"Or smelled them," added Nort.
"That's right—smelled 'em, either, and, what's more, I don't want to!
No, I don't believe it was skunks."
"Rattlesnakes, maybe," was Dick's next contribution. "Horses are afraid of rattlers all right."
"Yes, and with good reason," Bud said, "though I don't know as I ever heard of a horse dying from a side-winder's bite. It may happen, but, personally, I can't prove it. All the same I don't believe it was rattlers, though there are plenty in this region."
"Why couldn't it have been snakes?" asked Dick.
"Well, if any rattlers had sounded their warning, and they always do rattle before they strike, we would have heard them as well as the horses would, and I didn't hear anything."
"No, I didn't, either," Dick and Nort admitted in turn. "But what was it, then?" Nort asked.
"It was something the horses smelled!" declared Bud with conviction. "They got a whiff of something they didn't like and they lit out like all possessed."
"Do you mean a bear?" asked Dick.
"Bear what?" came from Bud who had urged his pony somewhat ahead of the mounts of his cousins.