as considerable. After a while they reached the
top of the ridge, expecting to find Jo, Tom and Jeems waiting for
them. But there was no sign of them anywhere.

"What do you suppose has become of them?" inquired Juarez.

"Maybe that mysterious stranger has stolen them," suggested Jim.

"Let's see if we cannot find their tracks," said Juarez. This was done
without difficulty.

"Here's a track that looks like a gorilla's," remarked Jim, inspecting
the dust of the trail.

"Must be Jeems'," grinned Juarez.

"These other tootsie tracks are Tommy's and Jo's, I reckon," said Jim.

"But why did they walk instead of ride?" inquired Juarez.

"They didn't intend to go far and thought it just as easy to walk,"
explained Jim.

Just then there came a faint halloo that caused the boys to look up.

"There's Jeems, the beanstalk," cried Jim.

"Where?" asked Juarez.

"See that shadow standing on that rock way over yonder?" inquired Jim.

"Yes."

"That's him."

"What do you suppose that they are doing over there?" asked Juarez.

"We won't be long in finding out," replied Jim.

"There's Jeems' castle," said Juarez, after they had ridden a few
hundred yards, pointing to a speck high up on the mountain side.

Juarez was right, for Jeems and the other boys soon met them with the
news that they had located the cabin where they hoped to find the plan
that would give them a clue to the location of the Lost Mine.

"Have a hard chase after the mules, Jim?" inquired Jo as they climbed
up a steep slope towards the cabin.

"You ought to have been along," remarked Jim significantly.

"I hope Juarez don't let 'em get away this time," said Tom.

"If you must worry, why don't you take something probable," remarked
Jim severely. "Like Jeems running off to become a circus rider."

"You would have thought that he was a circus rider sure enough,"
laughed Jo, "if you could have seen him riding down that slope this
morning, with his feet stuck straight out in front of him, and yelling
whoa to 'Mosquito.'"

"I thought," said Jeems sadly, "that if I held my feet that way that
they would offer enough resistance to the air to stop or slow up
Mosquito,--but they didn't."

CHAPTER XVIII

THE DIAGRAM

"What's the use of being a philosopher and a thinker, Jeems," inquired
Jim, after the roar of laughter had spent itself at his ludicrous
remark, "if you can't invent some way to stop a mite of a pony like
Mosquito?"

"There i