Silk looked down upon the dusty trail where the marks of his mare's hoofs showed amid the smaller footprints of the four mules.
"Guess we'd be wise not to disturb that track, Beauty," he decided, speaking to the mare as if she were a human.
Without giving any explanation to the girl, without even telling her that he was leaving her, he leapt into his saddle and rode down to the stream where the two wagon men were watering the mules. He spoke to the older of them, bidding him keep a big fire burning and to see that the mules were well secured. Then he entered the shallow stream and followed its current to a point near to where he had left his two companions, when he whistled to them and signed to them to come down to him.
"It's all right, Percy, my boy," he announced as they joined him. "I have interviewed the owner of the innocent hair-pin and seen her picture of Minnewanka Peak. It's great! I find she is some scared about Nick-By-Night. She's got some fixings that would be worth his stealing, and—well, if you two chaps see no objection, I figure we may as well hang around hereabout until morning."
"Joining Miss Hair-pin's encampment?" questioned Percy.
"Not exactly," Silk answered, "but keeping an eye on it from ambush."
"Why did you come back along the bed of the stream?" Percy wanted to know. "Why did you bring us off the trail?"
"Just a whim of mine," smiled the sergeant. "I didn't want to make a return track. I wanted you two to leave the hoof-marks of two horses leading off the trail. There'll be a full moon to-night, and if any one—any bandit or highwayman—should follow on our traces, he'll think just what I mean him to think, that two of us have gone off on a side track, leaving the wagon unprotected."
"Say, you wouldn't take such elaborate precautions if you didn't suspect that something was goin' to happen," declared Percy. "But, of course, you couldn't well leave a mere girl in such a situation."
"That is what I thought," said Silk. "We will lie in our blankets within close call."