Sandy nodded. “The sooner the better for me.”

Mr. Cook laughed. “Okay, Joe. You win. I’ll get the guns and you do the rest.”

“Yes, sir!” Joe grinned as he vaulted down the steps. “I’ll go see about the boats.” The next instant he was gone and running down the path toward the river.

Mr. Cook watched him go and turned to the boys with a puzzled expression. “Did you get the feeling there was something odd about all that?” he asked.

“I sure did,” Sandy said emphatically. “It started when I began talking about Mormon Crossing.”

Mr. Cook nodded in agreement and led the way into their cabin. “Let’s take the guns a mile or two upstream and chew this thing over while we’re walking. Frankly,” he concluded with a frown, “I don’t think I like it much.”

CHAPTER FIVE Sighting In

CHAPTER FIVE

After half an hour of speculation, neither Sandy, Mike nor Mr. Cook could come up with a reasonable explanation for Joe’s strange behavior. But, as Mr. Cook said, that wasn’t too surprising. “We don’t have too much to go on,” he pointed out.

The three of them were walking along the south shore of the Salmon River, not far from Dog Leg Falls. The country there was perfect for their purpose: it was clear of woods and reasonably deserted. Sandy was carrying several boxes of shells and four or five sheets of white plastic material, painted over with a red bull’s-eye. Mike had a small bale of packed straw he had found in Mr. Henderson’s stable, and Mr. Cook was lugging two gun cases.

“Let’s go over it once more,” Sandy insisted. “We know this much. Joe wants to leave here in a hurry and Mormon Crossing means something to him.”

“You think it means something to him,” Mr. Cook corrected.

“We agreed that he began to act funny as soon as I started talking about it. And besides, he seemed to be pretty sure about what happened to that party of Mormons.”

“But, Sandy,” Mike protested, “they were massacred more than a hundred years ago. How could that make any difference to Joe now?”

“That’s my whole point,” Sandy explained. “How did he know it was a massacre? They might have died of 

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