"Tosh?"
"Yes."
"How could he have anything to do with Bud staying away all night?"
"That's it. I don't know. I'm just wondering. Tosh is a queer old crank, you know, and he may have met Bud and tried to sell him some more of the stuff that Fah Moo got sick on."
"Well, there'd be no harm in that," remarked Billee. "Old Tosh probably tries to sell everybody he meets some of his dope, on the plea that it'll save them from the fate that overtakes so many in Death Valley. No harm in that. Poor, old crank!"
"No harm in trying to sell—no," assented Nort. "But if Bud didn't buy any bottles of the stuff—and he wouldn't be likely to—Tosh might have got mad and kicked up a row. There might have been a fight and——"
"Oh, I don't think so!" interrupted Dick. "That's a little too far fetched."
"Well, almost anything might have happened," argued Nort. "But I wish we'd find him!"
The others heartily echoed the thought. They were nearing, now, the entrance to the defile, or Smugglers' Glen. The sun was just peeping up above the line of round hills which represented the horizon. A new day was being born, but to those from Dot and Dash ranch it was not a joyful day—or it would not be if the mystery over Bud remained unsolved.
"I wonder if, by any chance, he could be up in there," mused Nort.