“Well, you can go look in Tim Harrigan’s cellar if you’ve a mind to.  Dave and I are goin’ up the ditch,” said the old cattleman, smiling.

“I’ll tag along, seein’ as I’ve been drug in this far.  All I’ll say is that when we get to the bottom of this, we’ll find it was done by fellows you’d never suspect.  I know human nature.  My guess is no drunken cowboy pulled this off.  No, sir.  I’d look higher for the men.”

“How about Parson Brown and the school superintendent?” asked Crawford.

“You can laugh.  All right.  Wait and see.  Somehow I don’t make mistakes.  I’m lucky that way.  Use my judgment, I reckon.  Anyhow, I always guess right on presidential elections and prize fights.  You got to know men, in my line of business.  I study ’em.  Hardly ever peg ’em wrong.  Fellow said to me one day, ‘How’s it come, Thomas, you most always call the turn?’ I give him an answer in one word—­psycho-ology.”

The trailers scanned closely the edge of the irrigation ditch.  Here, too, they failed to get results.  There were tracks enough close to the lateral, but apparently none of them led down into the bed of it.  The outlaws no doubt had carefully obliterated their tracks at this place in order to give no starting-point for the pursuit.

“I’ll go up on the left-hand side, you take the right, Dave,” said Crawford.  “We’ve got to find where they left the ditch.”

The prospector took the sandy bed of the dry canal as his path.  He chose it for two reasons.  There was less brush to obstruct his progress, and he could reach the ears of both his auditors better as he burbled his comments on affairs in general and the wisdom of Mr. Thomas in particular.

The ditch was climbing into the hills, zigzagging up draws in order to find the most even grade.  The three men traveled slowly, for Sanders and Crawford had to read sign on every foot of the way.

“Chances are they didn’t leave the ditch till they heard the water comin’,” the cattleman said.  “These fellows knew their business, and they were playin’ safe.”

Dave pulled up.  He went down on his knees and studied the ground, then jumped down into the ditch and examined the bank.

“Here’s where they got out,” he announced.

Thomas pressed forward.  With one outstretched hand the young man held him back.

“Just a minute.  I want Mr. Crawford to see this before it’s touched.”

The old cattleman examined the side of the canal.  The clay showed where a sharp hoof had reached for a footing, missed, and pawed down the bank.  Higher up was the faint mark of a shoe on the loose rubble at the edge.

“Looks like,” he assented.

Study of the ground above showed the trail of two horses striking off at a right angle from the ditch toward the mouth of a box canon about a mile distant.  The horses were both larger than broncos.  One of them was shod.  One of the front shoes, badly worn, was broken and part of it gone on the left side.  The riders were taking no pains apparently to hide their course.  No doubt they relied on the full ditch to blot out pursuit.