They returned to their companions, ate breakfast, and saddled. It was by this time light enough to be moving. The trail was easy as a printed map, for the object of the outlaws had been haste rather than secrecy. The posse covered it swiftly and without hesitation. “Now, I wonder why this trail don’t run straight south instead of bearing to the left into the hills. Looks like they’re going to cache their stolen gold up in the mountains before they risk crossing into Sonora. They figure Bucky’ll be on the lookout for them,” the sheriff said to his deputy. “I believe you’ve guessed it, Val. Stands to reason they’ll want to get rid of the loot soon as they can. Oh, hell!” Dillon’s disgust proved justifiable, for the trail had lost itself in a mountain stream, up or down which the outlaws must have filed. A month later and the creek would have been dry. But it was still spring. The mountain rains had not ceased feeding the brook, and of this the outlaws had taken advantage to wipe out their trail. The sheriff looked anxiously at the sky. “It’s fixin’ to rain, Jim. Don’t that beat the Dutch? If it does, that lets us out plenty.” The men they were after might have gone either upstream or down. It was impossible to know definitely which, nor was there time to follow both. Already big drops of rain were splashing down. “We’ll take a chance, and go up. They’re probably up in the hills somewhere right now,” said Collins, with characteristic decision. He had guessed right. A mile farther upstream horses had clambered to the bank and struck deeper into the hills. But already rain was falling in a brisk shower. The posse had not gone another quarter of a mile before the trail was washed out. They were now in a rough and rocky country getting every minute steeper. “It’s going to be like lookin’ for a needle in a haystack, Val,” Dillon growled. Collins nodded. “We ain’t got one chance in a hundred, Jim, but I reckon we’ll take that chance.” For three days they blundered around in the hills before they gave it up. The first night, about dusk, the pursuers were without knowing it so warm that one of the bandits lay with his rifle on a rock rim not a stone’s throw above them as they wound through a little ravine. But Collins got no glimpse of the robbers. At last he reluctantly gave the word to turn back. Probably the men he wanted had already slipped down to the plains and across to Mexico. If not, they might play hide and seek with him a month in the recesses of these unknown mountains. Next morning the sheriff struck a telephone wire, tapped it, got Sabin on the line, told him of his failure and that he was returning to Tucson. About the middle of the afternoon the dispirited posse reached its sidetracked special.