"Then he's not far away," Jimmie said.
"Suppose I answer him?" asked the stranger.
"Go on an' do it," the little fellow advised, and Ned nodded.
The cod-coo-ee-ee which the ex-cowboy emitted rang through the valley and came back in weird echoes from the crags around.
"Now he knows there's some one here looking after him," the stranger explained. "He knows that Old Mose Jackson is right on the job. What might your name be, pard?" he added, turning to Ned.
"Nestor," was the reply.
"Ned Nestor, of course!" Jackson exclaimed. "I read about you being in Mexico, and in the Canal Zone. Strange I should bump into you away off here! And I'll bet this is Jimmie? What?"
"The same!" the little fellow replied. "Ned can't lose me!"
Hardly had the words left the boy's mouth when a bullet came zipping through the air. It struck a metal section of the Nelson and flattened out.
"Before now," Jackson said, coolly, "when I've found myself on the open plain with redskins popping away at me I've dug a hole in the ground and stowed myself away in it. What do you think of the notion, pard?"