“You said it,” declared Bob.

Jack nodded laughingly, but the next moment his face became grave.

“Just the same,” he said, “we mustn’t do that again.”

“Why not?” demanded Bob.

“Well, for one thing, we must save our horses as much as possible.  We already have come twenty miles, and we have thirty miles more to go before reaching Tom’s cave.”

“For one thing?” questioned Bob.  “What’s your other reason?”

“Just that we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.”

“You’re right, Jack,” said Frank.  “I’ll not start anything again.”

They jogged on.

A martial trio they made.  Jack was clothed in the khaki shirt, riding breeches, high laced leather boots and sombrero in which he had met the boys on their arrival at Ransome.  Bob and Frank were similarly outfitted.  Tom Bodine was about of Bob’s proportions, and his partner Dave Morningstar had the build of the slighter Frank.  These two old cow punchers had given the boys the run of their wardrobes.  Each lad carried an automatic at his hip swinging from a well-filled cartridge belt.  In addition, Jack bore his repeating rifle in a leather scabbard on his saddle.

Frank cast an appraising eye over himself and his comrades, and grinned with approval.  Despite Jack’s rebuke, he could not long keep silence.

“Well, here we go, fellows,” he said cheerfully, “just like the Three Musketeers.  Jack with your air of melancholy you can be Athos.  Bob is big enough to be Porthos, although I have got his appetite.  I’m Aramis.”

“Aramis was always dreaming about the ladies,” said Bob slily.  “Heard from Della lately?”

Frank was silent a moment under the sly dig, his thoughts flying back to the faraway Long Island home.  But his irrepressible spirits would not permit him to remain silent for long, and soon he burst forth again.

“All we need to make it complete,” he said, “is D’Artagnan.  I wonder if we’ll find him.”

Jack made no answer.  His thoughts were busy turning over plans for the rescue of his father.  Bob, too, was unusually silent, thinking of the parting from his own father and the latter’s anxiety which almost had prevented his making this venture.  Frank pursed his lips to whistle, thought better of it, and jogged along as silent as his companions.

So they rode hour after hour, only the creak of leather, the occasional stumble of a horse or the distant call of a coyote breaking the stillness.  At length a low range of foothills, upflung before them, began to take shape out of the darkness with their near approach.  Presently Jack called a halt.

“Somewhere in there,” said he, “lies Tom’s cave.”

It was in the early hours before dawn, when the darkness if anything becomes more intense.  A chill nipping wind long since had caused the boys to unroll the rubber ponchos strapped to the back of their saddles, and drape them over their shoulders.  As they stood now in the eerie darkness, striving vainly to locate the landmarks of tree and rock which Tom had given them, the howl of a hunting coyote floated down the wind.  The sensitive Frank shivered.