This command had the desired effect, and Horace gave up the attempt of trying to frighten his friends.

For a time the darkness grew more and more intense till it was all the riders could do to make out the forms of one another.  But at last the clouds passed over, revealing the stars, and soon the moon rose, full and brilliant, changing the swaying grass into a seeming sea of silver with its light.

In wonder the brothers gazed at the transformation and Larry said: 

“I wish the plains could be like this always.  They don’t seem half so terrible.”

But the boys soon had other things to think about.  They were so close to the mountains that they could see the great cliffs glistening in the moonlight above the trees from which they rose, sheer.

“I don’t wonder they say these mountains are haunted,” exclaimed Tom.  “I can almost believe I see men moving along the top of that middle cliff.”

“Better curb your imagination then,” chided Mr. Wilder.  “It’s a good thing we’ve got to pitch camp pretty soon or you’d all get the nerves.”

At Tom’s words the other boys had sought the middle cliff with their eyes and suddenly Bill exclaimed: 

“Tom’s right, father!  There are men moving along the top of the precipice!”

Mr. Wilder had been intent on searching the base of the mountains for a place to camp for the night.  But at his elder son’s statement he looked up quickly, drawing rein that he might be sure the motion of his horse played no trick on his eyes.

Breathlessly the others waited his decision.

The cliff at which they all were staring so intently was about half way up the mountain and above it rose another wall of rock.  And it was against the base of this latter that the objects which attracted Tom’s attention were silhouetted.

“By jove!  They are men,” exclaimed Mr. Wilder excitedly.  “I never knew there was a trail along the base of that cliff before.”

The boys were tremendously stirred up as they heard this confirmation.

“Perhaps they are the men going to guard the Lost Lode for the night,” Horace whispered.  “They wouldn’t need a trail to walk on, father.”

“Steady, boy, steady,” returned the ranchman.  “Those men are flesh and blood, don’t worry about that.  Who they are I don’t know.  Probably some hunters like ourselves.”

“That couldn’t be the way to the mine, could it?” hazarded Larry, whose eagerness to discover a silver mine had received new impetus.  “Can’t we go there to-morrow and find out?”

“We’ll see when to-morrow comes,” declared Mr. Wilder.  “But there’s no occasion to get excited.  The mountains are full of men hunting and prospecting all the time.  Come on, we’ll camp under that big tree up there to the right.  Whoever gets there first will be boss of the camp.”

The challenge for a race, with the honor of being in command of the hunt as the prize, served to take the boys’ thoughts from the mysterious men on the trail as nothing else could, and quickly they leaped their ponies forward.