“Sure!” admitted Chet promptly. “I’ve been looking sharply for signs, and so have you. But everything or anything is possible on the trail. We aren’t the smartest fellows who ever lived, Dig. If we were only a little bit smarter we wouldn’t have been robbed at all.”
“Don’t rub it in,” grumbled Digby. “I hold myself responsible for all this trouble.”
“I don’t hold you responsible. Just bad luck and bad figuring. I am fully as much to blame as you are. I had reason to believe we were being followed, and you hadn’t. Humph! No use crying over spilled milk.”
“That’s all right,” said Dig. “But where are we going to camp to-night? In the open, or shall we push on to that timber?”
“We’ll be more sheltered there,” Chet said, gazing ahead at the distant line of trees. “There is water between here and there. We can let the horses drink, refill our canteens, and push on for the woods.”
“Just as you say. Get up, Poke!”
The timber was much farther away than it seemed, however. The boys did find water; rather, they let the horses find it for them. But it was an open water-hole and the sun had evaporated the water until it was very low.
“Maybe there will be a running stream in the woods. This is as flat as dishwater,” declared Dig, tasting it. “’Tisn’t fit to drink straight. Wish we could boil some of our coffee.”
“Let’s keep on to the timber and make a regular camp,” Chet advised. “Then I’ll rig something to hold a canteen over the fire and make coffee.”
“You can’t do it.”