They would die if they were left to shift for themselves, and Casey could not pretend that he did not know it.
But there was a difficulty in rescuing them, just as there had been in rescuing the burros.

Casey could not find their tracks, and so could not follow them.

He and William hunted the canyon from top to bottom and ranged far out on the valley floor without discovering anything that could be called the track of a man.

Which was strange, too, in a country where footprints are held for a long, long while by the soil,--as souvenirs of man's passing, perhaps.
So it transpired that Casey at length returned to the new tent just below the spring in the nameless canyon beyond Crazy Woman Lake.

Chipmunks had invaded the place and feasted upon an opened package of sweet crackers, but otherwise the tent had been left inviolate.