“Now, Snadder, we’re going over to that camp to get Jeek and his buddies,” said Frank, speaking sharply and with determination. “If you’ve told us the truth, it will go easier with you. If you have not told us the truth, then you go to the pen just as quick as we can land you there.”
This was accepted by the two tramps, and the hike was started, the boys dividing up all the wares that had been stolen, putting them away in various pockets, their guns thrown across their arms.
Snadder was put in the lead, with Blinky behind him, while the boys stretched out behind, Frank leading them, so that he could talk to the two tramps and keep them appraised of the necessity for leading correctly.
What the distance was they did not know, but they thought, at least Frank did, that it could not be so very great, else Jeek and his pal would not so readily have agreed to change shifts.
They were rounding the second of the series of hills when, coming to a narrow place in the trail with a steep declivity to their right, Snadder made a sudden rush forward, disappearing around a bend ahead of them. Blinky made no effort to move faster.
Frank’s involuntary thought was to pass Blinky and to go after Snadder, but as he closed up quickly to do this he realized that Blinky could very easily stagger against him and push him off the precipice, for Blinky was keeping close to the side of the hill.
So, instead of following out his first idea, Frank held his nerve, and, with the muzzle of his rifle against the back of Blinky, he urged that fellow to move more rapidly.
Around the bend of the cliff they saw Snadder moving on the path as if nothing had happened.
“Listen, Snadder,” Frank called ahead to the tramp, “don’t try any more tricks like that one or I’ll just drop you in your tracks and we’d carry you in to jail.”
Realizing that his trick had not availed anything, the tall fellow kept straight ahead until they reached a hill which looked down on the camp of Jeek and his two cronies.