"Shore I seen them. Mountain sheep," replied Ladd. "Guess again, Laddy. Dick, I reckon you'd better flash the glass up the slope." Gale adjusted the field glass and began to search the lava, beginning close at hand and working away from him. Presently the glass became stationary. "I see half a dozen small animals, brown in color. They look like sheep. But I couldn't distinguish mountain sheep from antelope." "Shore they're bighorn," said Laddy. "I reckon if you'll pull around to the east an' search under that long wall of lava--there--you'll see what I see," added Jim. The glass climbed and circled, wavered an instant, then fixed steady as a rock. There was a breathless silence. "Fourteen horses--two packed--some mounted--others without riders, and lame," said Gale, slowly. Yaqui appeared far up the trail, coming swiftly. Presently he saw the rangers and halted to wave his arms and point. Then he vanished as if the lava had opened beneath him. "Lemme that glass," suddenly said Jim Lash. "I'm seein' red, I tell you.... Well, pore as my eyes are they had it right. Rojas an' his outfit have left the trail." "Jim, you ain't meanin' they've taken to that awful slope?" queried Ladd. "I sure do. There they are--still comin', but goin' down, too." "Mebbe Rojas is crazy, but it begins to look like he--" "Laddy, I'll be danged if the Greaser bunch hasn't vamoosed. Gone out of sight! Right there not a half mile away, the whole caboodle--gone!" "Shore they're behind a crust or have gone down into a rut," suggested Ladd. "They'll show again in a minute. Look sharp, boys, for I'm figgerin' Rojas 'll spread his men." Minutes passed, but nothing moved upon the slope. Each man crawled up to a vantage point along the crest of rotting lava. The watchers were careful to peer through little notches or from behind a spur, and the constricted nature of their hiding-place kept them close together. Ladd's muttering grew into a growl, then lapsed into the silence that marked his companions. From time to time the rangers looked inquiringly at Gale. The field glass, however, like the naked sight, could not catch the slightest moving object out there upon the lava. A long hour of slow, mounting suspense wore on. "Shore it's all goin' to be as queer as the Yaqui," said Ladd. Indeed, the strange mien, the silent action, the somber character of the Indian had not been without effect upon the minds of the men. Then the weird, desolate, tragic scene added to the vague sense of mystery. And now the disappearance of Rojas's band, the long wait in the silence, the boding certainty of invisible foes crawling, circling closer and closer, lent to the situation a final touch that made it unreal. "I'm reckonin' there's a mind behind them Greasers," replied Jim. "Or mebbe we ain't done Rojas credit... If somethin' would only come off!"