"Well, we'll take a chance on it," said Babe. "Light a fire, fellows."
In a few minutes a column of smoke was ascending, and two of the cowboys, holding a blanket over it, moved the cloth to one side at intervals, so that puffs of the dark vapor arose and floated upward.
"That'll call 'em," observed Babe, who sat on his horse directing operations, at the same time scanning the horizon for answering signals from Nort's party.
"Won't the rustlers see these and skip out?" asked Dick, as the smoke puffs went up thick and fast.
"Don't believe so," spoke Babe. "If they do see 'em they'll only think they're camp fires, or round-up blazes."
"We'll do the rounding-up," grimly commented Snake Purdee. "But of course these fellows may be on the lookout. Can't hardly expect much else after they come to know that their prisoners have skipped, and the Greaser has gone back to his baby days, eating paregoric! Oh, my spurs! That was slick!"
"There they are!" suddenly cried Dick, as he descried other smoke signals going up, about three miles away. And in a short time there rode up to the waiting ones the members of the other party.
"Dick says this is the trail in," remarked Babe, detailing our hero's reasons for his statement.
"Yes, he's right," assented Nort. "We did come this way."
"All right then! Go to it, boys!" commanded Mr. Merkel, and the party rode off.