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With a grunt that might have been greeting, but was more probably surprise, the newcomer passed the seated man. Captain Funcke he did not see at all. That astute hunter had dropped behind a boulder. At the brink of the tenaja the colonel stopped dead. Then with an outburst of flaming language, he leaped in, burrowing among the rocks.
Even so, the hardy captain had done most of the work. Aided by the current, they turned the shoulder of the Cocopah range as the dawn shone lurid in the east, and the captain swung the boat's head to the southern shore of the lake. Meantime, between spells at the oars, Average Jones had outlined the case in full to Funcke.
Captain Funcke was, by instinct, a student of that continuous logic which constitutes the science of the chase, whether the prize of pursuit be a mountain sheep's horns or the scholar's need of praise for the interpreting of some half-obliterated inscription on a pre-Hittite tomb. After long and silent consideration the captain gave his views. "It isn't bunco. It's a hold-up.
They led direct to a side barranca. There the pursuers found the camp. It was deserted. Like a hound on the trail, Captain Funcke cast about him. "Here's where they came in. No yes this is it. Confound the cross-tracks!.. Here one of them cuts across the ridge to the tenaja for water. "Wait!... What's this? Coyote trail? Yes, but... Trail brushed over, by thunder!
And we're sure of finding water there. It never dries up this early." "Get me to young Hoff, then, Captain. You're in command from the moment we land." It was broad day when the keel pushed softly into the muddy bottom of a long, shallow arm of the lake. Captain Funcke rose, stretched the kinks out of his back, and jumped ashore. "You say I'm in command?" he inquired. "Absolute."
But it's not what you'd call safe, even in daylight." "But to a hunter, wouldn't it be well worth the risk for a record pair of horns even if they were only tin horns?" queried Average Jones suggestively. Captain Funcke relaxed into a grin. He nodded. "What'll we do with him?" he asked, jerking his head toward the sleeper. "Leave him water, food and a note.
Disembarking at the Yuma station three days later, Average Jones blinked in the harsh sunlight at a small, compactly built, keen-eyed man, roughly dressed for the trail. "I'm Captain Funcke," said the stranger. His speech was gentle, slow, even hesitant; but there was something competent and reliable in his bearing which satisfied the shrewd young reader of men's characters from the outset.
But it was not in the Ad-Visor's character to quit an enterprise before it was wholly completed. So long as the two bandits were on their way to cash the young spendthrift's checks Jones had heard from the victim a brief account of the extortion success was not fully won. "We've got to get that money back," he said to Captain Funcke with conviction. The hunter made no reply in words.
"Then you roll up under that mesquite and fall asleep. I'm going to cast about for their trail." To the worn-out oarsman, it seemed only a few moments later that an insistent grip on his shoulder aroused him. But the overhead sun, whose direct rays were fairly boiling the sweat out of him, harshly corrected this impression. "I've found their boat," said Captain Funcke.
Now, about this Tenaja Poquita we're headed for. How much water do you think there is in it?" "If there's a hundred gallons it's doing well, this dry season." Average Jones got painfully to his feet. Looking carefully over the scattered camp outfit, he selected from it a collapsible pail. Captain Funcke glanced at it with curiosity, but characteristically forebore to ask any questions.
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