“A likely place would be the rocky banks of the San Juan as soon as he got out of sight of the town. I make a guess,” went on the cool, philosophic Mr. Cook. “If I was Mike, I’d go as far as Montezuma Creek. Where the Montezuma enters the San Juan, we’ve got a raft of mountain pine. Wouldn’t be no trick to kill your horse and hide it under the raft till night. And when it’s dark, the way I’d go on would be back. With about three of them logs for a boat, I’d light out down the San Juan—if I wanted to save my skin and the five thousand dollars.”
“That’d bring him right by here to-night, wouldn’t it?” asked Roy, excitedly.
“Might,” responded his companion. “Anyway, if he figured out to do this, he won’t go further than he has to. He’ll land before he gets too far. He knows the Colorado’s below him. And then, like enough, he’ll take a chance among the Navajos.”
“Why didn’t you tell Marshal Wooley that?” asked Roy.
“Because,” laughed Mr. Cook, “he hasn’t any imagination. I saved the idea to test the aeroplane.”
Roy straightened up.
“At daylight,” said Mr. Cook, taking a long draw on his cigar, “you and I are going to get up steam and make a little flight over the desert south of the San Juan down toward the Calabasa Mountains. If we don’t scent our game, there won’t be any one to give us the laugh. Can we do it?”
The boy chuckled.
“At the rate of fifty miles an hour,” he answered.