"No," was the rejoinder, "it's a pity that boulder didn't hit them and pound them into oblivion. Just because they happen to be boys doesn't make them any the less dangerous to us."
At this unlucky moment, while Nat was straining his ears to catch every word of the conversation a stone against which he had braced one of his feet gave way. Ordinarily he would have hardly noticed the sound it made as it went bounding and rolling down the hillside, but situated as he was, the noise seemed to be as startling and loud as the discharge of a big gun.
"What was that?" asked the man who had been addressed as "colonel."
"A dislodged stone," was the reply, "someone is in there; the blue-jays didn't fly up for nothing."
"So it would seem. We had better investigate before going farther."
"Still, it is important that we find where those boys are camped."
"That is true, but it is more important that we find out who is in that brush."
Without any more delay, the two horses were turned into the hillside growth. Nat could hear their feet slipping and sliding among the loose rocks on the mountain as they came toward him. He did not dare to run for fear of revealing his whereabouts.
Close at hand was a piñon tree, which spread out low-growing branches all about. Nat, as he spied it, decided that if he could get within its leafy screen unobserved he would, if luck favored him, escape the observation of the two men—one of whom he was certain now, must be the famous, or infamous, Col. Morello himself.