“No. The trail was made early this morning. It is an old trail. See, Cheemie? You have lived with the Chiricahua and you ought to know. There is a broken twig, where it was stepped on, and the leaves are wilted. The sap is done flowing. I think we’d better follow and see where those Tonto are going, so we won’t run into them.” The trail proceeded up the gravelly ridge, where moccasin prints were plain, and over, and through among cedars of a flat mesa; and suddenly Jimmie fairly gasped for breath. They had come out upon the edge of a great, broad, deep valley lying like a green basin; it was so deep that the trees in it looked like shrubs, and the farther edge was veiled in purple mist. “Tonto home,” said Micky. “Down in there the Tonto live, where they can hide. Up here is Mogollon country. It is all a flat mountain top, on the Sierra Mogollon. We shall see many big pine trees soon. When we find where this Tonto trail goes we had better turn back.” The trail skirted the dizzy edge; then it veered inland, and was joined by another trail, and presently the joined trails made straight into a tremendous forest. The trees were all pines; they stood up tall and stately, and under them the ground was clean, except for the needles and the low grass and flowers. Throughout the long aisles flecked by the sun not a thing moved. It was a silent forest. Micky and Jimmie trotted fast, their eyes upon the trail, or searching ahead. Now it was past noon. Once in a while the view opened into the great Tonto Basin; and again there was only the timber, with the serried trunks extending on every side. In such a forest, and when gazing into such a basin, a boy felt small. About an hour or an hour and a half after noon Micky, who was just before, stopped short once more――stopped so quickly that he stood with one foot uplifted. He signed “Come,” and Jimmie came on. “Horse tracks now, Cheemie. American horses. Mules, too. American soldiers.” This was a larger trail; the pine needles were imprinted with many hoof marks. The horses had been ridden four abreast――yes, five and six abreast, so that the trail lay broadly. They were shod horses, which meant cavalry horses, because the Apache horses were not shod, save with buckskin boots in cactus country. No Apaches rode four or five abreast, anyway. The mule prints were smaller and rounder; and the prints cut deeper, showing that the mules had been laden: pack-mules. Hah! Micky studied the new trail. The Tontos, too, had paused and studied it. “These are some of the soldiers I spoke of, I think,” finally declared Micky. “They have been at Camp Apache, maybe. Anyhow, they are going away from it. Maybe the Tonto will attack them. What do you say to do, Cheemie? My heart tells me we have gone far enough. Shall we turn back, for Camp Apache?” “I’d rather try to find the soldiers, Micky.”