of New Mexico right now? It's about as broad one way as the other for
safety, with staying here for a time as the only middle course at
present. But that is a perfectly safe one for you."

"I am going on with you," Rex Krane said, with his slow Yankee drawl.
"When danger gets close, then I scatter. There's more chance in seven
hundred miles to miss somethin' than there is in a hundred and fifty.
And even a half-invalid might be of some use. Say, Clarenden, how'd you
get hold of this information? You turned in before I did."

"Daniel Boone went out on scout duty--self-elected. You know she
considers that the earth was made for her to walk on when she chooses to
use it that way. She spied trouble ahead and came back, and gave me the
key to the west door of Council Grove so I could get out early," my
uncle replied.

"I reckoned as much," Rex declared.

In the dark I could feel Esmond Clarenden give a start.

"What do you mean?" he inquired.

"Oh, I saw the fat lady start out, so I followed her, but I located the
nest of Mexicans before she did, and got a good deal out of their
drunken jargon. And then I cat-footed it back after a snaky-looking,
black Spaniard that seemed to be following her. There were three of us
in a row, but the devil hasn't got the hindmost one, not yet--that's
me."

"You saw some one follow Daniel into camp?" my uncle broke in,