here before, or he wouldn't plod along so steadily. Suppose we leave
him here and walk on cautiously?"

"Just what I was about to propose," Frank agreed.

Uncle Ike seemed to resent being left alone in the canyon, which was
now almost as light as day, save where the shadows of the mountain to
the east lay along the wall on that side. The mule was finally
quieted and left in a dark angle.

Moving in the shadows, the boys soon came to an angle in the cut and
looked out on the remains of a campfire. They pushed on until they
came opposite to it, but saw no one. In order to reach it they would
be obliged to cross the canyon, not very wide there, but flooded with
moonlight in the center.

While they stood in the shadow of the mountain a man came stumbling
down the slope ten yards away from them. At first they thought it was
one of their chums, but when the man's figure came into the moonlight
they saw that he was tall, heavily built, and also heavily bearded.
He walked straight across to the fire and passed it, turning into a
shallow cave there was in the rock of the outcropping ridge.

The boys saw him enter the cave and look sharply around, then he
disappeared as suddenly and completely as if he had walked into the
solid rock.

"We're getting all the stage effects!" Frank whispered. "That man
ducked into a moonshiner's establishment!"