Page:Harry Castlemon - The Steel Horse.djvu/268

 to the trouble of cleaning the mud off his fine wheel before he went to bed; so he led the way at a brisk gait, paying little or no attention to where he was going so long as the path was smooth and plain, and the first thing he knew he was brought up standing by a brush pile in front of him.

"This bangs me; now where's the trail?" was all he had to say about it.

"It has ended as nearly all trails do," replied Joe, quoting from one of his favorite authors and trying to get a glimpse at the clouds through the net-work of branches above his head. "It branched off to right and left, grew dimmer and slimmer, degenerated into a rabbit path, petered out in a squirrel track, ran up a tree and lost itself in a knot-hole."

"But I don't think I shall go up to find it," answered Roy. "It will be easier to take the back track."

And it was easier to say that than it was to do it, as Arthur Hastings found when he came to make the attempt. When the line faced about he became the leader, and before he had