"There are no side passages here," declared Bud. And he seemed to hold the correct view of it, the others agreeing, after a careful inspection of the rocky and shale-covered walls on either hand. "It looks just as if they came up to this point and—vanished!"
"Pretty slick work—I'll give Del Pinzo credit for that," said Slim, as if it were already established that the wily Greaser halfbreed had made the descent on Happy Valley. "How he and his bunch could haze cattle this far into a rocky pass, an' then make 'em disappear, gets me!"
"It shore do!" shouted Yellin' Kid.
"But that doesn't change the fact that we're all switched around," declared Bud. "We're going north instead of south!"
"Not so hard to account for that," said Snake. "This vale just naturally twists and turns like a windin' river. I wouldn't wonder but what we'd been going north other times, only you never noticed your compass, Bud."
"Well, maybe so," admitted the boy rancher, rather dubiously. "But it looks as if we were back-trailing, instead of keeping on after those rascals."
"We're keeping on all right!" asserted Slim. "By some hook or crook they've fooled us, but we haven't passed 'em, that's certain, and they must be somewhere up ahead. It would take Rocky Mountain goats to scramble up there," he added, motioning toward the steep walls of the gorge. "Some trick ponies might do it, but no cattle ever could, unless they're like some of them Swiss cheese brand I seen in pictures!"
"Then do you think we should keep on?" asked Dick.
"I shore do!" declared the foreman.
"Forward march!" cried Bud, with a little laugh. "We want to get our cattle back, and catch the rustlers who took 'em!"