“I am going to reimburse Cody and the baron,” went on McGowan, “for their time and the loss of some of their valuables when they were roped in the hills and taken to that old shaft.” “That’s the least you can do, Mac,” said Rising, climbing into the buckboard. “Well, _adios_, friends, till we meet again.” “_Adios_, gentlemen,” called the scout. The sheriff whipped up his horses and the buckboard with its passengers was soon out of sight in the gully. CHAPTER XI. DELL, OF THE “DOUBLE D.” “Waugh! Jest lis’en ter thet, will ye? Ther pizen noise seems ter come from every which way. Trailin’ tracks ter ther place whar they goes is er heap easier than trailin’ er noise like thet ter ther place whar et comes from. Whoa, you gangle-legged ole hide-rack, y’u! Stand still fer a brace o’ shakes while I tries ter sense ther location o’ thet distressin’ whoop.” The speaker was Nick Nomad. As was quite frequently the case when Nomad was journeying alone, he was conversing with himself. The “gangle-legged old hide-rack” to which he referred was his horse--a rangy, ranch-bred cayuse, all leather and springs. Horse and rider were in a high-walled basin, formed by the opening out of a gulch through which ran the wagon-trail from McGowan’s mine, to the town of Phœnix, in Arizona. At its widest, the basin would measure probably an eighth of a mile across. Its bottom was level as a floor and overgrown with mesquit, greasewood, and thorn. Nomad, entering the basin from the gulch on the north, was crossing to the gulch on the south. He was close to the center of the basin when he heard a prolonged: “Whoo-yah-h-h!” The walls of the basin caught up the sound and sent it echoing and reechoing across the intervening spaces, the result being a bewildering clamor coming from everywhere at once, and from nowhere in particular. “Sartain shore,” muttered old Nomad, cocking up his ear and puzzling his brain, “thar’s another human in this hyar place, an’ he ain’t feelin’ jest right in his mind, someways. But whar is he? Thet’s ther p’int. Ther noises aire all tangled up, an’ et seems like thar was er hundred voices callin’. We got ter make er try, anyways, ole hoss. As er starter, we’ll bushwhack ter ther right.” The trapper turned from the wagon-trail and spurred into the chaparral. “Whoo-e-e!” he shouted, as he forced his way through the brush. The echoes of his call were taken up by another “Whoo-yah-h-h!” from the unseen man, and the basin fairly roared with voices. Nomad forced a passage clear to the basin wall on the right without locating the person he was seeking. Thereupon he rode some fifty feet southward, and cut clear across the basin. Luck was with him that time, for he came upon a low structure of cottonwood logs, bolted strongly together at the corners, and with other logs bolted to the top, the whole forming a sort of cage.