“It is practically a precipice, sir.”
“Humph!—and this flank?”
“The same, sir.”
Carmichael scratched his ear and for the first time took thought. “Lookee,” he said presently. “If I stop the pack track here and there are precipices on either side how can they get their horses out? I’ve got ’em bottled.”
Curral shook his head. “I said practically precipices, sir. Precipices to go down, but not to come up. As you yourself have probably observed, sir, a horse can scramble up anything, but he is a fool going down. A horse falling uphill doesn’t fall far, but a horse falling down a slope like that rolls to the bottom. A horse . . .”
“Man,” snapped the cornet, “don’t talk to me about horses. My father keeps twenty. I know.”
Curral coughed. “I beg your pardon, sir. The informer tells me there are a dozen places on either side by which these fellows can get their beasts to the level. Remember it is their own valley; they’re at home there, while we are strangers and in the dark.”
“I wish you could get out of this habit of propounding the obvious,” said Carmichael. He dabbed his finger down on the map. “Look—supposing we wait for them out here across their line of march?”
“They’d scatter all over the moor, sir. We’d be lucky if we caught a couple on a thick night like this.”
Carmichael plumped down on a chair and savagely rubbed his curls.