Page:Three Young Ranchmen.djvu/84

72 from a thicket, he found himself at the very brink of a gully all of ten feet wide and of great depth.

"Humph!" he muttered, as he came to a halt. "I can't jump that. How am I to get over?"

This question was not easy to answer.

Looking up and down the opening, no bridge, either natural or artificial, was presented to view.

"I'll have to cut a pole and use that," he thought. "There is no use to tramp up and down looking for a spot to cross."

His pocketknife was still safe, and he drew it out and went to work with a will on a sapling growing some distance from the gully's edge.

The sapling had just been laid low and Allen was on the point of dragging it away when sounds broke upon his ear that filled him with surprise. He heard human voices, and one of them was that of a man he had encountered on the road, the fellow who had been riding Chet's horse!

"I reckon you have missed the road, Saul," said the man in a disgusted tone.

"No, I ain't missed nuthin'," was the reply. "So don't you go for to croak so much, Darry."