"Too early to say yet, my boy," said the mining man, who had been studying the hoof-prints, "but I can tell you this, that only one man was here last night."
"We have nothing to fear from one man," exclaimed Jimsy.
"I know that," was Mr. Bell's response, "but this lone visitor of last night may have been only the scout or forerunner of the others, whoever they may be."
"That's so," agreed Roy, "at any rate he must have had some strong object in spying on us."
Nobody would come out into this desolate place without an aim of
some sort."
"No question but that you are right there," agreed Mr. Bell, whose face was grave, "I have half a mind to turn back and not bring the ladies further into what may prove to be a serious situation."
"So far as Peggy is concerned you'd have a hard time trying to get her to turn back now," declared Roy; "her mind is bent upon helping to get the air line from the mine into working order, and I guess Jess feels the same way about it."
"It would be a sad blow to them to have to go back now," agreed Jimsy; "suppose, Mr. Bell, we wait and make our suspicions more of a certainty before we decide upon anything."
"Perhaps that would be the best course," agreed the lad's elder, "but I must confess I feel sorely troubled. It is agreed, is it not, that not a word of our suspicions are to be breathed to the ladies?"
"Oh, of course," agreed Roy; "after all," he added cheerfully, "the man who left those tracks may have been a prospector or a desert traveler of some kind, and have had no sinister motives."