“He heard it all right,” muttered Alkali.
“Now what are we going to do?” asked Connie nervously. “You always have such brilliant ideas. Lefty! Think of something quick!”
CHAPTER VII
A Midnight Escapade
A thicket of small trees and bushes loomed up in the moonlight fifty yards ahead of the trio. Lefty pointed to the spot as he said:
“We’ll have to park in there and take a chance.”
Scarcely had the unique cavalcade disappeared into the thicket when Pop Bradshaw and his foreman emerged from the ranch house. They looked about and then walked over to the meadow trail. Connie and the cowboys could hear them conversing in low tones and they saw Pop shoot the beam of his flashlight on the trail.
“We must have dreamed it, Sam,” he said in a puzzled tone. “The only way out of the meadow is down this trail and there’s not a fresh steer track on it. Just a few horse and shoe tracks where some of the boys went in to do a little fishin’ at the lake.”
The two men walked back to the ranch house.
“That was a narrow escape,” chuckled Connie as Lefty and Alkali started Catapult on the move again.
“Sure was,” Lefty agreed. “I’ll be glad when we get this critter to the rodeo barns.”