Following his first flush of surprise at the strange reappearance and vanishment of the mysterious man, Ralph was conscious of a feeling closely akin to hot indignation.
“I’m going to catch him,” thought the lad fiercely. “What does he mean by going on like this? What’s he following us for and spying on us? I’d like to find out what sort of tricks he is up to, and I’m going to.”
So saying he set off through the woods at a good pace, following as nearly as he could the direction the man had taken. But it soon dawned on him that he had undertaken an almost hopeless task. Judging from the man’s appearance, he had been a denizen of the woods for a long[141] period, although just how he lived was not apparent.
At any rate, before he had gone far Ralph was compelled to admit that there did not appear to be much chance of his catching up with the man. No sign of him was visible, and no crackling of brush or sound of footsteps betrayed in what direction he had gone.
“Guess I’ll have to give it up,” mused Ralph disgustedly. “At any rate I’m sure of one thing now, I’ve got nothing to fear from this strange customer, whatever may be his object in hanging about us like this. He must have followed us and——”
Ralph paused abruptly. He had last seen the man on the other side of the brulee. It was hardly likely that he could have passed through such a tract of country. Yet, on the other hand, the boy could not doubt that the man he had seen on the rock overlooking their camp and the wild figure of the valley were one and the same.[142] There was a deep mystery about it all. One too deep for the boy to fathom, for he broke off his meditations with a sigh.
“It’s no use keeping up the chase to-day,” he declared to himself with emphasis, “but if that fellow keeps on dodging our tracks he’s going to hear from me in no uncertain fashion.”
He rose from the stump on which he had sat down to think things over and resumed his search for the stray ponies. As he moved along he munched his bread and chocolate, taking his lunch “on the hoof,” so to speak.
Before long he struck the trail of the missing ponies once more. This time it soon led him into a swampy country and he followed it rapidly. Along the floor of the valley he went till suddenly, on coming around a pile of great rocks, hurled from the summit of the ridge in some prehistoric convulsion, he saw something that gave him a big surprise. In a little clearing stood[143] a ruinous log cabin, and tethered outside it was one of the missing ponies!
Of the other there was no trace. All at once Ralph heard a scrambling and clambering among the rocks above him on the steep hillside. He glanced quickly and just in time to see the mysterious man remounted on the other pony, rapidly urging it away from the hut.
“Stop thief!” yelled Ralph, carried away by excitement. “Come back here!”
“Stop or I’ll shoot!” he shouted the next instant throbbing with indignation.
He had no intention of hitting the fugitive, but he did mean to frighten him into stopping if he could. For an instant the form of the stolen pony and its rider became visible among the trees through which the afternoon sun was sending down oblique shafts of light.
Ralph raised his rifle, sighted it to carry a bullet well above the fugitive’s head and fired.
“The next will come closer,” he warned; but[144] the next minute all other thoughts were rushed abruptly out of his mind when a bullet whizzed by his head close enough to fan his ear. The ping-g-g-g-g-g-g of the ball as it sped by, ruffling his hair, did not appeal to Ralph. Evidently the fugitive was a dead shot and was not inclined to be pursued if he could avoid it by putting his tracker out of the way.
“Jove!” exclaimed Ralph as he slipped behind a tree trunk, “that bullet was a message meant for me, all right. I don’t care to be at home to such callers.”
H............