scoured, without there being any sign of the missing boy.
“We must organize a search at once,” declared the professor. “Following on the top of that warning last night, it begins to look ominous.”
“Maybe he has lost himself, and will find his way back before long,” suggested Ralph hopefully.
Coyote Pete gloomily shook his head.
“Jack Merrill ain’t that kind,” he said; “I tell yer, I don’t like the looks of it.”
“Why not fire guns so that if he is in the vicinity he can hear them?” was Walt Phelps’ suggestion.
“Yep, and bring the whole hornets’ nest down on our ears, provided they are anywhar near,” grunted Coyote Pete. “No younker, we will have to think up a better way than that.”
“Would not the search party I suggested be the best plan?” put in the professor.
“Reckon it would,” agreed Coyote Pete; “what you kain’t find, look fur, – as the flea said to ther monkey.”
But nobody laughed, as they usually did, at Pete’s quaintly phrased observations. There was too much anxiety felt by them all over Jack’s unexplained absence.
“Shall we take the horses?” inquired Walt.
“Sartin, sure,” was the cow-puncher’s rejoinder, “don’t want ter leave ’em here for that letter writer and his pals to gobble up.”
So the stock was saddled and the pack burros loaded and “diamond hitched,” and the mournful and anxious little party got under way. It so chanced that their way led them to the little hill where Jack had stopped on the stolen horse and listened for sounds of the pursuit. Coyote’s sharp eyes at once spied the tracks, but naturally he could make nothing of them.
Suddenly Ralph Stetson, who had ridden a little in advance, gave a startled cry.
“Come here, all!” he shouted.
“What’s up now?” grunted Coyote Pete, spurring forward, followed by the others.
“Why, here’s a horse, – a dead horse, shot through the head, lying here,” was the unexpected reply.
“Well, Mr. Coyote, what do you make of it?” asked the professor, after Pete had carefully surveyed the ground in the vicinity.
“Dunno what ter make uv it yit,” snorted Pete. “Looks like ther’s something back of this, as the cat said when she looked in the mirror, and – wow!”
“What is it?” they chorused as they pressed about the spot where Coyote was pointing downward, an unusual expression of excitement on his ordinarily unemotional features.
“See that?” he demanded.
“Yes, I see several footsteps,” said the professor, “but what have they – ”
“Ter do with it? Everything. Them’s Jack Merrill’s footmarks or I lose my guess. And see here, this little wavy line, – a lariat’s dragged here. Oh, the varmints!”
“How do you construe all this?” asked the professor.
“Easy enuff. Them rascals, whoever they be, hev roped Jack, hog-tied him and dragged him off.”
“O-oh!”
The exclamation, half a groan, burst from all their throats. Examining the ground further, it seemed likely that Coyote’s construction of the case was a correct one. All of which goes to show how very far wrong a theory can go.
“Let’s hurry after them, whoever they are, and put up a fight,” cried Ralph.
“Yes, we must rescue Jack,” echoed Walt Phelps.
“Now, hold your broncs, youngsters,” warned Coyote, “in the fust place we dunno how many of them there be, and in the second we dunno jus’ whar they air. Am I right?”
“Indeed, yes,” said the professor. “Boys, you should not be so impetuous. Julius Caesar, when he – ”
“Dunno the gent,” struck in Pete, “but my advice is to kind of hunt around this vicinity and maybe we’ll find some more clews. Go easy, now, boys, and make as little noise as possible.”
A few moments later the ashes of the camp fire near which Jack had so suddenly alighted were found, but of the outlaws no trace remained. As a matter of fact, Ramon’s shouts had attracted them, and as soon as they had rescued him the camp had been abandoned in a hurry. It did not suit Ramon just then to try conclusions with the Border Boys.
“Wall, here’s whar they camped,” muttered Coyote Pete, “we certainly had some close neighbors last night.”
The boys examined the camp site with interest, while the professor and Coyote Pete conversed earnestly apart. At the conclusion of their confab, Coyote Pete spoke.
“It’s up to us to go forward, boys,” he said. “Ain’t no use lingering ’bout these diggin’s.”
“But mayn’t the bad men have turned back down the canyon?” asked Ralph.
Coyote shook his head.
“Think agin, son,” he admonished, “the floor of the gulch is too narrow for ’em to hev got by us without our knowing it.”
“That’s so,” said Walt, while Ralph colored up a bit. He didn’t like to be looked upon as a tenderfoot.
It was some time later that they reached the volcanic-looking stretch of country into the pitfalls of which Jack had fallen.
“Ugh! What a dreary place!” stammered Walt, a bit apprehensively.
Somehow they all felt the oppressive gloom in the same way. It depressed and made them silent. When they spoke at all it was in hushed tones, like folks use in church or a big museum. This is the effect of most awe-inspiring scenery, be it beautiful and grand, or merely gloomy and threatening.
“In past ages volcanic energy was at work here,” said the professor, gazing about with interest; “the formation of yonder cliffs tells an interesting story to the scientist. I wish my geological hammer was not in the packs, and I could get some specimens of the rocks. They would be excessively interesting.”
“Not half so interesting ter me as a peek at Jack Merrill,” grunted Pete. “I wish your science was capable of finding that lad for us, professor.”
“Indeed, I wish so, too,” sighed the professor, “but that is outside the realm of science. She can tell you of the past but is silent as to the future.”
“I wonder if there are any volcanoes ’round about here now?” asked Ralph, looking about rather apprehensively.
“No, indeed, the fires are long extinct,” declared the professor, “this valley was formed at a remote period when no doubt hot water geysers and fires spouted through the earth’s crust. But that will never occur again. In fact – ”
“Look! Look there!” shouted Walt, suddenly pointing off to one side of the valley.
“By Jee-hos-o-phat
