ur later. He
pointed to a distant spur, and there, sure enough, they beheld Abe
Blower and Tom Dillon. The old miners had the horses with them.

"I wonder if they were hurt?" queried Phil.

"They seem to be all right," returned Roger. "I wish they would look
this way."

"We'll have to signal to them," said Dave.

"How are you going to do it?" asked the shipowner's son. "You can't call
to them at such a distance. They wouldn't hear you."

"We can give 'em a pistol shot, Phil."

"Why, to be sure! How foolish I was, not to think of it!"

"I'll fire a shot," said Roger, and brought out his weapon.

To the first shot there was no reply, but when a second was discharged
both Abe Blower and Tom Dillon were seen to turn around. Then the boys
commenced to wave their hands vigorously.

"They see us!" exclaimed Dave, half a minute later. They saw the two old
miners wave their hands in return, and Abe Blower discharged his
pistol.

"See, they are doing some kind of signalling!" cried Phil, a little
later.

All watched with interest. They saw that Abe Blower had taken up a long
bit of brushwood and was waving it in a circle to the northwestward.

"They want us to come around in that direction!" said Roger. "Don't you
think so, Dave?"

"That's the way it strikes me," was our hero's reply. "See, what is left
of the trail is in that direction. But, my! how the whole face of the
mountain is changed!"

"Not much trail left!" grumbled Phil. "If we are not careful we'll break
our necks reaching them!"

"We'll have to take it slowly," answered Dave.

The three youths set out, and they were glad to see the two miners do
the same. The men were on horseback, and the other steeds came behind
them.

As the boys had surmised, progress was difficult, and often they had to
halt, not knowing how to proceed. Here and there they could see a small
portion of a trail, but for the most part the way was new and
exceedingly rough.

"If they ever do any mining here they'll have to spend a lot of time
first building a roadway," was Phil's comment.

"If the mining pays it won't take long to get a roadway--and bridges,
too," answered Roger. "Money can do almost anything, you know."

"Oh, I know that."

"The main thing will be to guard against the landslides," said Dave,
grimly. "But I guess they'll know how to do that, too."

On went the boys, over the rough rocks and across patches of freshly
turned up dirt. All were utterly worn