Jim-Sam’s whiskers drooped, and the Overlanders repressed their laughter.
“Perhaps you yourself might dream out the solution of a mystery for us,” suggested Grace. “I mean as to the identity and purpose of the horseman who has been riding a parallel course with us all day, evidently keeping us under observation.”
The guides gave her a quick, keen look.
“Miss, I reckon as ye ain’t no tenderfoot,” observed Sam dryly.
“A man following us?” cried Nora. “It has come already! I knew it would. I knew that trouble would follow this outfit, just as it has done from the moment we set out over the Old Apache Trail right on down until we ended our vacation in the Black Hills last summer.”
Others of the party had observed the solitary horseman, but had attached no particular significance to his traveling in the same direction that they were following.
“Watching us, do you think?” wondered Emma.
“What about him, Jim-Sam?” demanded Tom Gray.
“Wal, I reckons mebby he is the feller that was hangin’ ’round when ye folks was unloadin’ at Carrago. He was a-snoopin’, an’ I don’t reckon as he was doin’ it fer no good. I didn’t like the look of him nohow,” growled Jim.
“Ye ain’t dreamed nothin’ ’bout that, has ye, Miss Dean?” asked Sam.