red automobile was empty of everything but the upholstering and a
jack in the toolbox. The state license number was gone, and the serial
number on the engine had been hammered into illegibility. What tracks
there were had been blown nearly full of the white sand of that
particular locality There was nothing to be learned there, except the
very patent fact that the machine bad been abandoned for some reason.
Luck took a look at the engine and saw nothing wrong with it. There was
oil and there was "gas"--a whole tank full. Andy and Miguel, riding
an ever-widening circle around the machine while Luck was looking for
evidence of a breakdown, ran across a lot of hoofprints that seemed to
head straight away past the rim-rock and on to the hills.

They picked up the trail of the hoofprints and followed it. When they
returned to the others they found the boys all mounted and waiting
impatiently like hounds on the leash eager to get away on the chase. Six
horses there were, and even old Applehead, who was in a bad humor that
morning and seemed to hate agreeing with anyone, admitted that probably
the four who had committed the robbery and left town in the machine had
been met out here by a man who brought horses for them and one extra
pack horse. This explained the number in the most plausible manner, and
satisfied everyone that they were on the right trail.

Riding together--since they were on a plain trail and there was nothing
to be gained by separating--they climbed to the higher mesa, crossed the
ridge of the three barren hills that none of them but Applehead had ever
passed, and went on and on and on as the hoofprints led them, straight
toward the reservation.

They discussed the robbery from every angle--they could think of, and
once or twice someone hazarded a guess at Annie-Many-Ponies' reason
for leaving and her probable destination. They wondered how old Dave
Wiswell, the dried little cattleman of The Phantom Herd, was making out
in Denver, where he had gone to consult a specialist about some kidney
trouble that had interfered with his riding all spring. Weary suggested
that maybe Annie-Many-Ponies had taken a notion to go and visit old
Dave, since the two were old friends.

It was here that Applehead unwittingly put into words the vague
suspicion which Luck had been trying to stifle and had not yet faced as
a definite idea.

"I calc'late we'll likely find that thar squaw putty tol'ble close to
whar we find Bill H