cely finished their simple breakfast when Jack Cales gave a
sudden alarm.

"Cap'n," he cried, "I see two men legging it our way. They are making
straight for the hill."

"I guess they are coming to see why Manuello doesn't show up with the
cows," remarked the Captain, "we don't want to stir up this hen roost as
we've got other chicken to fry. So we'll git."

"Take the greaser?" inquired Jack.

"You and the mate fetch him," said the Captain.

Just as the two men were mounting the hill, the Captain and his crew
made a swift sneak down the opposite slope, and were soon making their
way through the bush towards the foot-hills. In a minute they heard the
cries of the two men as they drove the herd of cows towards the home
ranch for the morning milking. The sun had now risen above the eastern
range just in front of them and was blazing down upon the plain and the
sea beyond. There was something exhilarating in the air in spite of the
heat.

"We don't need the company of that greaser any further," said Captain
Broom, after they had made some headway up a canyon back of the ranch
buildings. So they took some rope grass, tough as manilla, and tied him
firmly, and, after having gagged him, they left him to be found later by
some of his countrymen.

Then they toiled steadily up the trail of the canyon, until about noon
they reached a pocket in the canyon where there was a pool of clear
water fed by an invisible spring. Coming to meet them were four boys
riding up the trail on the other side of the range.

CHAPTER VIII

THE CAMP IN THE POCKET

Under the guidance of the Mexican dwarf, the four boys came at last to a
halt. It seemed as if the canyon down which they had been riding had
come to an end for there was a wall of rock directly in front of them.

"Down there, Senor, is a pool of clear water," announced the Mexican.

"Glad to hear it, Manuel," said Jim heartily.

"Did you ever see a picture, Jim," put in Juarez significantly, "of a
pool where the thirsty animals have to come to drink and before they get
their noses in the water the hunter shoots them?"

But nothing of this dire nature happened and in a few minutes the
famished animals were pumping the delicious water down their long, baked
throats.

"My Gracious, but that tastes good!" cried Tom, drawing in a long,
gasping breath, after he had been drinking steadily for about a minute.
"It makes my head swim."

"I should think it would," said Jo,