c, and because of the hot
sun, the horses were soon covered with lather.

"Look here, we've got to go at a slower gait," announced Larry.
"If we keep up this clip, our ponies will give out. They can't
stand it and the heat, too. And if they do give out, it will be
sure to be just at the very time we need them most."

"But we'll soon be in the mountains, and then it will be cooler,"
asserted Horace. "I want to overhaul the raiders before night.
Won't father and the others feel small when they learn that we
three, whom they left behind because we were too young, have
rounded up Megget?"

"You don't mean to say that you intend for us three to tackle the
raiders alone?" exclaimed Tom.

"Why not?"

"Because we wouldn't stand one chance in a thousand--no, nor in ten
thousand--of being able to capture them. We don't know the trail
at all, and they probably are familiar with every rock and turn in
it. If they should discover that we were pursuing them, all they
would need do would be to lie in wait for us and capture us when we
came along."

The truth of what the younger of the chums said was so evident that
even the impetuous Horace was forced to admit it.

"Then what shall we do?" he asked. "If you have any better plan to
suggest, out with it."

Tom, however, could think of nothing feasible and was silent.

The boys had pulled their ponies down to a walk and for several
minutes none of them spoke.

Of a sudden Blackhawk raised his head, sniffed the air and then
uttered a low whinny.

The sound, coming so unexpectedly, scared the lads, and they looked
at one another in alarm.

"He smells something," exclaimed Horace in a whisper, as though
fearing to speak out loud.

The boys were in the lowland between two crests of the rolling
plains.

"Perhaps it's the cattle. They may be on the other side of that
rise in the plains," returned Larry.

Anxiously the three boys gazed toward the crest. The thought that
they might be close upon the very men they were chasing startled
them, and they were at a loss as to the best thing to do.

"If it is the raiders and the cattle Blackhawk scented, then
they'll be on the lookout for us," murmured Tom. "They could hear
that whinny for----"

"By jove! it is they," cried Larry excitedly. "See those horses'
ears bobbing?" And he pointed to the south.

Following his finger, his companions beheld two sharp points
steadily advancing from the farther side of the crest