to the east of Sinkhole camp she saw two
horsemen jogging along, just as the Rolling R boys jogged homeward after
a hard day's work at the round-up. She could not recognize them, the
distance was so great. She therefore believed that one of them might be
Johnny Jewel, and the suspicion made her head ache worse than before.
He had no business to be away at night, and then to go riding off
somewhere with someone else so early in the morning, and she stamped her
foot at him and declared that she would like to _shake_ him.

She watched those two until they were hidden in one of the million or so
of little "draws" or arroyos that wrinkle the face of the range west.
When she finally gave up hope of seeing them again, she moved the glasses
slowly to the west. Midway of the arc, she saw something that was more
than suspicious; it was out-and-out mysterious.

She saw something--what it was she could not guess--moving slowly in the
direction of Sinkhole Camp,--something wide and queer looking, with a
horseman on either side and with a team pulling. Here again the distance
was too great to reveal details. She strained her eyes, changed the focus
hopefully, blurred the image, and slowly turned the little focusing wheel
back again. She had just one more clear glimpse of the thing before it,
too, disappeared.

Mary V waited and waited, and watched the place. If it was crossing a
gully, it would climb out again, of course. When it did not do so she
lost all patience and was putting the glasses in their case when she saw
a speck crawling along a level bit, half a mile or so to the left of
where she had been watching.

"Darn!" said Mary V, and hastened to readjust the glasses. But she had no
more than seen that it was the very same mysterious object, only now it
was not wide at all, but very long--when it crawled behind a ridge like a
caterpillar disappearing behind a rock. Mary V waited awhile, but it did
not show itself. So she cried with vexation and nervous exhaustion,
stamped her foot, and made the emphatic assertion that she felt like
_shooting_ Johnny Jewel for making her come all this long way to be
driven raving distracted.

After a little, when the mysterious thing still failed to reappear
anywhere on the face of the gray-mottled plain, she ate what was left of
her lunch and rode home, too tired to sit up straight in the saddle.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THIEVES RIDE BOLDLY

Johnny Jewel heaved his weary bones off his