Casting himself down on it, Rob soon dozed off, nor did he awaken till the blackness turned to the gray that preceded the dawn. Viewed by daylight, Rob found his surroundings such that he was glad that he had not proceeded any farther during the night. He lay on a hillside behind a screen of chaparral. But what caused him to feel some apprehension, when he thought of what might have happened had he continued his journey, was the fact that below his rock quite a steep slope dropped down to the valley below. It was a drop of some thirty feet, and while in the daylight any active man or boy could have clambered down it without injury, in the dark night it might have meant broken bones. But Rob had little time to think of such possibilities. Something else suddenly occupied all his attention, and that something was an odor of frying bacon! Mingled with it came the unmistakable aroma of tobacco. Somebody was camped near him, that was a certainty. His first impulse was to shout, but he checked it. It speaks volumes for the Western training that the boy was rapidly acquiring when it is said that before he showed himself from behind his chaparral, he gazed cautiously through that leafy screen. Below him he saw three figures seated about a fire, over which was frying the bacon that had aroused his hunger almost to the exclamation point. The three campers, whose ponies were tethered a short distance from them, had their backs turned to Rob, but presently one of them turned to reach something from a saddle bag. Rob came very near to uttering a startled exclamation and betraying his hiding place as he saw the man's features. It was Hank Handcraft. The former beachcomber wore Western clothes and had trimmed his once luxuriant and scraggly beard, but he was none the less unmistakably Handcraft. Nor, as almost simultaneously Hank's companions turned, was Rob's astonishment at all lessened, for one of them was Bill Bender and the other was the ranch boy to whom he had given a lesson in jiu jitsu--Clark Jennings. "Hurry up and stow your grub, Hank," Clark was saying. "We've got to light out of this neighborhood for a while and stick around the ranch." "You think that old Harkness is suspicious, then?" inquired Hank. "No, our disguises were too good. I'll bet they're cussin' the Moquis now." "Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Bill Bender. "That was a great idea, dressing up like Indians. I guess we got even on old Harkness for driving those sheep off his pastures." "You bet! and we'll do worse to him before we get through," grunted Clark. "It's pie for me. More especially as I can get even, at the same time, with that young sniffler, Harry Harkness, and his friends from the East--your old pals, Bill."