"We ought to keep on the move as long as daylight lasts," he declared. "After it gets dark there'll be plenty of time to rest, and do a little cooking. By then we might possibly be lucky enough to reach their second camping place." Time passed on, and constantly the little party pressed ahead. Just as had been hoped, Williams and his companions did not seem to care to hide their trail; though, when the chance offered, they always took a course that gave them an opportunity to walk on hard ground, or even rocks, which actions sprang from the natural caution of frontiersmen. Slowly the sun sank toward the golden West. The boys surveyed a low-lying bank of somber gray clouds and wondered if the long delayed opening snow-storm of winter might spring from that source. Roger as usual found cause for new anxiety in that possibility. "If it does come down on us, you see, Dick," he said, complainingly, "the first thing we'd lose the trail we're following, and then we'd be in a nice pickle. What could we do if that happened?" "Just as we did when following the explorers along the Missouri," he was told. "Use our heads to figure things out and take chances. It has worked with us lots of times, and will again." "You mean we've got a general idea where that valley they are heading for lies, and might get there even without following their trail; is that it?" "Yes, and to reach it we will have to pass through the country the Indians fear so much, so that, before we are through with this trip, we may know whether there is any truth in those strange tales or not." "They tell of a large and beautiful lake in which the river with the yellow stones along its bank has its source," Roger went on, recalling all he had heard. "Then there are marvelous fountains that have spirit breath, the red men say, and spring up from holes in the ground, to try to reach the skies. They tell of many colored stones, and mud as blue as the heavens; they say it is the home of the Evil Spirit, and that no one's life is safe who wanders that way, and passes a single night there." "But you do not believe such silly stories, I hope?" "Whether they are true or not, I am not prepared to say," replied the other, after a little pause; "but you ought to know me too well to think so ill of me as to believe that a hundred evil spirits would keep me from exploring that country of the big lake and the flowing fountains, and all the other strange things!" So they talked as they moved along. Much of the labor of following the trail fell upon the shoulders of the frontiersman, Mayhew, who seemed only too glad to assume the responsibility. Not once did he lose the track. When it crossed a stony section he seemed to be able to decide just the point for which the others must have been making, and in all cases he quickly pointed out the tracks again where the soil became soft enough to allow of impressions.