Scott and Dancing were especially keen in their search, but they found nothing to suggest who the vandals were. They listened again to Bucks, as he repeated his story with more detail, and held a hurried conference in which Dave Hawk took charge. Meantime the men were tearing up planks from the platform to make a chute for unloading the horses. Bucks's excitement increased as he saw the businesslike preparations for the chase. "Have you any idea you can catch them, Bob?" he asked feverishly. Bob Scott's smile was not a complete answer. "How can you catch anybody in _this_ country?" continued Bucks, regarding the scout sceptically. But Scott looked across the interminable waste of sage-brush and rock as if he felt at home with it. "If they stick to the wagon," he explained leisurely, "we will have them in an hour or two, Bucks. A man might as well travel around here with a brass band as to try to get away with a wagon track behind him. If they stick to the wagon, we are bound to have them in two or three hours at most. You are sure they didn't have a led horse?" "They had nothing but the team," said Bucks. "In that case if they give up the wagon, three of them will have to ride two horses. They can't go fast in that way. We will get some of them, Bucks, sure--somehow, sometime, somewhere. We have got to get them. How could I hold my job if I didn't get them?" That which had seemed impossible to Bucks looked more hopeful after Bob had smiled again. Dancing was busy installing the new telegraph outfit. While this was going on, Scott saddled the horses and, when he and Dave Hawk had mounted, the two rode rapidly down the emigrant trail toward Bitter Creek. The train was held until Dancing could get the instruments working again; then, at Hawk's request, it was sent down the Bitter Creek grade after himself and Scott; the trail followed the railroad for miles. Dancing remained with Bucks to guard against further attack. The two railroad men rode carefully along the heavy ruts of the emigrant trail, from which all recent tracks had been obliterated by the flood, knowing that they would strike no sign of the wagon until it had been started after the storm. They had covered in this manner less than two miles when, rounding a little bend, they saw a covered emigrant wagon standing in the road not half a mile from the railroad track.