Presently he saw it coming down the hill, driving toward him. Just before it reached him he saw, a mile or two above him on the river, several large animals hurrying down the bluff. The distance was so great that he could not tell what they were, but thought they acted like horses. After the wagon had come up and he had learned which way they were going, he mounted to go on, and just as he did so a bunch of about twenty horses, herded by two men, burst out of the brush a mile ahead of the wagon, dashed across the wide bottom and up the bluffs on the north side of the valley.
“What do you make of that, Hugh?” asked Jack.
“Well, I don’t know, son,” said Hugh. “It looks as if there were a couple of men there that wanted to get away and not be seen. What do you think, Joe? Are any of the people camped up in this direction?”
“I guess not,” said Joe. “I think maybe those men have been stealing horses and don’t want anybody to see them.”
“That’s the way it looks to me,” said Hugh. “But where have the horses been taken from? We don’t know and I reckon it’s no business of ours, and we’d better go right along.”
“I guess they saw us coming a long way off, Hugh,” said Jack. “Only a little while ago I saw some of those horses come down the bluffs, away above where they came out of the bottom just now. The men must have seen me coming and begun to gather up their horses and then start them on to get out of the way.”
“Well,” said Hugh, “it’s no business of ours. We’d better keep on and attend to our own affairs. Of course, if we knew who these horses had been taken from it would be different; but it isn’t like it was with us that year when we came down through the Park and had to go and steal those horses from Black Jack Dowling.”
Joe shook his head solemnly and said, “I don’t want no more of that sort of thing,” while Jack said, “That was sure a ticklish time. I’ll never forget how I felt that night when we were driving those horses off.”
“Very well,” said Hugh, “let’s go on to where those fellows came out of the brush, and see whether there’s any sign there that will tell us who they are.”
When they reached the trail made by the horses in crossing Jack rode up to the edge of the brush and said, “Why, I believe these people have been here some time. There’s a plain trail leading into these willows.”