and then he told me.

Sure enough. That was smart of Fitz, I thought. But he's splendid to
read sign.

Now we followed the tracks back. The man had come down and had returned
by the same route. And up in the timber about fifty yards he had had a
horse. We read how he had been riding through, and had stopped, and got
off and walked down to the pond, and stood, and walked back and mounted
again and ridden on. All that was easy for Fitz, and I could read most
of it myself.

We trailed the horse until the tracks surely went away from the pond
into the timber country; then we let it go, and met General Ashley, to
report. General Ashley and Kit Carson also examined the prints in the
sand, and we all agreed that the man probably was left-handed.

Now, why had he come down to the edge of the pond, on purpose, and
looked at it and at us, and then turned up at a trot into the timber? It
would seem as if he might have been afraid that we had seen him, and he
didn't want to be seen. But all our guesses here and after we reached
camp again didn't amount to much, of course.

We decided to stay for the night. It was a good camp place, and we
wouldn't gain anything, maybe, by starting on, near night, and getting
caught in the timber in the dark. And this would give the burros a good
rest and a fill-up before their climb.

The burned stretch where we were was plumb full of live things--striped
chipmunks, and pine squirrels, and woodpecker families. Fitzpatrick
started in to take chipmunk pictures--and you ought to see how he can
manage a camera with one hand. He holds it between his knees or else
under his left arm, to draw the bellows out, and the rest is easy.

He scouted about and got some pictures of chipmunks real close, by
waiting, and a picture of a woodpecker feeding young ones, at a hole in
a dead pine stump. This was a good place for bear to come, after the
berries; and we were hoping that one would amble in while we were there
so that Fitz could take a picture of it, too. Bears don't hurt people
unless people try to hurt them; and a bear would sooner have raspberries
than have a man or boy, any day. Fitzpatrick thought that if he could
get a good picture of a bear, out in the open, that would bring him a
Scout's honor. Of course, chipmunk pictures help, too. But while we were
resting and fooling and taking pictures, and General Ashley was bringing
his diary and his map up to date, for record, we had another visitor.
(