"There must be some side passage--like that!" suddenly declared Yellin' Kid, leaping from his horse and then, as suddenly disappearing from the sight of his companions. "Hey! What's the idea! Where'd he go?" asked Snake. "In this side passage," answered Yellin' Kid, as suddenly reappearing. "Look, here's a crack, or fissure in the rock, I saw it from where I sat on my pony. It goes off from th' main trail, but I can't see where it leads." They all dismounted and investigated. As the Kid had said, it was a traverse defile, opening out of the main one and almost at right angles. The opening was concealed behind a great pinnacle of rock, so that the cleft was only visible from a certain point, and it was at this point that the Kid saw it. "Where does it go to?" asked Bud as they entered, single file. It was only wide enough for that. "We've got to follow and see!" said Slim. "If there was a place like that, back where we discovered we were in a maze, it would have been easy enough for the rustlers to have driven the cattle through, one at a time," observed Nort. "But there wasn't any such place!" declared Bud. "We made sure of that. But where does this lead?" That was what they all conjectured, and they were soon to learn. As they rode along, the side cleft widened, until there was room enough for three to ride abreast. And it was while thus progressing that Dick, who was in the lead with Slim and Snake, made a surprising discovery. He rode around a turn in the new trail, and at the sight of something beyond, in the smaller, rocky defile, he set up such a shout as brought all his companions to his side. "What is it?" shouted Bud. "Look!" answered Dick, pointing. "Del Pinzo and big gang!" CHAPTER XXI IN PURSUIT Two deep-throated shouts echoed amid the winding mazes of the small canyon leading off from the main gulch that the boy ranchers and their friends had been following. One shout followed closely on that of Dick, announcing his amazing discovery. The other came from the band of rascals whose hiding place had at last been spied out, and by a mere chance at that. One shout was that of joyful anticipation, and this came from Bud, Dick, Nort and the friends from Diamond X. This shout had in it an anticipation of righteous punishment to be inflicted on those who had stolen the cattle. The other shout was of baffled rage that their hiding place had been discovered. This shout came from Del Pinzo and his gang. For it was the lawless Mexican half-breed and his followers, numbering in all more than two score, whom Dick had seen as he made the turn in that winding and narrow gorge. At a place where the rocky defile flared out, making a sort of amphitheatre there were gathered about a spring of water, their horses tethered where they could crop the scanty herbage, the crowd of which our friends had long been in pursuit.