No, THREE couldn't.

We've got to make a circuit round the valley and come up on the other side and head him off at Gold Mountain.

That's what we got to do, and ride like hell to do it, too." But Marcus protested with all the strength of his lungs against abandoning the trail now that they had found it.

He argued that they were but a day and a half behind their man now.

There was no possibility of their missing the trail--as distinct in the white alkali as in snow.
They could make a dash into the valley, secure their man, and return long before their water failed them.