“Looky there, fellows!” they heard him call out, his voice trembling with sudden excitement; “up yonder where that last cedar grows. Don’t you see a man and a pony as plain as day; and he’s sure been watching us lie around down here. Why, what if it was one of them young Apache bucks we scared off the other night; and say, couldn’t he just riddle us with lead, if he took a notion to shoot right now?” Filled with this alarming idea Billie commenced to roll over and over; while the others stared up toward the spot indicated by their comrade. CHAPTER VIII. THE MAN WHO VANISHED. “There! He’s gone again!” exclaimed Adrian, almost immediately afterwards. “He must have seen you pointing at him, Billie.” “My! but he must be a kind of sensitive fellow, if that little thing’d make him sidle out of sight!” observed the stout chum, dejectedly. “One second he was there, all right, and the next he had vamosed the ranch. Now you see him, now you don’t. It’s mighty queer, I think.” Donald and Adrian exchanged glances. “What do you make of it, Ad?” queried the former. “Why, just as Billie here says, it does look queer,” replied the other, seriously. “If that had been a cowboy, or an honest miner, or even a prospector in these dangerous mountains, he might have had the decency to wave a hand at us, even if it was too much trouble for him to make his way down here to say how-d’ye.” “Never made a single wave, just backed out of sight,” grumbled Billie. “But anyhow, you don’t reckon it could have been one of them hostile Indians, do you, boys?” “Oh! no, not at all,” chuckled Adrian. “We’d have seen that fact right away, for they wear feathers in their hair; and besides, you can’t mistake an Apache as far as you can see him. It was a white man all right, don’t think anything else.” “But you can’t guess who, now?” persisted Billie. “Of course not,” declared Donald. “There’s always a chance to come across some rascal in this country, a fellow who has been run out of the mining camps, or else is wanted on the ranges for some thieving job, and has to live a hermit life. That may have been just such a man. Fact is, I reckon he was no other.” “And he didn’t like our looks one little bit, did he?” pursued Billie. “Seemed to be too honest in our get-up to suit him, mebbe. Well, that’s some satisfaction, anyway; though it goes against the grain to have a fellow dodge at sight of you, like you had the epidemic in your clothes.” After waiting some little time to see if the mysterious stranger would show himself again, and meeting with disappointment, the three Broncho Rider Boys determined to resume their journey. When, however, Billie tried to put the packs on Bray he instantly met with the most strenuous objection. The mule backed away from him, snorting, and with his long ears put forward. In fact he exhibited all the evidences of terror.