The boys were beginning to get a bit anxious again, wondering if, after all, the horses were taking them right, when the bad lands came to a sudden end. There were no more of the sawtooth peaks.
"Yes, and look where we are," said Jack. "Nowhere near camp."
They were on the shoulder of a steep mountain, while below them, wrapped in the fast approaching night, was a great valley. Then something else caught the eyes of the boys.
"There's a fire!" called Nat, pointing to a blaze at the foot of the mountain.
"I'll wager it's our camp," declared Jack. "Here goes for a hail."
He shouted and fired his gun. In a few seconds there came an answering call, and a firebrand was waved in the air.
"That's Bony's voice," cried Nat. "I can almost hear him cracking his knuckle bones."
"Yes, but how are we to get down?" asked Jack. "I don't see the sign of a trail."
The next instant his horse answered the question for him by starting right down the side of the mountain, which at that point was composed of shaling stones, and quite smooth.
"I don't know," answered Jack. "My horse seems to want to take a slide."
Then Nat's steed followed the other, and a moment later the two lads, on the backs of their animals, were sliding, stumbling and slipping down the precipitous slope of the mountain.
From below them Jack and Nat could hear cries of alarm, and they could see several waving firebrands and note ghostly figures circling about the camp blaze.
"Can you stop your horse, Jack?" called Nat.
"I'm not going to try," was the reply. "I've got all I can do to hold on. How about you?"
"I'm in the same boat. I hope we don't strike anything, for if we do I'll shoot over his head and land I don't know where. This is fierce!"
The horses reached a place that was not quite so steep, and managed to stop sliding, running for a short distance. Then the slipping began again, but both animals were like cats on their feet, and seemed to take it all as a matter of course.
"We're almost there!" cried Jack as he saw the camp fire more plainly, and could distinguish Sam's and Bony's voices calling to them.
"I'm--glad--of--that," replied Ned brokenly, for he was bounding up and down in the saddle.
A minute later and the horses had come to a stop on the level ground where the camp was pitched.