"I'm not quite so keen about a side gallop as you fellows. Fact is, I'm getting pretty well filled up on pony riding. Three days straight is going some for a greenhorn like me. But I'm game to stick it out to a finish. Only I do hope we run across that Wandering Willie of a pony inside of an hour or two, so as to strike back to camp again." For some time the boys rode along, keeping a lookout on every side. It kept growing warmer all the while, for the mountains shut off any breeze from the west, while a ridge called foothills did the same in the opposite quarter. An hour passed, and not a single glimpse did the boys get of the missing pack pony. "Looks as if he had gone south instead of this way," commented Frank. "Though it's possible the beast had intelligence enough to head over the rise and start back home." "Homesick, you mean, Frank?" laughed Paul. "Some horses are affected that way, I'm told." Lanky was unusually quiet all this while. Frank wondered whether the ludicrous adventure with the lassoed vulture had given him a lesson in prudence he would not soon forget. He looked toward the towering peaks to the immediate west, as though aggrieved because things had happened in such a fashion as to prevent their ascent of those rugged slopes by way of the friendly canyon. That was what Frank was thinking, but after all it appeared that he did Lanky an injustice, for presently the other broke his silence to say: "Once or twice last evening, just before dark set in, boys, I had a sort of hunch I could faintly glimpse smoke rising up on the side of the mountains." "But you didn't mention a word about it to us, Lanky!" Frank put it to him reproachfully. "I didn't, for a fact," admitted the lad. "To tell the truth, I was feeling kind of punk over the fool game I set out to pull off, and so I just concluded to keep mum and not jump out of the frying pan into the fire. But the more I think about it, the stronger is my belief that it was an occasional wreath of blue smoke I glimpsed." "That would mean a campfire," said Frank. "And of course you feel dead certain you could say who'd be sitting near that same blaze, having supper?" "Just what I could!" Lanky chuckled. "For one, Nash Yesson. Then, close by, you'd see a slinking sort of chap known in Columbia as a bully, and chock full of meanness. Lef Seller, who robbed his own father. Yes, and just as like as not you'd set eyes on a queer little runt with a head three sizes too big for his body, name unknown to us, but particularly fond of trying to find hidden things on moonlight nights." "Well, I agree with you, Lanky," admitted Frank. "If there was a fire, those were the three chaps who'd be sitting beside it and talking about their chances for finding Kinney's secret cave where the gold nuggets were cached." "Frank," said Paul just then, "did you hear what Zander was saying about the report brought to Rockspur one day last week?" "What was that?"