“She’s too many for me. But there’s something in the wind besides the smell of fryin’ onions, or I’m a ring-tailed dodo-bird. That hag’ll bear watchin’. It ain’t natural for a woman to be as suspicious as she was without havin’ something on her mind, an’ I’d give a lot to know what it is. I’ll bet if we knew, we wouldn’t have so far to go to find Belle Ada and the others! But—” He shrugged his shoulders expressively. “You can’t go over an’ threaten to shoot her unless she tells all she knows. It ain’t bein’ done this season.”
“Nope, boys, we got to ride on to the caves. Maybe when we get there we can discover somethin’ to go by. This Ike Natick—he’s with our outfit, you know—strikes me as a level-headed cow puncher. Besides that, there ain’t no ribbons tied on him, he’s all man. When he says a thing, I listens. An’ he said he’s got a hunch the rustlers headed for Sholo Caves. That’s enough fer me. What do ya say, Roy—do we go?”
“We do, Bug Eye. Dad might be waiting for us when we get near Gravestone Falls. I hope so, anyway. Hit it up, boys, it’s getting dark.”
Once more the riders, single file, made their way up the canyon. The sun threw its slanting rays on the brown stone walls, streaking them with gold. Below them the stream gurgled over the rocks. Back of them, in a small clearing an old woman stood in the doorway of a cabin, leaning on the barrel of a rifle, her eyes fixed toward them in a malevolent glare.
CHAPTER XIX
Into the Cave
The rocky walls of the gorge echoed to the sound of the slow, deliberate hoof-beats as four horses were urged over the trail on the edge of Thunder Canyon, the steeds carrying three girls followed by an old woman.
Two days later this same trail was to be the path of another group of riders, who, doggedly pursuing, were to find this same deep gulch the scene of a desperate fight for the rescue of these present travelers.
Slowly they went, those ahead riding unwillingly. In the extreme rear rode the woman, a striking counterpart to another of her sex who dwelt in a lonely cabin on the edge of a clearing, long since passed by the wayfarers.
They had halted for a moment at this hut, and their guard, who carried before her a heavy gun held in a firm hand, had whistled to the cabin’s occupant. When the second woman appeared Belle started, as did the others, at the remarkable resemblance between the two. They were exactly of the same height and their faces were strangely similar, as though the lines in each countenance had come of the same experiences. “Sisters—maybe twins,” Nell had whispered, and the others nodded.