Professor Blair turned and looked sharply at the half breed. Then the scientist, speaking, said:
"Del Pinzo, perhaps you had better return and watch that the next blast harms no one. We would not want an accident."
The half breed hesitated for a moment, and then murmured:
"Si, senor!" ("Yes, sir!")
He turned back up the hill, Dick and Nort continued down it toward the tents.
"Picket your horses and come in," invited Professor Wright, as he held open the flap of what was, evidently, the private dining tent of himself and his college companion. "I'll have Sing Wah fix you up a little feed."
"This is mighty kind of you," murmured Dick, as he and his brother sat at the folding camp table and ate hungrily.
"And now all we want is to be put on the trail to Diamond X," said
Nort, as they finished. "We'll let the cattle go, for the time being."
He rose to leave the tent, followed by his brother, but, as the boys neared the flap a man, who, they remembered, had been called Silas Thorp, interposed his ugly bulk in front of them.
"Don't be in a hurry to leave, boys," he sneered.