The boy pointed to the smouldering glow straight to the east.
“Hunters, of course,” Alex replied, “but they’re hunting something besides wild animals.”
“If I had your imagination, I’d be writing fiction for the magazines,” Clay answered. “Why do you call them train robbers?”
“Because they tried to throw that freight from the track—the freight that just passed. The trainmen had to roll a rock off the track. That’s what the stop was for.”
It was now Clay’s turn to express amazement by a low whistle.
“But why should they want to throw a freight off the track?” he asked in a moment. “There’s nothing nourishing in the looting of a freight. Suppose we go over and see who they are?”
“Well,” Alex replied, “I’ll go if you think best, but I’ll tell you this first. That freight was running on the time of a passenger. See? Oh, they’re train robbers, all right, and if there is any one prowling around the boat it is one of the bunch. You may be sure of that!”
Captain Joe now moved away from the boys and approached the lip of the canyon, where he paused and expressed disapproval of the men outlined against the fire by a series of savage growls.
The dog growled again, but drew away from the canyon.
“We can’t take him along with us,” Alex declared. “He would give us dead away. We’ve got to slip up to the fire and find out what is doing without making our presence known.”
“That seems to be the proper way,” admitted Clay.
“Go back home. Captain Joe!” ordered Alex in a whisper.
The dog understood and replied by a wag of a sawed-off tail that he would go if the boys thought it best that he should, but that he wished it understood that he did so under protest.
Captain Joe gave one reluctant growl with his face to the canyon and started away.
“He feels just like I used to feel when the big boys sent me out of a ball game at Lincoln park,” Clay laughed. “He thinks there is something going on here that he ought to be in with.”
When the dog disappeared from view the boys turned to the canyon.
“There’s a ridge we can follow,” Clay said, pointing, “and it will bring us out some distance to the right of the fire, with a lift of rock between us and our mysterious friends. Be careful, though, for it is getting darker every minute.”