The gelding was feeling the corn Hopalong had fed him and wanted to get out and go.  With Horse Springs behind him before the first light began to gray the eastern rim of the mountains, Hopalong had taken a dim trail north, then cut over to the old Mangas Trail, and after a careful check to see if he was followed, he headed south until he reached the old stage road.

Careful study of that trail for several minutes of riding found an outcropping of sandstone in the middle of the trail, and Hopalong used this as a bridge to cross without leaving tracks.  On beyond the stage road he let Topper out to a fast trot and worked his way swiftly through the rocks and trees.

The ride to the Circle J was a long one, and he hoped to make it without discovery, yet he had an idea that Avery Sparr welcomed no visitors and had the trails carefully watched.  The route across the wide plain south of Horse Springs would have been much easier and faster going, but Hopalong preferred the relative security of the mountainside, where his passage would be sheltered by the towering trees.

The morning air was clear and pleasant, and every breath was like a long swallow of fresh, cool mountain water.  As he rode, there returned to his mind fragmentary bits of lore and casual comments about the country.  Without maps or books of information, the western man became a skilled observer of detail, and his descriptions of people and places were extraordinary in their clarity and attention to particulars.

A cowhand from Texas might know the exact appearance of a town marshal in Montana, or of a rancher.  A rider might see some twenty head of cattle during a morning's ride and remember each one in detail much later.  Not only did such men without books develop remarkable powers of memory, but of description as well.

After a short rest at midmorning, Hopalong saddled up again and pushed on toward the south.  Crossing the shoulder of a mountain that headed a deep, wide canyon, he looked down the canyon to see a thin plume of dust on the plain, some two thousand feet below and several miles off.  Fishing his glasses from his saddlebag, Hopalong studied the figure with care.  The rider was much too far away for any detail, or even to distinguish the color of his horse, but it was definitely a man, and he was headed south at a direction that, if unchanged, might intersect his own.  In other words, there was every chance the rider was headed for the Circle J.

Had his own absence from town been noted?  Was this rider heading for the ranch to apprise Sparr of the fact?  Yet apparently nobody in Horse Springs had guessed the rider named Tuck was Hopalong Cassidy, so why would they go to such trouble?  Nor could they know he was headed south.  Cassidy started the gelding again and moved on under cover of a fine stand of ponderosa pine, but now he allowed his route to angle deliberately toward the east and the other rider.  It would be a good idea to know just who was on the trail, and why.