The men themselves were as much out of the common way as were the clothes they wore, but they had somehow managed to keep their horses and mules in pretty good condition.
Horses and mules are of more importance than clothing to men who are far away from tailors and civilization as were these new-comers in the neighborhood of Steve's mine.
If Steve had seen them he would probably have trembled for the "Buckhorn," for Murray would at once have told him that these men were miners.
That was nothing against them, certainly, and they must have been daring fellows to push their hunt for gold so far beyond any region known to such hunters.
One look at their hard, reckless faces would have convinced anybody about their "daring." They looked as if they were ready for anything.
So they were, indeed; and it is quite probable a man of Murray's experience would have guessed at once that they were ready for a good many other things besides mining.
Just now, certainly, they were thinking something else.
"Bill," said the foremost rider to a man a little behind him, "we were wrong to leave the trail of them army fellers. We're stuck and lost in here among the mountains."
"It looks like It. We'll hev to go into camp and scout around till we find a pass. But it wasn't any use follerin' the cavalry arter we found they was bound west."
"That's so. It won't do for us to come out on the Pacific slope. It's Mexico or Texas for us."