Their saddles had not been touched. Chet had already made sure of that. His own blanket was on the ground where he had flung it off when he arose, awakened by the rifle shot; but Dig’s had disappeared. “By the last hoptoad that was chased out of Ireland!” yelled Dig. “The dirty rascals have swiped my blanket—And the skillet! Holy mackerel, Chet! they’ve taken the coffee-pot, too, and all the tinware. That would be just like that Tony Traddles! The great, hulking, no-account brute!” “No use calling him names,” said Chet grimly. “They’ve pretty well cleaned us out. But the worst is the deeds,” and he sighed. “I wonder they didn’t take the horses,” exclaimed Dig. “Your seeing them and firing the gun probably saved our mounts for us,” his chum said. “But if I’d stayed in the camp they wouldn’t have cleaned us out,” said Dig thoughtfully. “Not so sure. They might have crept up on you and knocked you on the head.” “Instead of which that old Betsy gun had to knock me over. Just as bad. It knocked me out for the time being, and those scoundrels got away.” “They must have been close in, watching you and me, when you started around the pond,” Chet explained. “We know what Tony is—a bad man. The fellow with him is probably worse. They wouldn’t think anything of knocking us both out if they hadn’t got what they wanted without.” “Well, what’s done is done,” Dig said mournfully. “Now what shall we do?” “We can’t do much till daylight. It’s no fun following a horse trail in the night—and those horses started on the gallop. They will be tiring their mounts out while ours are resting. We’ll lose nothing by waiting till dawn,” Chet said, with confidence. CHAPTER XXII—AFTER THE THIEVES Digby was strongly disgusted with himself. He felt that, to a degree, he was to be blamed for both raids upon their camp. “The first time I fell plumb asleep,” he said. “And now I went away from the fire for a foolish reason. Just for a drink! But I declare, Chet, I don’t believe I would have done it if I’d known there was any reason to suspect a return of those thieves.” “I blame myself, Dig. I should have told you,” admitted Chet. “Just the same, maybe I wouldn’t have believed you. To think of a man’s coming right into the camp and taking those papers out of your shirt!” “I reckon I sleep mighty hard,” said Chet thoughtfully. “I know mother has hard work to wake me up in the morning, sometimes. A good hunter ought to sleep lightly.” “There are no medals on either of us,” commented Dig. “Those follows must be laughing at us.” “We’ll make them laugh on the other side of their mouths if we catch them!” declared Chet, with anger. “How?” “I’m very sure they are not so well mounted as we are. Poke and Hero are two of the best horses owned in Silver Run—you know that.” “Sure!” “And it stands to reason the thieves are not so well armed as we are.” “Whew! you don’t mean to chase them and shoot them, Chet?” demanded the startled Digby.