“Well!” exclaimed the deputy, as he issued from among the trees and surveyed the little valley with its surrounding wall, “if this isn’t the very finest ready-made corral for the horse-thief business ever I saw, call me a horse-thief myself!”
“And how they ever come to find it beats me!” added his companion.
“Some hunter or prospector, maybe, hiding from the Indians in among the rocks up above there, got into the stream to cover his tracks, and so found the tunnel,” suggested the deputy.
“That’s it, likely,” said the other. “But there’s deer in here too. I see a bunch of ’em down at the far end now. How’d they get in? Same way?”
“Same way, I guess, unless they tumbled in. The horses is down there too, I see; we may as well go and round ’em up right away. It isn’t more ’n two o’clock, and we may just as well dig out at once. We’ll make ten miles on the back track before night.”
“Then,” said Jack, “while you are getting up the horses, we three will make a tour of the valley to see if there is any way but this of getting in or out. Come on, you fellows; if we set off at once we can make the round before the others are ready to leave.”
Our survey, which occupied about an hour, disclosed the fact that, excepting at two points, the wall surrounding the valley was at least forty feet higher than the tops of the trees which grew upon the slopes below it. The first of these exceptions was immediately behind the Mushroom Rock. There the bank extended from the foot of the rock up to within twenty feet of the top of the wall; if one had a ladder of that length he might get out there. The second exception was at the cañon, where the stream left the valley; but as to getting out in that direction, it seemed as impossible as it would be to fly over the wall itself. The gorge was crowded with great boulders fallen from above, between which rushed the foaming stream—the maddest, fiercest little river I ever saw. None but a man in the last straits of desperation would ever think of attempting the passage; he would be pounded to death in five minutes, almost to a certainty.
The result of this tour was most gratifying to us; it proved conclusively that if Squeaky should entertain the idea of paying us a visit, he could not come in except by the “high road,” and as long as we occupied the fort he could not come that way either without our leave. It was therefore with perfect confidence in our ability to take care of ourselves that we watched the departure of our two friends, and, accompanying them as far as the bars, shouted “Good-bye!” to them as they rode off round the corner, with the clattering herd of stolen horses going on before.
“Now,” said Jack, “we will go to work systematically, and we’ll begin by setting a guard. Tom, will you go on from now till supper-time?”
“All right,” said I, promptly.