"He's gone, hide, hair, horns, brand an' everythin'!" was the way
Old Billee expressed it.
"How about his horse?" asked Nort.
"He didn't get his black one back," remarked Snake. "But he may have sort of helped himself to one of yours, Bud."
This was found to be the case when the corral was visited. It could hardly have been expected, in that country of great distances, that the missing cowboy would not take a horse.
"And now let's have a look at the tower," suggested Bud, when a rapid survey, under the fitful moonlight, had been made in the vicinity of the camp, and no trace of the missing man discovered. "Some one was signalling from up there, and it must have been Four Eyes."
"It could have been some one else," suggested Dick, not because he believed that, but because he wanted to sift all the evidence and get to the bottom of matters.
"Yes, it may have been a wandering cowboy, Greaser or some Indian, far from his native reservation," Bud admitted. "But I'm saying it was Four Eyes, though why he did it I can't imagine."
Nor could any of the others. Or, if they had a theory, they did not give voice to it, though, afterward, one and all said they had associated the missing cowboy with the rustlers.
But a search on and near the hastily-built watch tower disclosed nothing. On the top platform, whence, doubtless, the signalling lantern had been waved, no light was found. There were burned matches and cigarette stubs, to be sure, but these were as much the discarded property of Yellin' Kid or Snake, as of Four Eyes, for they all had taken turns doing sentry duty, and, as it was lonesome up on the high perch, smoking was indulged in.
"Well, he's away, and that's all there is to it," said Bud, when the search was over. "Now all we've got to do is to wait for something to happen."