de herd on these," said Bud. "I
don't want to take any more chances with 'em. Haze the outlaws back
this way, fellows!"

Eager to have this responsibility, and to do something "on their own,"
Dick and his brother spurred away. And before they realized it, Nort
and Dick found themselves down in a depression, whence they could catch
sight neither of the small knot of cattle they had started out to haze
back, nor the main herd.

"Say, where are we?" asked Dick, slowing up his pony, and looking about
him. He and Nort were down in a green valley, with hills all around,
but no sign of life--animal or human. "Where are we?"

Nort paused a moment before replying. Then, as he drew rein and
listened, he said:

"Lost, I reckon!"

CHAPTER XVI

THE VISION

Though Nort spoke with an appearance of calmness, there was something
in his voice that made Dick catch his breath. It was not that the
younger lad was exactly afraid, but he was on the verge of becoming so.

"Lost, eh?" repeated Dick. Then, as he saw a half smile on Nort's
face, and looked about on what was really a beautiful scene, his little
worry seemed to vanish as mists roll away in the sun. "Well, if we're
lost it isn't such a bad place to be in, and I reckon we can easily
find our way back. 'Tisn't like being lost in the woods, as we once
were."

"No," agreed Nort, "it isn't." They had gone camping once, with their
father, and had wandered off in a forest, being "lost" all night,
though, as it developed later, not far from their own folks.

"And I don't see why we can't easily ride back the way we came," went
on Dick.

"We can, if we find the way," agreed Nort. "But I seem all turned
around. And I don't like to go back without those cattle. We offered
to ride off after 'em and bring 'em back, and we ought to do it."

"But where are they?" asked Dick, "and where's the main herd? That
isn't so small that you could hide it in one of these valleys!"

They were, as I have said, in the midst of a rolling country, where
swales or valleys were interspersed with hills. One moment they had
held in view the small bunch of steers that had wandered away from the
main herd, but, in another instant, there was no sign of them.

"Listen, and see if you can hear anything," suggested Nort.

Quietly the boy ranchers sat on their horses; the only sounds being the
creaking of the damp saddle and stirrup leathers as the animals moved
slightly. But there