d prepared to ride up to where the unknown man had
collapsed after Bud had fired. "You stick around! Old Billee, or some
of the boys from Diamond X may ride over, though I don't expect them
until morning. Stay here, Buck!"

"Me stick!" gutturally answered the Indian. "You catchum man
mebby--git back water."

"Maybe," agreed Bud, as he and his cousins trotted off up the trail,
which wound around the reservoir and over the mountain.

Dusk was falling as the boys reached the vicinity of the place whence
they had seen the lone rider emerge from the bushes, spurring his horse
up the rocky trail that led over Snake Mountain, as the whole ridge was
known.

"Must have been about here," said Dick, as he reined in his steed, for
which the panting animal, doubtless, was grateful.

"Little farther on, I think," said his brother.

"No, it was right here," declared Bud, as he dismounted and began to
scan the ground. "Here's where his horse slipped," and he pointed to
the tell-tale marks on the trail.

"Yes, and look--you hit him all right!" added Dick.

He indicated some dull, red spots on the stones. Bud reached down and
gingerly touched them.

"Blood!" he murmured. "Guess I did wing him--or the horse--but I don't
see how I could. I fired high."

"But where did he go?" asked Nort, following the marks left by a horse
that had, obviously, been hard pressed. "See, the sign goes right up
to this rocky wall, and then stops. He couldn't have gotten up there,
could he?"

"Not unless he wore wings," said Bud grimly. "But it's getting too
dark to see well. We'd better be getting back to camp."

"I thought you were going to follow this up, and see what had happened
to your pipe line," suggested Dick.

"I am, but we can't ride on without some grub. No telling what we may
stack up against. We'll have to make a night ride of it, I'm thinking,
and I'd like to have Buck Tooth along. He's a shark on following a
blind trail. Come on, we'll go back to camp, get some grub and then
take this up again. I hope I didn't kill him, though," murmured Bud,
as he again leaped to the saddle, an example followed by Nort and Dick.

"Who was he?" asked the latter, puffing slightly from his exertions,
for he was much stouter than his brother Nort.

"Search me!" replied Bud. "Looked mighty suspicious, though, the way
he rode off. And if he wasn't up to something wrong he'd 'a' stopped
when I hailed him."

"Do you think he had