For the entire three days the boys, Carl Alvin, Jack Stovall and Oscar Chaney had had a little camp together in a pass so small that it was with difficulty space could be found to quarter their mustangs. The place possessed many advantages, however; it was wild and secluded, and from a point part way up on the bluff they could see, between a deeply gashed opening in the barren, rocky walls, a bit of the cup-shaped valley, and beyond the “Rio Bravo.”
On the morning of the fourth day Tom Clifton, rolled up in his blanket, was sleeping peacefully, when a light nudge on the shoulder suddenly awakened him. Starting up with an exclamation, he saw Carl Alvin’s hand raised in a warning gesture.
“Not a sound, Tom,” exclaimed the Ranger, in a scarcely audible voice. “Come with me—bring your field-glass along.”
As effectually as though cold water had been dashed upon him, his drowsy feelings vanished. Rising to his feet and throwing the blanket aside, with field-glass in hand he followed the Ranger.
With all the precautions that Alvin took, Tom worked his way up the slope, presently reaching the Ranger’s side. Eagerly his eyes were turned toward the cup-shaped valley, to see something which brought a faint exclamation from his lips.
Somber and dark against the water of the Rio Grande were the figures of several horsemen. In a few minutes more they would reach the shore.
“Rustlers!”
The words, low and tense, were whispered in the Ranger’s ears. Carl Alvin, his face stern and thoughtful, nodded: “It looks that way, Tom. And we have them bottled up. The only thing to do is to nab them as suspects and work up the evidence afterward. If they’re the guilty parties, count on the Rangers to find a way to prove it!”
The Rambler, crouching behind the shelter of a shelving piece of rock, raised the field-glass, and the moment his eyes took in the riders under this changed condition he gave vent to a whistle of great astonishment.
The man leading the advance was the benevolent-looking Mexican who had ridden with him a few days before across the plains.