"I don't fear him as much as I do the cunning and treachery of that old villain, Flying Sun, who plans these raids and lets the young men execute them while he stays back in a safe place."

"What interests me more than anything else just now is Stella and Bud. I propose that we drop everything else and hunt for them. You know that since the appearance of the man without a face, and now this encounter with the Indians, to say nothing of sending Sol Flatbush's body home on his horse, the members of the Whipple gang will be pretty keen after every member of our party."

"True, Ben. We must be very careful of Stella from now on. I would not have taken this ranch had I known that it was menaced by such a gang of thieves as seems to be in the mountains."

"Where had we better scout?" asked Ben.

"Do you think Bud and Stella went farther west?"

"Yes. As we started away from the ranch house I heard Bud say to Stella, 'When the gang came out of the corral just before daylight I saw that most of them headed into the west. If we go that way we're sure to beat the others to the trail.' Then I saw them slip away quietly back of the house, and later they disappeared over a rise due west."

"Then that's where we must look for them. Forward, fellows. We're going to find Bud and Stella."

"Do you think it is necessary for all of us to go?" asked Kit.

"No, I don't. The ranch must have a guard of some sort. About half of you turn back to the lines, and two of you ride to the ranch house to see that all is well, and guard it."

Ben sorted out the fellows who were to go back to the ranch, keeping all the broncho boys to start on the hunt for the missing ones.

No one felt exactly uneasy for the safety of Stella and Bud, but it was proper, under the circ.u.mstances, to see that they were safe.

"As before, we will split up into couples to search for Bud and Stella,"

said Ted. "You better come with me this time, Ben."

To the west of the line of the Long Tom Ranch the land became more broken. At first the hills ceased to be rolling and broke off into canons, more or less deep, with sometimes sides that a.s.sumed the dignity of precipices.

The sides of the foothills were clothed in small tracts of scrubby pine timber, and altogether it was not a pleasant country to travel over in winter.

When Bud and Stella left the ranch house, Stella was bubbling over with joy at the prospect of being in the hunt for the Indians, and the prospect of Bud teaching her the mysteries of the trail, particularly the war trail.

"Don't say a word," said Bud, with a wink, "an' we'll fool 'em all. Them Injuns never went nowhere except inter ther east. I throwed out a blast o' hot atmosphere erbout them goin' west. That wuz ter fool ole nosey Ben, who had his neck stretched out like a spring chicken's ter hear what was bein' said, an' git ther advantage o' my sooperior knowledge.

"Well, when I see that I thort I'd give him somethin' ter chase, so I hands out the west p'int, when I mean ter go ter ther east. When we start out we'll ride ter ther west until we come ter ther first draw, then foller it ter ther south until we come ter a break leadin' east, then foller that, an' we'll be fust onter ther red man's tracks."

"All right," laughed Stella. "That will be a good joke on Ben. He didn't like it because he couldn't go with us."

Now it will be seen that Bud's little fiction in the hearing of Ben was not the proper thing, and, as it turned out, Bud was mighty sorry for his apparently innocent fib before the end of the day, or the dawning of the next.

They did as Bud planned, and when they were well out of sight and hearing of the other boys they turned to the east, and, when well out on the prairie, turned their ponies' heads to the north.

As they cantered across the prairie, on which the snow was like dry sand and only about an inch deep, they could see bands of their cattle here and there pawing the snow off the gra.s.s, or "rustling" for their fodder, as the cowmen call it.

"I sh.o.r.e believe thar's somethin' wrong on this yere range," Bud remarked, after they had gone a few miles.

"Why?" asked Stella.

"Somethin' wrong with ther cattle."

"In what way?"

"Thar ain't half enough o' them here."

"Do you mean that some of them are gone?"

"Yep. Thet's jest what I mean."

"Strayed, probably?"

"No. Stole."

"Nonsense. Who could have stolen them? The Indians?"

"No. I reckon not. The Injuns is keen after ponies. In the fust place thar ain't n.o.body what kin wear out a pony as fast as an Injun. They work their ponies ter death, starve 'em, beat ther hides off'n 'em, neglect 'em, and when they're wore out turn 'em loose fer ther wolves.

Second, they kin run off a bunch o' ponies in a hurry, but they balk some at rustlin' cattle because they move so slow. If we aire shy on beeves ther white men has got 'em."

"When we get back we ought to round the cattle up and count."

"That's ther only way ter do it. I've got a pretty good eye fer a herd, an' it's my idee thet we're losers here, an' that ther rustlers is gittin' rich off'n us."

About noon Bud pulled in his horse, and examined the snowy ground carefully.

He had struck a trail.

Winding across the prairie in a northeasterly direction was a broad trail, the tracks of many cattle and horses.

"Here we are," said Bud. "Thar's whar some o' our cattle and several ponies have pa.s.sed."

He got down to the ground, and, stooping over the trail, regarded it carefully.

Suddenly he straightened up.

"This is not an Injun trail," he said.

"It isn't?" asked Stella.

"No. Here are the tracks of cattle, an' on top of them those of horses ridden by white men."

"How do you know they were not Indians?"

"Here's an impression o' a horseshoe, an' here's another o' a different size. These were made by animiles ridden by white men."

"I can understand why you should know that they were white men's horses because Indians do not shoe their ponies, but I'm blessed if I can see how you know that white men were riding them."

"Easy enough. These horses were ridden straight. An Indian, in spite of stories to the contrary, is not a good horseman. He rides all over the ground instead of straight ahead when he is going anywhere, seemin' as if he wanted to get his money's worth of the ride. If it had been Indians who were driving off these cattle, you would see pony tracks all over the prairie about here."

"Then we've struck the wrong trail."