"But we've no ponies; how are we to travel on foot and keep ahead of them?"
"Well, there's that old one-and-a-half-eared mule out there. I reckon we won't be busting no code of ethics by borrering her. I'll get a saddle on her, and you just fill your pockets with whatever you can find in the way of grub, then we'll start."
In a few minutes all was ready, and the old mule, with a ragged saddle on her angular back, stood waiting with a drooping head. Pete swung himself into the saddle, and Jack, being lighter, leaped up behind, holding on to the cantle.
"All right, conductor. Ring the bell and we'll start this here trolley," grinned Pete, digging his feet into the old mule's ribs. She started off at a gait surprising in such a disreputable-looking animal.
"Well, we've got a start they never calculated on us getting," grunted Pete as they loped along. "If only our luck holds to the end, we'll beat them out yet."
The old mule plunged upward along the cañon, clambering over the rough ground with remarkable agility. One of the first things that Pete had taken care to do was to leave the trail in a rocky spot, where no telltale hoofmarks would show, and his course was now along the bottom of the gorge, where a small watercourse trickled.
"Well, we won't want for water, anyhow," he observed, with some satisfaction.
It grew dark rapidly, and nightfall found them in a wild part of the gorge with the main crests of the range reared forbiddingly above them. So far there had been no sign of pursuit, and both fugitives were beginning to hope that they had got clear away, when from far down the cañon they heard cries and shouts, and, looking back, saw a bright glare of light.
"Well, there they are," grinned Pete, "in a fine way of taking, I guess, over the fire."