Stacy led the mustang along carefully for a while, taking what he believed to be an easterly course, and getting his bearings from the stars so that he might not travel in a circle and bring up at his starting point.
There appearing to be no pursuit, the boy finally mounted and rode away with increasing speed and rising spirits. He continued on until towards daylight when he found himself descending into what he believed to be foothills, but which proved to be grazing grounds in the mountains. They were of vast extent, covering many acres, and over this mesa Stacy wandered for hours trying to find a way out. He was hungry, ravenously so now, and a search of the saddle-bags revealed not even a biscuit.
Noon came and, well-nigh famished, he turned the mustang into the chaparral determined to find a new trail. The boy had gone in but a short distance when he began to sniff the air. Even the mustang lifted its head and snorted.
“If that isn’t food smoke I never smelled any. Stacy Brown, follow your nose, for your nose knows. Gid-ap, you lazy lout!” he cried.
Perhaps the pony really knew, for it pricked up its ears with new interest and seemed eager to go on, and a few moments later Stacy discovered a shack ahead. The smoke odor was by now quite strong.
The boy approached the shack with caution, and rode twice around it before deciding to hail. When he finally did so there was no answer, so he dismounted and entered.
What he had come upon was a chuck-house where mountain herders got their meals.
That a meal had quite recently been eaten there was evidenced by the soiled dishes still on the table, and the food that was simmering in frying pans on the stove.
“Eats! I don’t know who it belongs to, but I know when I am hungry,” cried Stacy, helping himself to several slices of bacon from a frying pan and eating them out of his hand. There was bread, too, and coffee in the pots. Stacy tasted the coffee and made a wry face.
“Worse than the rustlers made,” he complained.