"'Did you get him?'
"'Just in time,' I replied, 'he was helping himself to our pack animals, when I arrested him with my rifle.'
"'Where is he now?' Tom inquired.
"'Oh, he is down the canyon a ways snugly tied up in a bundle.'
"I determined to get some idea of where the missing boys were. So I left Tom to guard the pack animals and I rode down to the mouth of the canyon and found the trail easily, where they had ridden south in the search for antelope.
"I was by this time thoroughly alarmed, and the conviction forced itself on me that they had been killed by the Apaches, but I shook the thought off. I would not have it so.
"That Jim and Jo were in difficulties of some kind was certain, and it was up to me to get them out of it. But what should I do, and where should I look? Then suddenly the problem was solved for me. I had ridden to a place where I could see the whole sweep of plains to the south, but keeping under cover of the growth of oaks that fringed the base of the foot hills, when I saw a war party of Apaches at a distance of several miles, making straight for the mountain.
"Instinctively I recognized their object and I likewise knew that so large a party would not be going back into the mountains so late in the day unless upon some special quest.
"In a short time the whole party of braves had disappeared into a canyon whose location I marked exactly. They have got those boys corraled in there, I said to myself, there is no question about that. I bet they are making a brave fight, those two, but they will have reinforcements pretty soon, or my name is not Captain Graves.
"'Did you see any signs of them?' inquired Tom eagerly, as I came up to him.