CHAPTER XXII
ANXIOUS DAYS
The boys sat silent in their saddles and looked down at the queertracks left in a place where the earth was soft. The marks werelike two shallow depressions in the ground, about a foot across andseparated by about eight feet. They looked to have been made by somerounded body, for in the center the depressions were more deeplyindented than on the edge, and the marks, or tracks, curved and twistedthis way and that, but always in almost an exact parallel.
“What do you make of them?” asked Ned, and both he and Bob glanced atJerry.
“They’re queer,” said the tall lad at length.
“You’re right there,” assented Bob. “But what do they mean?”
“And have they anything to do with the disappearance of the professor?”went on Ned.
“You’ve got me there,” Jerry had to confess. “You see we don’t knowwhether the marks were made before or after he left us.”
“They can’t have been made very long though,” declared Ned, slidingoff his pony and getting down to feel the marks. “They’re comparativelyfresh.”
“But what in the world made ’em?” asked Bob.
Neither of his chums could answer, and, at Jerry’s suggestion, theydecided to follow the queer trail to see whither it led.
“It may have something to do with the disappearance of the professor,though I doubt it,” said Ned.
After following the queer marks for some distance, not knowing whetherthey were going toward the starting point or in the opposite direction,the boys encountered a difficulty. The marks came to a sudden stop atthe edge of a stretch of land that was smooth shale rock. On that, ifthe object that made the marks had been dragged, no impression wouldremain.
“Now let’s go back and start over again,” suggested Ned. “The markseither end here--or begin.”
“More likely begin,” responded Jerry. “If they ended here it wouldn’tamount to a hill of beans as far as helping us is concerned. But let’sgo back.”
So they followed the trail back to the spot they had first observed thestrange lines in the soft earth. And when they reached this place Nedmade another discovery.
“Look!” he cried, pointing to the space between the marks. “There havebeen horses along here.”
“Sure, we rode there,” said Jerry.
“No we didn’t!” said Bob, quickly. “We came over that way,” and hepointed to the left. “We haven’t ridden here at all. Those are strangehorses.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Jerry admitted.
“I _know_ I am!” Bob retorted.
An examination of the impressions left by the strange horses showedthem to be unlike those made by the steeds the Motor Boys rode.
“Well, now that’s settled,” observed Jerry, “let’s keep on followingthe trail. We must find out what it all means.”
The queer marks went on for a little distance farther, and then werelost once more, at the edge of a stretch of ground so hard and rockythat it would have taken a small locomotive, running along without atrack, to have made an impression.
“Nothing doing here,” said Jerry. “The mystery deepens.”
“The only two things we are sure of,” observed Ned, “is that theprofessor has disappeared, after calling for help, and that somethinghas been dragged along here by horses. And they are both queer things.”
“The only thing to do is to keep on searching and calling andshooting,” said Jerry. “And we don’t want to do too much of the latter,for we haven’t a big supply of cartridges, and we may need them.”
“What for?” Bob asked.
“Well, you never can tell what will happen,” was the answer. “It’s bestto be prepared and well armed, especially in this region of cattlerustlers.”
“And we’re forgetting all about them!” exclaimed Ned. “We haven’t donethe exploring up here we set out to do.”
“We had to drop it,” Jerry said. “The professor came first, of course.”
“Oh, sure,” Ned agreed with him. “I wonder,” he went on musingly, “ifthe rustlers are around here?”
“I only wish they _were_!” exclaimed Jerry, warmly. “They’re just theones we’d like to see. They might put us on the trail of the professor.That is,” he chuckled, “if they didn’t feel hurt because we had caughtthem.”
“Do you expect to nab ’em?” asked Bob.
“Say ‘hope’ instead of ‘expect,’” suggested the tall lad with a smile.
“Well, the marks aren’t going to help as much as I expected,” Nedremarked. “We’ll just have to go it blind again.”
And they did, riding here and there, calling and occasionally firingtheir revolvers. But as the day passed, and they received no answer,they became discouraged.
“Shall we go back to camp?” asked Bob, as night was beginning tomanifest itself.
“Where else would we go?” asked Jerry.
“Well, I thought maybe we would go to the ranch. There isn’t much grubleft----”
“Do you put eating ahead of the professor?” cried Ned.
“No, of course not. But I meant we could go back to the ranch, stock upand come back here prepared to make a long stay. Of course, I want tofind the professor as much as you!”
“That’s all right,” returned the mollified Ned. “But we’ve got grubenough for a while yet, and he may come back as queerly as he wentaway.”
But Professor Snodgrass did not do so. The boys passed an uneasy night,listening for any sounds that might indicate the return of theirfriend, but his place in the tent was vacant when morning came.
Then they held a sort of council and decided it would be best to goback to the ranch and tell what had happened. They could come back thenext day, with some of the cowboys and make a more thorough search.
It was a dispirited party of youths that took the homeward trail.They gave up, for the time being, the plan of seeking for the cattlethieves.
“Maybe he’s here ahead of us,” suggested Bob, as they came in sight ofthe ranch buildings.
“Where?” asked Jerry.
Bob nodded toward the collection of buildings.
“He might have got away from whatever or whoever had him,” he resumed,“and wandered back here, not being able to find our camp.”
It was but a forlorn hope and it was not justified.
“Seen Professor Snodgrass? Why, no!” exclaimed the foreman, in answerto their question, as he greeted the boys. “What happened?”
They told him, and related what they had done in the way of making asearch.
“Jumping tomcats! That’s too bad!” cried Mr. Watson. “We’ll get rightafter this! Here, Gimp, send up some of the boys!”
“What’s happened?” asked the cowboy.
“The cattle rustlers have captured the professor!” cried the foreman.