“You’ll be finding red lions next!” laughed Clay. “Come on back to the boat. I left Case alone, of course, to come after you, and there’s some one prowling around.”
Alex emitted a low whistle.
“That’s one of my train robbers, then,” he said. “I’ve got a trained band of ’em over in the next canyon.”
The boy pointed to the smouldering glow straight to the east.
“Hunters, probably,” Clay suggested.
“Hunters, of course,” Alex replied, “but they’re hunting something besides wild animals.”
“If I had your imagination, I’d be writing fiction for the magazines,” Clay answered. “Why do you call them train robbers?”
“Because they tried to throw that freight from the track—the freight that just passed. The trainmen had to roll a rock off the track. That’s what the stop was for.”
It was now Clay’s turn to express amazement by a low whistle.
“But why should they want to throw a freight off the track?” he asked in a moment. “There’s nothing nourishing in the looting of a freight. Suppose we go over and see who they are?”