“How’ll you make those fellows give up the deeds, Chet?” queried Dig, in wonder.
“I don’t know; but I’ll find a way when we catch up with them, don’t you fret.”
When the horses were saddled and ready, Chet went ahead, leading Hero, and found the place where the second man had mounted and the two riders had wheeled and galloped away from the camp they had robbed.
Chet Havens was quite a sensible lad for his age, and he secretly wondered why the thieves had been so afraid of two boys. It scarcely seemed reasonable that they should be so fearful.
“Unless it was Dig’s rifle shot that scared them off,” he thought. “Perhaps the men are not prepared to face rifles. Yet, I am quite sure they were stalking the buffaloes as well as we. They could not expect to shoot such beasts with pop-guns.”
It was easy to follow the trail left by the riders for some miles. The hoofs of their horses cut the sod sharply, and threw up bits of turf as the animals scurried over the ground.
The route the thieves had followed was across a range quite unfamiliar to the chums from Silver Run. It led almost due west, and the trail was possibly parallel with the trace leading to Grub Stake.
It puzzled Chet at first why the men had not struck out immediately for the Grub Stake trail. But after riding for about five miles, and finding that the trail was very plain, he suddenly discovered the meaning of it.
The thieves had ridden down the sloping bank of a wide but easily forded stream, in the shallows of which the trace disappeared.
“They’ve taken to the water, but we don’t know which way they’ve gone,” cried Dig, in disgust.