"This is mighty queer!" murmured Bud as he guided his mount to and fro around the locality. "Mighty queer!"
"It's almost as if we had dreamed it," remarked Nort.
"It was no dream the way I had to pull my horse back!" declared Dick, and the others agreed with him.
"Well, I guess we'll have to give it up and put it down as part of the unsolved mystery of Dot and Dash," said Bud as he wheeled his horse around and headed for the ranch house.
"Unless you want to take a ride up there again," suggested Nort.
"Where do you mean?"
Nort pointed to the defile—that gulch which the boys had named
Smugglers' Glen—and added:
"We might catch the old man in Elixer Cave."
"What good would that do?" asked Dick. "You don't imagine he had anything to do with scaring our horses; do you?"
"Not exactly," replied his brother. "But, seeing we're so near the place, I thought we might give it the once over."