“She hasn’t gone back,” Frank insisted. “She will follow us to the foothills, unless something unusual stops her. We are getting into her home territory now, and may expect trouble.”
“What is all this about?” asked Jule. “Why so mysterious?”
Frank did not answer, and the boy continued:
“I wish the Señorita had blown up on the South Branch.”
“How would you like to be on the South Branch to-night?” asked Case.
“This suits me well enough,” was Jule’s answer. “If there’s any need of a guard to-night, who’s in for it?” he added, looking about for more dessert. Frank was on his feet in a moment.
“I will watch to-night,” he said. “On the way down from Peru, as I told you, I stopped here for a couple of days, and I think, as I said before, I know where we can find something that looks like money, if we watch closely to-night.”
The boys looked over the darkling scene, over the narrow stream, over the broad Madeira, perhaps two hundred yards away, over the forest, crowding down to the rim of the little creek, and Case echoed the sentiments of all the rest when he asked:
“What in the world is there in here that we can get money for?”
“If we had some of this scenery on the Chicago wood market, now,” Jule laughed, waving a hand over the landscape, which showed trees more than two hundred feet high, “we might be able to do business on a cash basis, but I don’t see any sustenance in this.”