The next morning Stamford was again disappointed: the cowpunchers had not returned. He walked on from the cook-house to Pink Eye's corral, to see by daylight what had seemed so incredible in the light of the moon. On the way back he saw the Bulkeleys driving to the north-west; they were not crossing the river that day.
Carrying a lunch, he set off for the river skirting far out on the prairie that he might reach the canyon unseen far above where the Professor was working. Arrived at last in the cover of the upper cliffs, he hurried on.
The hidden valley interested him. There he knew, lay the solution of some of the ranch mysteries. The stampede of the night before was significant, for the H-Lazy Z herds never ranged there. The cattle, he decided, were on their way to the raft and the hidden valley.
As he approached the valley he could hear the dogs barking continuously but without excitement. He discovered that the valley was lively with cowboys, the members he knew best of the H-Lazy Z outfit. They were moving about the fringes of the herd, carefully avoiding a bunch that kept to itself in a far corner of the valley. From its ragged and wild appearance Stamford took it to be the addition of the night before. The others the cowboys drove on foot to the eastern end of the valley, where a temporary barricade crossed from cliff to cliff, forming a corral at the base of the only exit. Then three of them disappeared, coming into view again on their horses from behind concealing crags. At a word from Dakota the two dogs that had been all the time slinking close to his heels bounded up to the ledge beside the shack and lay down, their eyes still fixed on Dakota. The mounted cowboys gradually worked the new bunch toward the corral.
Evidently the cattle were being collected at the exit for immediate removal.
About the shack Bean Slade was acting as temporary cook. The others, when all the cattle were in the corral, grouped together, rolling cigarettes. Dakota seated himself on a rock and whistled to the dogs, which came madly bounding down the steps.
There was no suggestion of furtiveness. Stamford began to think he had come on one of the ordinary feeding grounds of the ranch herds.
To get a better view behind the crags, he crept farther up the stream and lower on the cliff—crept into the muzzle of a revolver. Behind the muzzle was Cockney Aikens' determined eye.
"So it's you, Stamford?" he sneered. "That investigative mind of yours is bound to get you into trouble sooner or later. I wonder it wasn't sooner. It strikes me you're acting strangely about the H-Lazy Z for a guest."
Stamford flushed, partly because he knew the charge to be true, though not in the way Cockney imagined. Almost as much for Cockney's sake as for his own had he undertaken to clear up the mystery of Corporal Faircloth's death; more for Cockney's sake had he chosen the H-Lazy Z for his investigations. He bristled with indignation.