He was aroused the following morning by Grant who was shaking him as he shouted, “Wake up, Fred!”

“Is it time to get up?” yawned Fred sleepily.

“It’s time for every one of us to be wide awake,” declared Grant.  “Do you know what has become of Zeke and the two men that were here last night?”

“Have they gone?  Aren’t they here now?” demanded Fred at once thoroughly awake.

“No, sir, there’s not one of them here,” replied Grant.

“That’s strange,” said Fred.  “I waked up in the night and saw one of the white men leaving the camp.”

“Didn’t you see the others?”

“No.”

“Did the man take anything with him?”

“I didn’t see that he did.”

“Well, one of the packs is gone anyway.”

“Then the other man must have taken it,” said Fred positively.  “I’m sure the one I saw leaving didn’t carry anything with him.”

“He may have come back,” suggested Grant.

“That’s true,” said Fred thoughtfully.  “I hadn’t thought of that.  Thomas Jefferson,” he added as the young Navajo now approached the place where the two Go Ahead Boys were standing, “what do you make of this?”

“All three gone,” replied the Indian.

“We know that already,” replied Fred sharply, “but we don’t know where they have gone nor why nor who.  What time was it,” he demanded of Grant, “when you first found this out?”

“About ten minutes ago when I first waked up.”

“I saw one of the men leaving,” Fred explained, “but I haven’t any idea what time it was.  It was in the night sometime.”

“Did he go alone?” inquired the Indian.

“Yes,” Fred answered.

“In which direction did he go?” asked the Navajo.

Fred pointed to his right and without a word the young Navajo instantly ran to that side of the camp and began to inspect closely the footprints of the men who had gone.

In a brief time he returned and said simply, “No two of the men went together.  The man with the scar went first.  If the man you saw did not have any pack then it was the short man that took it.”

“How do you know they didn’t go together?” inquired Grant.

“I can see their footprints.  If they had gone together they would have walked side by side or one would have been directly behind the other.  That is not the way it is.”

“But how do you know that the scarred man went first?”

“Because I find a place where Zeke crossed over from one side of the way to the other.  He stepped in the footprint of the other man in one place.  Zeke’s foot is bigger so I’m sure it was his print.  He could not step on the other’s footprint unless he was behind him.”

“But what makes you think that they both went before the man that Fred saw?”

“Because that man did not have a pack.  The pack is gone.”

“But I don’t see how that proves they went before.  They may have left after the other man.”