"What time is it, Matt?" asked Clip, in a discouraged tone, toiling along beside his chum.
"Twenty-five minutes of two," was the answer.
"We've got three hours and twenty-five minutes to go sixty-five miles!" Clip laughed gruesomely. "We couldn't do it in two days, at this rate."
While the boys were talking they came to a long slope that ran downward through a thick chaparral of greasewood, palo-verde, and ironwood. The road twisted serpentlike to avoid rough ground. From somewhere in the thicket below a muffled thump, thump, thump came up to them, as though some one was wielding an ax.
"What's that?" queried Matt, looking at Clip.
"Mexican wood-cutters, I reckon," was the response.
The boys went on down the slope, coasting at a rapid gait. Half-way down the descent, a turn brought them into the proximity of an automobile, and so suddenly that they had to clap on the brakes in order to avoid a collision.
The car was a red roadster. It was at a standstill in the middle of the trail, and neither of the two men was near it.
Astounded at this stroke of luck, Matt and Clip, for a moment, could do no more than stare at each other. The blows of the ax, off in the chaparral, were louder in their ears now, and they could hear a mumble of voices.
"Wow!" gasped Clip. "Am I dreaming? Can I believe what I see? Say, Matt, this is too blamed good to be true!"