"Were we dreaming, or did we really see something?" asked Dick, passing his hand over his eyes in dazed fashion.
"We saw something all right," asserted Nort, "and I'm wondering if I saw the same thing you did—a city—the steamer and——"
"I saw it, too," declared Dick, interrupting his brother's recital.
"But where did it go? A fog must have rolled up between us and it.
But now we know which way to ride. I don't know what town that was,
but they can tell us how to get back to Diamond X ranch."
"It's queer," murmured Nort, as Dick urged his horse in the direction of the vision they had just beheld.
"What's queer?" asked Dick.
"Seeing that town," his brother went on. "Bud never said anything about the ranch being so near a place where they had a river steamer. There isn't a boat of that size on the river around here."
"No," assented Dick. "This must be farther down. Anyhow, let's hit the trail for there. We aren't lost any more, I reckon."
"Doesn't seem," murmured Nort. But, even as the two brothers urged their tired, broncos forward, another strange thing happened. In the very same place where they had seen the vision of the town and the steamer, only to witness it vanish, there appeared in sharp detail a large ranch, with its corrals, its bunk house and main buildings.
"There! Look!" cried Dick. "There's Diamond X!"
Nort shaded his eyes with his hands, and peered long and earnestly.