but aspens. But there iss, shust the same, a trail.
Through my pasture it leads."

"Anybody live up Chicito? I want everybody in the park to get a chance
to buy a Dynamo Aermotor before I leave."

"A man named Meldrum. My advice iss--let him alone."

"Why?"

Rothgerber shook a pudgy forefinger in the air. "Mein friend--listen.
You are a stranger in Huerfano Park. Gut. But do not ask questions
about those who lif here. Me, I am an honest man. I keep the law.
Also I mind my own pusiness. So it iss with many. But there are
others--mind, I gif them no names, but--" He shrugged his shoulders
and threw out his hands, palm up. "Well, the less said the petter. If
I keep my tongue still, I do not talk myself into trouble. Not so,
Berta?"

The pippin-cheeked little woman nodded her head sagely.

In the course of the next few days Roy rode to and fro over the park
trying to sell his windmill to the ranchers. He secured two orders and
the tentative promise of others. But he gained no clue as to the place
where Dingwell was hidden. His intuition told him that the trail up
Chicito Canon would lead him to the captive cattleman. Twice he
skirted the dark gash of the ravine at the back of the pasture, but
each time his heart failed at the plunge into its unknown dangers. The
first time he persuaded himself that he had better make the attempt at
night, but when he stood on the brink in the darkness the gulf at his
feet looked like a veritable descent into Avernus. If he should be
caught down here, his fate would be sealed. What Meldrum and Tighe
would do to a spy was not a matter of conjecture. The thought of it
brought goose-quills to his flesh and tiny beads of perspiration to his
forehead.

Still, the peril had to be faced. He decided to go up the canon in the
early morning before the travel of the day had begun. The night before
he made the venture he prepared an alibi by telling Mrs. Rothgerber
that he would not come to breakfast, as he wanted to get an early start
for his canvassing. The little German woman bustled about and wrapped
up for him a cold lunch to eat at his cabin in the morning. She liked
this quiet, good-looking young man whose smile was warm for a woman
almost old enough to be his grandmother. It was not often she met any
one with the charming deference he showed her. Somehow he reminded her
of her own Hans, who had died from the kick of a horse ten years since.

Roy slept in br