“Then they’ll have to turn back on us,” Chet said, confidently. “We’ll have them between two fires. That’s the only sure way we have of getting one of the beasts. Do you want to do your share?” “You got the rights of it, Chet,” said Tony Traddles. “Sure we agree.” “Speak for yourself!” snarled the other man. “Well, if you don’t want to eat—” began Chet; but Tony broke in with: “Aw, don’t mind him! He’s a born sorehead. Of course we want to eat. We’ll do like you say.” “Then let’s see you get your horses down there on the plain,” said Chet promptly. “When I see you fixed right, Dig and I will ride around to head the buffaloes off.” Perhaps Steve saw through Chet’s subterfuge. It would not have taken a very keen man to do so. But he evidently agreed to the proposal because Tony urged it. Tony had an appetite. The men finished their breakfast (it wasn’t a big one, as the boys well knew) and soon rode down the hill into the grassy valley. Thickets of scrubby trees hid their movements from the grazing animals. Chet and Dig rode off up the hill; but they did not lose sight of the men whom they so distrusted—not for some time. Through the screen of verdure that topped the long hill, or ridge, the boys could see down into the valley and keep watch of both the men and the grazing buffaloes. They saw the former reach the last shelter down the valley and there dismount, deposit their goods and saddles, and then rope out their two mounts. As the boys had first stalked the buffaloes several days before, Tony and Steve did now. Satisfied, Chet and Dig put spurs to their mounts and covered six or seven miles along the wooded ridge very quickly. Occasionally they spied upon the buffaloes and knew that nothing had disturbed the animals’ placidity. They were comfortably grazing on the bottomland. After viewing the exposed valley through the glasses for some minutes, Chet announced the programme. Dig, although the originator of the scheme to attempt the corralling of some of the buffaloes, was quite willing that his chum should take the lead. Keeping the screen of wood between them and the view of the buffaloes, the chums descended the steep hillside into the narrow valley. Its mouth was a number of miles west of their position. Directly opposite, and cut into the more abrupt southern wall of the valley, was one of the pockets that Dig had first discovered and pointed out. They rode there to examine it. The approach to the gulch could not have been arranged better had it been originally intended for a trap for wild animals. In similar pockets in the hills the boys knew many herds of wild mustangs had been caught by hunters in past years. Now the wild horses were almost as scarce as the buffaloes.