Meanwhile at the camp fire in Hidden Valley, Grady and Bud Bledsoe were also afoot. They had awaked from their half drunken slumber, chilled to the very marrow of their bones. Even the sight of the heap of nuggets could not at first restore warmth to their hearts. There was no whiskey left in the flask—not a drain. Their teeth chattering, they piled fresh brush on the camp fire, and then a half-rotted tree stump that soon burst into flame. Then when warmth at last crept through their frames, they too made their plans for the day.
Buell Hampton and Roderick Warfield might come back. Perhaps they had camped all night in the mountain cave. In any case it would be safer to leave the canyon by the other way—by the trail along which Roderick must have entered and which was quite clearly defined in the snow as it led up the gorge. Yes; they would clear out in that direction, and Bud Bledsoe, who knew every track among the mountains, further proposed that they would then cross the range and take the west road to Rawlins. With a price on his head he himself could not enter the town—although a little later some of the new-found gold would square all that, for the present he must lie low. But he would guide Grady on the way, and the latter would get into Rawlins first and file the location papers without anyone at Encampment knowing that he had made the trip.
“That’s the dope,” cried Bud Bledsoe, as he jumped to his feet and began stuffing his pockets to their fullest capacity with the big and little slugs of gold. Grady followed his example. Then both men took up their guns, Bledsoe also the light but strong hair lariat which was his constant companion whether he was on horse or foot, and began making their way up the canyon, following the well-trodden path through the snow along which Buell Hampton and Roderick had retraced their footsteps the evening before.
It was a couple of hours later when the Major, Grant Jones, and Roderick emerged from the grotto.
“Good heavens!” exclaimed the Major. “Look there!” And with extended arm he pointed to the ascending smoke of the camp fire higher up the valley.
With the caution of deerstalkers they ascended by the stream. They found that the camp fire was abandoned. The half-gnawed bones, the empty whiskey flask, the remnant heap of nuggets, the hollows on the sand where the two men had slept—all helped to tell the tale. The names on the substituted location papers completed the story—W. B. Grady’s name and those of some dummies to hold the ground, illegally but to hold it all the same. Bud Bledsoe, the outlaw, had not ventured to affix his own name, but the big whiskey bottle left little doubt as to who had been Grady’s companion in the canyon overnight.
The miscreants had departed—the tracks of two men were clearly shown at a little distance from those left by Roderick and the Major. They had ascended the gorge.
“We have them trapped like coyotes,” declared the Major, emphatically.
“I’m not so sure about that,” remarked Grant Jones. “If there is one man in this region who knows the mountain trails and mountain craft it is Bud Bledsoe. He’ll get out of a box canyon where you or I would either break our necks to a certainty or remain like helpless frogs at the bottom of a well. Then I’ve got another idea—a fancy, perhaps, but I—don’t—just—know.”
He spoke slowly, an interval between each word, conning the chances while he prolonged his sentence.