gully all of ten feet wide and of great
depth.

"Humph!" he muttered, as he came to a halt. "I can't jump that. How am I
to get over?"

This question was not easy to answer.

Looking up and down the opening, no bridge, either natural or
artificial, was presented to view.

"I'll have to cut a pole and use that," he thought. "There is no use to
tramp up and down looking for a spot to cross."

His pocketknife was still safe, and he drew it out and went to work with
a will on a sapling growing some distance from the gully's edge.

The sapling had just been laid low and Allen was on the point of
dragging it away when sounds broke upon his ear that filled him with
surprise. He heard human voices, and one of them was that of a man he
had encountered on the road, the fellow who had been riding Chet's
horse!

"I reckon you have missed the road, Saul," said the man in a disgusted
tone.

"No, I ain't missed nuthin'," was the reply. "So don't you go for to
croak so much, Darry."

"Well, we don't appear to be makin' much headway," growled the fellow
addressed as Darry.

"We'll come out all right, never fear. It's this yere blamed gully
bothers me. We might git over afoot, but we can't cross it on the
hosses."

Allen crouched back behind a bush, and a moment later the two men
appeared in the opening near the gully. The fellow called Darry still
rode Chet's horse, while he addressed as Saul was astride of Paul's
animal. Behind the pair came a tall negro, riding a mustang and leading
two others, little animals looking much the worse for constant and hard
usage.

"Dis yere ditch doan' seem ter git no narrower, nohow," said the colored
man, with a good-natured grin. "I dun racken we might as well build a
bridge an done with it."

"By the boots, but I reckon Jeff is about half right," cried Darry.
"This split may last clear across the hill."

"It's not so easy to build a bridge," grumbled he called Saul, who
appeared to be the leader of the trio. "We ain't got no axes."

"Well, I move we take a rest, anyway," said Darry. "I'm tired of riding
a strange hoss over these yere hills."

"All right, we'll lay off and have a bite of the stuff in Jeff's
haversack," replied the leader of the crowd.

They dismounted not over two rods from where Allen lay hidden in the
brush, hardly daring to breathe. Being unarmed and knowing the temper of
the rascals only too well, the young man kept himself covered and made
not the slight