"Or being chased," Dick added.
"Perhaps he met a smuggler, Dick."
"Smuggler—'way up here? Not a chance! Say, Nort, you've got smugglers on the brain. You seem to think they ride around with big signs pinned on them—'I am a smuggler—shoot me.' Suppose the Kid did meet a smuggler—how'd he know him from any other man?"
"That's right—guess he wouldn't," admitted Nort, a trifle shamefacedly. "But you know what he told us about that marshal being shot."
"Oh, yes, but marshals get shot nearly every day, somewhere—and maybe it wasn't a Chink smuggler that shot him after all—maybe it was just an ordinary gang of rustlers."
"Well, you can say what you like, Dick, but I'll lay odds we see some excitement when we reach Roaring River."
"We'll see some excitement sooner than that, if we don't find the Kid. See here—if he made this trail, he was going fast—and in this direction. Let's get on our way."
"Better go back, do you think?" Nort asked as he looked up toward the sun. "We've been gone at least an hour, and Billee said to return within that time."
"Yes," Dick responded, a little sadly, for he and Yellin' Kid were close friends. "I sure hope the Kid's all right. Perhaps some of the others picked him up."
"Perhaps. Let's hope so. At any rate, we haven't had much success—and I doubt even that the torn brush we saw was done by the Kid."