. Were they hucksters to split hairs, to measure chances,
when their comrade's life hung in the balance? As for the risks--well,
let them come. They had faced death before and won out. Perhaps they
would again. If not--there were worse things than death. At least they
could die like men.

They thrust their weapons in their belt, threw a handful of cartridges in
either pocket, leaped from the car and started on a run up the road.

As they ran, they gathered speed. The road fell away like a white ribbon
behind them. The wind whistled in their ears. The canter they had
already indulged in had put them in form and their anxiety gave wings to
their feet. No time to spare themselves when every minute was
precious--fraught with the chances of life or death. More than once
they had run for glory--now perhaps they were running for a life. And
at the thought they quickened their pace until they were fairly flying.

Their keen eyes scanned each side of the path for some sign of Dick's
presence, but not until they came to the turn in the road was their
search rewarded. Then they stopped abruptly.

Something had happened here. There were no signs of a struggle, but the
ground was torn up as though by the pawing of horses. The upturned earth
was fresh at the edges and the prints of hoofs could be clearly seen. A
bit of cloth fluttered on a tree and a broken strap lay on the ground.
An ace of spades near by made it look as though a card game had been
suddenly interrupted and this impression gathered force from the presence
of an empty bottle that still smelled strongly of mescal, the villainous
whisky of the Mexicans.

Like hounds on the scent the boys circled round the spot, trying to get
the meaning of the signs. Their experience in camping had made them the
keenest kind of woodmen and they could read the forest like an open book.
Bert's sharp eyes caught sight of the bark of a sapling freshly gnawed.
By its height from the ground he knew at once that this had been made by
the teeth of a broncho. The mark of a strap a little lower down showed
that the beast had been tethered there. All around the clearing he went,
until he had satisfied himself that at least twenty horses had been
standing there a little while before.

Tom in the meantime had been studying the hoofprints. One of them
especially arrested his attention. He followed the trail some hundred
feet and came running back to Bert.

"One of those ho