmie began measuring the impressions in the soft earth.
"They've been here since we landed, all right," the boy exclaimed, in a minute. "We never left these tracks. They're big enough for an elephant to make!"
"They were made by muckers," Ned continued. "You know the kind of shoes the men who work in mines wear? Big ones, looking more like a mud scow than a shoe. They have turned some of the copper workers loose on us, little man."
"Gee! How long will it take Pedro to get back?"
"Probably three days, if he has no bad luck—if they let him come back at all," Ned answered.