Long before Jack's ears had caught a sound, Pete's quick eye had detected something. He laid his ear to the ground.
"Too dry," he muttered, after holding it there an instant.
Then he drew from his pocket his knife and opened both blades. The larger he thrust into the earth and placed his ear against the smaller bit of steel.
"Just as I thought. Coming this way!" he muttered. "We'll have to lie low and trust to luck."
Presently the trampling that the cowboy's rough-and-ready telegraph had detected became distinctly audible, and against the star-spattered sky Jack saw two black figures on horseback slowly rise up from a hollow. They came into view as slowly as fairies rising to the stage from a trap-door in a theatre.
Neither Pete nor Jack dared to breathe, as the two figures appeared and paused as if undecided which way to go. Suddenly one of them began to speak.
"No sign of 'em in here, amigo. Say ombre, I tell you what—you ride off to the right, and I'll take the left trail. We've covered all the other ground, and that way we're bound to get 'em."
The Mexican grunted something and rode off in the direction the other had indicated.
"It's Jim Cummings, the dern skunk," whispered Coyote Pete to Jack, his indignation at the idea of being hunted by the renegade cowboy getting the better of his prudence.