two hundred yards away. The foremost rider was no other than the Mexican
whom I had reason to remember.

The huge trunk amply concealed me, but, nevertheless, I crouched down. How
strange that I should run into that Mexican again! Where was he going? Had
he followed me? Was there a trail?

As long as the three men were in sight I watched them. When the last brown
speck had flitted and disappeared far away in the forest I retraced my
steps to my mustang, pondering upon this new turn in my affairs.

"Things are bound to happen to me," I concluded, "and I may as well make up
my mind to that."

While standing beside Hal, undecided as to my next move, I heard a whistle.
It was faint, perhaps miles away, yet unmistakably it was the whistle of an
engine. I wondered if the railroad turned round this side of the peaks.
Mounting Hal, I rode down the forest to the point where I had seen the men,
and there came upon a trail. I proceeded along this in the direction the
men had taken. I had come again to the slow-rising level that I had noted
earlier in my morning's journey. After several miles a light or opening in
the forest ahead caused me to use more caution. As I rode forward I saw a
vast area of tree-tops far below, and then I found myself on the edge of a
foot-hill.

Right under me was a wide, yellow, bare spot, miles across, a horrible
slash in the green forest, and in the middle of it, surrounded by stacks on
stacks of lumber, was a great sawmill.

I stared in utter amazement. A sawmill on Penetier! Even as I gazed a train