"

"Nick Porter? He's over to the mine. Seen him there this afternoon."

"He's not there now. He left the mine and came this way."

"Well, I haven't seen him, an' he ain't here."

With that Pete Loco shut the door, and Frank could hear him shoot the
bolt. Turning away, Frank met Clancy just coming around the corner of
the house.

"Loco says he doesn't know anything about our man, Clancy," reported
Frank.

"I guess he's telling the truth, Chip," Clancy replied. "I can't find
any extra live stock around, and it's hardly possible, anyhow, that
Porter would stop such a short distance from the mine. It's a safe bet
that he's gone on to McGurvin's."

Frank was in a quandary.

"This adobe," said he, "is at the forks of the trail. One branch goes to
the mine and Ophir, and the other leads to Gold Hill. It's just possible
that Porter took the Gold Hill fork and didn't go on to McGurvin's."

"He wouldn't do that, Chip." Clancy answered. "If he had wanted to go to
Gold Hill he would have turned north from the mine and taken the shorter
road through Ophir."

"Unless," Frank qualified, "he had reasons for not wanting to pass
through Ophir. Porter might have thought that we would use the telephone
if he went that way, and have some one stop him."

"Tell you what we can do," Clancy suggested, taken somewhat with Merry's
logic and yet not quite satisfied to recede from his own position, "we
can go on to McGurvin's; then, if we don't overhaul Porter on the road,
or pick up any clews at McGurvin's, we can come back and take the Gold
Hill fork from here. We can get over the ground like an express train
with these machines, and can ride circles all around that horse that
carried the prospector away from the mine."

"Good!" agreed Frank. "We'll see how long it will take us to get to
McGurvin's. It's only seven or eight miles."

"Hit 'er up, Chip," cried the red-headed chap; "you won't find me taking
any of your dust."

Once more they got their machines in motion along the trail. The going
was none too good, and Merry got his machine going at a pace that might
have been reckless had not the brilliant, far-flung rays of the
searchlight laid the way so clearly before his eyes.

"That the best you can do?" called Clancy, whirring along at his chum's
side.

"This will do," Frank answered. "We're not on a boulevard, remember."

Clancy gave a laugh of sheer exhilaration, for the thrill of that wild
dash through the night and