“Isn’t that a cross marked before the 1500?” asked Tom the lynx-eyed.
“I guess you are right,” said Jim, “but I don’t see as it helps any.”
“We might as well adjourn,” remarked Jo, “we have got our plan, and we can spend some time studying it out. We have had plenty of exercise for one day and we can take our time to make a good camp.”
“All right,” agreed Jim. “To-morrow it’s all hands to try to locate the Lost Mine.”
It was clear sailing now for a ways, at least so it seemed, but things are rarely what they seem, and there was a certain party of men not many miles distant whose business in that part of the country was to locate the Frontier Boys, but of this they only had a dim suspicion from the sight of the man of whom Juarez had caught a fleeting glimpse.
It did not take the boys long to cover the ground between the cabin and the place where they had left Juarez with the horses and mules. It was a little over half a mile from the shelf where the cabin stood to the group of pines where Juarez was. The upper half of the slope was covered with tall tufted grass and scattered rocks. The lower part was a long slide of sand.
“I’ll beat you tenderfeet down,” vaunted Jim.
“Let’s get an even start and I’ll show you,” said Jo, who was in truth a fleet runner. “Jeems will give us the send-off, as he is the only one who has his revolver with him.”
So they lined up on the level place in front of the cabin, while Juarez, who felt that there was something in the wind, came out into the open and watched the proceedings with interest. He saw that a race was about to take place and he stood prepared to catch the winner.
“Are you ready?” inquired Jeems in a shrill voice, and the three admitted that they were; then he extended his pistol over his head and fired. There was a sharp report, and away the boys leaped as though they, too, had been shot out of a gun. Down the steep slope they went over the tufted grass and rocks like bounding jack-rabbits. Jim was ten feet in the lead, then Jo, and Tom five feet behind him.