and we've been following it in hopes of reaching Flagstaff before
they can get down into the gash, and hide."

"A trail, you say?" Frank observed. "Could it have been the one I've
been following just out of curiosity, and because it seemed to run in
the very direction my chum and myself were bound?"

"That's just what it was, Frank," the sheriff answered, as he accepted
the hot piece of browned venison, stick and all, which Bob was holding
out. "We saw that there had come into the trail the marks of two new
hosses; and naturally enough we got the idea that it might mean our men
were being followed by a couple of their own kind."

"Then when you saw our little fire, you thought we were the kind of
steers you wanted to round up?" the boy asked.

"Oh! well," Mr. Stanwix replied with a little chuckle; "we kept a touch
on our irons when I was asking you who you were; and if the reply hadn't
been all that it was, I reckon we'd have politely asked you to throw up
your hands, boys. But say, this meat is prime, and seems to go to the
spot."

"I don't know which spot you mean, Stanwix," remarked the other officer,
who was also munching away like a half-starved man; "but mine suits me
all right. I'm right glad we stopped. The rest will tone the nags up for
a long pull; and as for me, I'll be in great shape after this feed."

Bob was kept busy cooking more and more, for the two men seemed to
realize, after once getting a taste, that they were desperately hungry.
But he did it with pleasure. There was something genial about the manner
of Mr. Stanwix that quite captured the heart of the Kentucky lad. He
knew the tall man could be as gentle as a woman, if the occasion ever
arose when he had a wounded comrade to nurse; and if his reputation did
not speak wrongly his courage was decidedly great.

While they sat there the two men talked of various subjects. Frank was
curious to know something about those whom they were now banded together
in a determined effort to capture, and so Mr. Stanwix told a few
outlines of the case.

The men were known as the Arizona Kid and Big Bill Guffey. They had been
cattlemen, miners, and about every other thing known to the Southwest.
By degrees they had acquired the reputation of being bad men; and all
sorts of lawless doings were laid at their door. And finally it came to
defying the sheriff, evading capture by flitting to another county, and
playing a game of hide-and-seek, until their bold meth