"You never know what you are going to do in a balloon," answered Ned. "If we can we will. If we can't we won't. If we are not back to-night we may not be here for several days. We've got work ahead now, and plenty of it."
"We'll be here when you come," replied Bob earnestly, with a smoking bit of bacon in his fingers, "whenever that is."
"No," replied Ned, "if we are not here in six days you must make your way out to civilization. You have food enough but you can't wait longer than that. As for directions, all I can say is that from this ridge back of us you can see across the half desert valley to the higher range of mountains. Should you cross the valley bearing almost due east and be able to get over or through that second ridge you will be able to see the top of Mount Wilson, thirty miles further east. From Mount Wilson it is fifteen miles southeast to the camp Elmer made. There you should pick up the trail of Buck's wagon back to the railroad eighty-five miles south."
Bob's eyes opened.
"Is it as bad as that?" he said half laughing. "We'll certainly have to get busy if the Cibola breaks down."
"Or," went on Ned, "any strewn in the valley below here flows finally into the San Juan River to the north. If you can make your way to this river and then succeed in following its banks eastward until you reach the plains, some time or other you'll find a frontier settlement."
"Or Utes," interrupted Alan.
"Gib me de mountain road," exclaimed Elmer quickly. "Nomo'Utesfo'me!"
"Yes," added Ned, "that's the trouble. The route to the San Juan is not only through a barren, broken mountain region, but it gets you finally right into the Southern Ute reservation. And, remember, too, that this is Navajo land. Your safety with them, should you be discovered, will be in diplomacy. And now good-bye—until we meet again."
"And if we don't," replied Bob, huskily, taking the hands of the two boys in turn, "I just want to say again that you boys have done for me what I can't forget and what I can't repay. I don't know why you are here, and I don't want to know. What I've seen will never be revealed, when I get back to Kansas City and the Comet, until you tell me I am free to tell it. And you'd know what that means to me if you knew what a cracking good yarn my experience has given me already. Good-bye and good luck!"