Of course, the old ranchman could not go; but Frances and Sam were at Cottonwood Bottom soon after sunrise, waiting for the party from Mr. Bill Edwards' ranch. José Reposa had the dogs in leash--two long-legged, sharp-nosed, mouse-colored creatures, more than half greyhound, but with enough mongrel in their make-up to make them bite when they ran down the long-eared pests that they were trained to drive. The branch of the river that ran through Cottonwood Bottom was too shallow--at least, at this season--to float even a punt. Frances gazed down the wooded and winding hollow and asked Silent Sam a question: "Do you know of any place along the river where a man might hide out--that fellow who stopped us at the ford the other evening, for instance?" "There's a right smart patch of small growth down below Bill Edwards' line," said Sam. "The boys from Peckham's, with that Pratt Sanderson, didn't more'n skirt that rubbish, I reckon, by what Mack said," Sam observed. "Mebbe that hombre might have laid up there for a while." "Before or after he robbed us?" Frances asked quietly. "Wal, now!" ejaculated Sam. "If he took that chest aboard the punt, and the punt was found below the ford----" "You know, Sam," said the girl, thoughtfully, "that he might have poled up stream a way, put the chest ashore, and then let the punt drift down." "Reckon that's so," grunted the foreman. He said no more, and neither did Frances. But the brief dialogue gave the girl food for thought, and her mind was quite full of the idea when the crowd from the Edwards ranch came into view. The boys were armed with light rifles or shotguns, and even some of the girls were armed, as well as Mrs. Edwards herself. But Sue Latrop had never fired a gun in her life, and she professed to be not much interested in this hunt. "Oh, I've fox-hunted several times. That is real sport! But we don't shoot foxes. The dogs kill them--if there re'lly _is_ a fox." "Humph!" asked one of the local boys, with wonder, "what do the dogs follow, if there's no fox? What scent do they trail, I mean?" "Oh," said Sue, "a man rides ahead dragging an aniseed bag. Some dogs are trained to follow that scent and nothing else. It's very exciting, I assure you." "Well! what do you know about that?" gasped the questioner. "Say! was this around Boston?" asked Pratt, his eyes twinkling. "Oh, yes. There is a fine pack of hounds at Arlington," drawled Sue. "Sho!" chuckled Pratt. "I should think they'd teach the dogs around Boston to follow the trail of a bean-bag. Wouldn't it be easier?" "Oh, dear me!" exclaimed Miss Latrop. "Don't you think you are witty? And look at those dogs!" "What's the matter with them?" asked one of the girls. "Why, they are all limbs! What perfectly spidery-looking animals! Did you ever----"