“Wal, calling to mind the kind of horse he rides, I should say he is about a half-mile off by this time, laughing to find out how cleverly he has fooled you chaps.”

“It looks as if you was in the same boat, Inman,” retorted one of the chagrined party.

“I wasn’t chasing Sterry.”

“He seemed to be chasing you, for you came out of the arroya ahead of him.”

“If he was chasing me,” replied the leader, who felt that the laugh was on his companions, “he would have followed me out; but I don’t see anything of him;” and he, too, stared around, as though not sure the man would not do the improbable thing named.

“It was a blamed cute trick, any way you look at it,” remarked one of the party.  “It was queer that you should have been there, Inman, just at the minute needed.  But for that, we would have had him, sure.”

“Wal, you can make up your mind that we have him as good as catched already.  He can’t get out of the country without some of the boys running against him, and the first rustler that catches sight of Mr. Sterry will drop him in his tracks.”

“If he gets the chance to do it,” was the wise comment of another.  “That fellow is quick on the shoot and isn’t afraid of any of us.”

“He ain’t the first one that’s made that mistake, only to find himself rounded up at last.  Larch Cadmus’ idea of 24 hours’ notice don’t go down with this crowd, eh?”

And the crowd unanimously responded in the negative.

CHAPTER XII.

The back trail.

Mont Sterry had wisdom enough to turn to the fullest account the remarkable advantage gained through the sagacity of his mare.

His pursuers, in their haste to head him off, had dashed across the arroya at a point only a short distance above where he entered and their leader emerged from it.  They were sure to discover the truth in a short time.

Waiting, therefore, only until they had passed beyond, he rode his horse a few rods along the depression, and then left it on the same side by which he had ridden into it.

Unconsciously he fell into an error of which he was not dreaming.  In the short distance passed, the arroya made a sweeping curve, and he had repeatedly changed his own course since leaving the Whitney ranch.  Thus it was almost inevitable that he should get the points of the compass mixed, and that he should follow a route widely different from the one intended.

Had he paused long enough to note the position of the full moon in the heavens, or the towering Big Horn Mountains, he would have gained an approximate idea of where he was; but, despite his experience in the West, he galloped forward at an easy canter, with never a suspicion of the blunder he was making.

He was on the alert for rustlers, and kept glancing to the right and left, and to the front and rear.  As has been shown, he had little fear of being overtaken in a chase where he was given an equal chance with his pursuers, but his narrow escape rendered him more apprehensive than usual.