CHAPTER VIII 



FOLLOWING A CONCEALED TRAIL 



IN THE early morning a posse of cowboys 

 assembled to hunt down the fellow who had 

 stolen the foreman's horse in the night. The 

 thief was generally believed to be Scott Ashton, 

 who, the previous day, had robbed the bank at 

 Pinyon. Every one of the pursuers was a man 

 of worth a frontiersman who carried the law on 

 his hip. 



But the trail they followed showed that this 

 thief was a master at hiding his tracks. He had 

 gone out of one corral gate, then around to the 

 opposite one and entirely around the corral be- 

 fore striking out westward. He had kept along- 

 side the road the first mile, then ridden in it a 

 short distance, ana again turned out in the 

 grass. 



For several miles tnis road to the west ran 

 through a canon, and there was no way of leav- 

 ing it. Beyond the canon, on top of Tongue 

 Mesa, it split into three forks. As the thief's 

 tracks were found in the canon, and he was 

 apparently heading for the mesa, the foreman 



i is 



