With the slackening of pace, Alden scanned the ground in front. The course did not lead between cliffs and high precipices, as was the case where he began his journey, but it was as if the same plateau had taken an upward slope and gained many more boulders and masses of rock in doing so. A horse might keep straight on or swerve to the right or left. There seemed to be any number of routes. For the first time the youth interfered with the pace of his animal. Certain that he would exhaust himself by running up the slope, Alden pulled gently on the rein. The pony flirted his head impatiently and refused to put on the brakes. “Your nerve will kill you,” said the rider, resigning the attempt for the moment. The incline grew steeper. Alden pulled harder and the pony dropped to a walk, but plainly he did not like it. “No use, Dick; I shan’t let you kill yourself; you forget that I’m heavier than your late master and it is cruelty to allow you to gallop up hill.” The rocks became so plentiful that the rider could not see far ahead or on either hand. He reflected that the neighborhood must be a tempting one to redskins or road agents, for the latter class of criminals was one of the pests of overland travel in the early days. Less than half a mile to the left and in advance, rose a range or spur to the height of several hundred feet. It swept round to the northward, so that if the rider kept straight on, he must cross it, or make a long detour to the northeast. With Dick on a walk, Alden scanned each point of the compass, not forgetting the instruction of Shagbark always to look to the rear, for in that part of the world, danger comes from one direction as often as from the other. While scrutinizing the ridge which showed a considerable growth of dwarfed pine, Alden was startled to observe a thin column of smoke issuing from a point on the crest. The bluish vapor climbed straight up into the clear sky, where it slowly dissolved. Its course showed that not the slightest breeze was blowing. “It looks like an Indian signal,” he thought; “I wonder if it has anything to do with _me_.” He brought his binocular to the front and raised it to his eyes. Little resulted from the action. The fire which caused the vapor was burning behind a rock, beyond reach of the glass. He could not catch the faintest sight of it. The natural supposition was that if this finger of smoke was a signal from one party of red men to another, something would show in the nature of a reply. He swept every point of the horizon with the instrument, but that which he dreaded to see he did not discover. Still this fact might signify nothing. Alden could not rid himself of the fear that the signal referred to him. Its precise meaning was beyond guessing. Shagbark might have solved the puzzle, but his young friend could not.