he demanded of Grant,
"when you first found this out?"

"About ten minutes ago when I first waked up."

"I saw one of the men leaving," Fred explained, "but I haven't any idea
what time it was. It was in the night sometime."

"Did he go alone?" inquired the Indian.

"Yes," Fred answered.

"In which direction did he go?" asked the Navajo.

Fred pointed to his right and without a word the young Navajo instantly
ran to that side of the camp and began to inspect closely the footprints
of the men who had gone.

In a brief time he returned and said simply, "No two of the men went
together. The man with the scar went first. If the man you saw did not
have any pack then it was the short man that took it."

"How do you know they didn't go together?" inquired Grant.

"I can see their footprints. If they had gone together they would have
walked side by side or one would have been directly behind the other. That
is not the way it is."

"But how do you know that the scarred man went first?"

"Because I find a place where Zeke crossed over from one side of the way
to the other. He stepped in the footprint of the other man in one place.
Zeke's foot is bigger so I'm sure it was his print. He could not step on
the other's footprint unless he was behind him."

"But what makes you think that they both went before the man that Fred
saw?"

"Because that man did not have a pack. The pack is gone."

"But I don't see how that proves they went before. They may have left
after the other man."

The Navajo shook his head, however, and said, "They go first."

"What are we to do now?" demanded George as he joined his companions.

"The first thing we want is some breakfast and then we'll decide what next
to do," said Grant, who in spite of Fred's greater readiness to talk, now
naturally assumed the place of the leader of the three Go Ahead Boys.

At that moment, however, the Navajo again turned to the young campers and
said, "I'll go to find out where Zeke and the two men went. If I go you
three boys must stay here until I come back."

"But suppose you don't come back?" suggested Fred.

"I shall come," said the Navajo confidently.

"But suppose you don't?" said Fred again.

"If I do not come by to-morrow morning," explained Thomas Jefferson, "then
you will know that something has happened to me and you will go back if
you can find your way."

"Not much!" declared Fred. "If you don't come we shall try to find out
what has