“Wheels!” cried Alex, in derision. “You’ve got buzzing wheels!”
Case got the sleepy youngster out of the cabin and told him about the white rider and also about Don’s account of the tradition.
“Now,” he added, “I propose that we go down the shore a little way and climb up the slope to the foot of that precipice. You can see from here where the shelf ends. Well, anything dropped off the break would fall into a coulee on the other side of the ridge. See?”
“Perhaps we can get to the foot of the precipice, and perhaps we can not,” Alex said, “but we’ll try, anyway. What do you expect to find there? The dead ghost of a headless horse and rider?”
Case laughed and the two started away, following the river bank down until the rise to the east ran out, and then following the coulee back of it. In a very short time they were at the foot of the smooth wall of rock which dropped down from the shelf above. The moon was now far up in the sky, and its light fell directly into the canyon.
The lads looked carefully about the foot of the wall, but were not rewarded in any way for their labor. Presently, however, Case bent over a depression in the soil which had gathered in a corner—washed down from the heights above—and called to his chum.
“What do you make of it?” he asked, flashing his electric on the spot indicated. “Does that look like a ghost’s track?”
“Dog’s track!” Alex exclaimed. “Captain Joe’s track! Now what was he doing here? But here’s another footprint!” he went on, all excitement, “and it wasn’t made by a dog, either. Healthy ghost, that!”
“The ghost that made that track,” Case answered, “wore a No. 10 shoe with the taps worn down so as to show the nailheads! And the shoe was here not long ago, at that. Now, what was the dog doing with a stranger?”
“I reckon Captain Joe has been abducted!” grinned Alex. “I’d like to see the man that did it. He’d be some chewed up, I take it!”