A few minutes’ ride brought Eugene to the top of the swell where he had left his friends, but they were not there. The wild steeds had moved nearer to the hills during his absence, and Archie and Fred had followed in order to keep them in sight. Eugene set up a loud shout and presently heard a faint response. After repeating the call, to make sure of the direction in which his friends had gone, he rode down the swell and in a quarter of an hour joined his companions and found them in their saddles slowly following the mustangs, which were moving in a body toward the distant mountains.
The first thing Eugene did was to distribute the ammunition he had brought with him and to divide his bundle, which was rather too bulky for one horse to carry. While he was thus engaged his friends reminded him that he had not yet told them what his plan was; so Eugene went into details, to which the boys listened eagerly, and said in conclusion:
“Dick assures me that if we keep the horses moving, we ought to travel at least twenty-five miles between daylight and dark, and that will bring us to the mountains the day after to-morrow. We must keep them walking all the time, but we must not push them too closely, for if we frighten them they will run away from us and we may never see them again. If we keep them travelling as nearly north-west as we can, we shall discover, when we come within sight of the mountains, a tall, isolated rock, which, at a distance, looks exactly like a chimney. Close to the foot of this rock is a gully, which leads to a beautiful valley about twenty miles back in the mountains. Dick says that is the horses’ stamping-ground, and if we can make them go in there we’ve got them sure. This valley is about ten miles in circumference, and has no outlet except the gully before spoken of; and all we’ve got to do is to make our camp right in the mouth of this gully, so that they can’t get out, and then relieve one another in the work of driving the horses down.”
“Then we shall not really begin business until we reach this valley?” said Featherweight.
“No,” replied Eugene. “While we are on the prairie the wild horses will have the same chance to eat and rest that ours will; but when we once get them cornered we’ll fix them. What do you think of it, any how?”
The boys were loud in their praises of the scheme, and Archie, who had often read of such things, wondered he had not thought of it before.
During the next two days nothing transpired worthy of note. The boys steadily followed the wild steeds, which finally seemed to become somewhat accustomed to their presence. During the first few hours they were very restive, and on several occasions, when the boys in their eagerness followed them a little too closely, they took to their heels and left them far behind. They turned out of the way once or twice for water, but kept the same general course, and on the afternoon of the third day brought their pursuers within sight of the landmark the trapper had described to them.